Loki

IT is remarkable that the Scandinavian mythology is the only one which in its evil spirit presents a perfect incarnation of mischief, in the true meaning of the word, and which shows how from the least beginnings evil is gradually developed to a maximum. As every mythology is the reflection of the cultus of a race, it follows that this very original conception must have resulted from the peculiarities of Norse life and thought, and these causes must be examined before the moral value of the myth of Loki can be fairly understood.

The difference between the modern or romantic spirit and the classical or Greek is that while the bias of the one was towards unity the other inclines to harmony and contrast. The Greek poet and artist separated the serious from the comic and the beautiful from the unsightly. The Romantic poets and artists delight in grouping these opposites together in rich and strange combinations. This blending of contradictions, which would have been incomprehensible to the ancient Greeks, runs through all Northern life, in its literature as Caliban and clowns employed to set off their nobler lords, and perhaps let the mind down as a relief ; in Gothic architecture, where grotesques grin over dim religious aisles ; and in glowing golden manuscripts, where apes and goblins and chimeras cluster around the sacred text. The key-note to this peculiar spirit is found in the Eddas and Sagas of the North. There has sprung up a battle or battles, of late years, among the learned as to whether the Norse mythology and cultus were ancient Aryan, modern Græco-Roman, or chiefly borrowed from Scandinavian neighbors. From the indications afforded by mischief mockery and humor it would seem as if, while its roots and trunks are old Aryan, its boughs and leafage came not from the ancient earth, but from the air and light of the new world up to which it had grown; the new elements having, however, in their past all come from a common prima materia.

Sunshine never seems so bright as when it is contrasted with storms and darkness, and humor is nowhere else so striking as among the struggling men of the North. “ Mirth resting on earnestness and sadness as the rainbow on black tempest, — only a right valiant heart is capable of that,” says Carlyle. True humor seldom exists in any but great and noble natures. He who dives deepest into the mysteries of life often soars highest into the fairy-land of fancy. The Northern humorist is not unlike the tree Yggdrasil, the ash, which is the “ best and greatest of all trees ; its branches spread over all the world, and reach up above heaven.” One root is with the Asas, another with the giants, and the third in heaven, and beneath it is the fountain of Urd. The Norsemen, with all their thoughts centred in the present, touched both extremes of seriousness and fun, and were worthy progenitors of the more modern humorists of Northern Europe. There is a vigor and earnestness in the Scandinavian gods not to be found elsewhere. The simplicity of the heroes and heroines of the Nibelungen Lied and Gudrun epics, their making of clothes and brewing of beer, is mirrored in these deities, who are great independent beings, not above waiting on themselves ; reflecting a real state of society into which little of the poison of shams and etiquette had found its way. Norse thought was born of trials sufficient to crush any but gigantic hearts. The long winter night; the intense rigor of the climate, from which arose the myth of a chaos of snow and ice giving birth to a race of frost giants, from whom was developed in time every living thing, caused men to draw nearer to each other, and awoke within them a strong feeling of humanity.

Their very existence depended upon their activity. The “ Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow ye die,” of the Greek fatalist, or the

of the Persian pessimist, would to the active Norsemen have seemed sheer nonsense. Eat and drink they could and did, and that right heartily. Even Odin the Allfather sometimes stooped to the common man’s beer-bibbing.

is his ingenuous confession in the Hávamal. But there was frequently such difficulty in providing the necessities of life that carousing and feasting, when indulged in, were never so wantonly riotous as among the luxurious sons of the South and East. Man always appreciates that which costs him dear. Where life is easy, annihilation is the ideal of happiness. The career of the Norseman was a conflict, and he clung to life as the greatest blessing, and looked forward to transportation after death into Valhalla, where the old struggles and warfare would be continued on a grander scale. In the Eddas there is not a trace of the Hindu’s metaphysical speculation, nor a germ of the Greek’s idealism. There are no pessimists in Europe now among healthy people who live outof-doors. The objective world was too real for the Northern Bards to endeavor to penetrate into the realms of the subjective. This is why there is such an odd mixture of child-like qualities and giant’s strength in their representations of their gods. They imagined their deities to be, like themselves, dependent upon their own energy for their existence. The Asas were not even immortal. They relied upon the apples of Iduna for the preservation of their youth quite as implicitly as a modern prima donna or jeune première depends upon her rouge and powder. Once when these were stolen they all became old and shriveled. At Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, they were to perish. They appear to us much more like industrious, very hard-working mortals than divinities. After Asgard was built, they themselves erected the court in which they were to sit in judgment; and when that task was finished they built Vingolf for the goddesses, — for, with all their roughness, they were not entirely wanting in gallantry. Then they manufactured a forge, and worked in metal, stone, and wood. Besides home labors, there were constant attacks of the Jötuns and Trolls, giants and devils, to be repulsed. The walls of Valhalla were hung with shining shields. Even the Einherjes, or the dead heroes, found their heavenly enjoyment in real hand-to-hand combats, which they undertook not from necessity, but from inclination thereunto.

No delicate rose-water and black-eyed houris in this paradise, but an eternity of work, and strong gods and goddesses able, and fortunately willing, to accomplish it. In the intensity of life in Scandinavia originated the humor which illumined the gloom and softened the ruggedness of Valhalla.

The natural tendency of national thought is usually the leading, even if hidden inspiration of the people’s myths, and very often those human qualities and characteristics which are most loved and admired are made by the myth-makers the attributes of one personality. All the beauty, poetry, music, and wisdom worshiped by the Greek were centred in Phœbus Apollo. The asceticism, cruelty, and inflexibility respected by the Hindu became essentially the marks of Siva. In mediæval Europe, when chivalry was in its glory and every knight vowed allegiance to some “ faire ladye,” the Virgin Mary received more honor and devotion than even Christ himself. In like manner, all the rude mirth and wild sport of the Norsemen were concentrated in Loki, until they formed one great whole of mischief, suggestive of an archetypal or demon monkey, or of a school-boy god; and plain, domestic, house-baked mischief at that, but clear and intelligent, as was everything which was early Northern. The greatest moral lesson which the Eddas teach is contained in the delineation of the character and the story of the career of this Azrael-Triboulet of Asgard.

It is wonderful how the early, untrained thought of a people unconsciously recognizes many fundamental truths of morality, and analyzes them with a keenness of insight which is lost in a more learned but more artificial age. It seems almost as if the human mind unaided could advance farther on the road to truth than when it is armed with all the aggressive and defensive weapons of logic. But the wisdom of the Norsemen was like that of children, who often utter truths of which they neither understand the meaning nor realize the value. In the conception of Loki, his creators with the wise ignorance of youth or infancy have embraced a moral law which, long but imperfectly comprehended, is now at last being placed upon its proper physiological basis. Compelled to labor almost incessantly, they nevertheless felt the necessity of pleasure, both physical and emotional. They were still in the stage of barbarism, and their method of satisfying this necessity was of the lowest. Physical pleasure in its beginning is purely egoistic. The simplest animal organisms are dependent upon egoism for their survival. The same is true when, in the history of evolution, we arrive at the mental and moral organization. As Herbert Spencer says, egoism must come before altruism. The lower we descend in the moral scale, the more pronounced is the tendency to find enjoyment in actions which produce a feeling of exhilaration or delight in the actor irrespective of the emotions they arouse in others. The course of development is the same in every race and in every country. But the climate and other external factors each exerts its influence in impressing a distinguishing mark upon national character. The Norsemen, while they were pagans, and even for long after their conversion to Christianity, were cruel and barbarous in manners and morals. It was great fun for their warriors to “ cut the eagle” on the captive ; their Skalds sing of blood and wounds with hearty delight; there is a roaring laugh in their defiance of death ; in them the gaudium certaminis rises to ecstasy. But while exulting in bloodshed, and carelessly playing with war and death as a child might play with its toys, they were obliged in their sober moments to work in company with their fellow-countrymen. And this it was that saved them. This association of sympathetic fellowship with fierce joys was the redeeming feature, which, as it developed into more perfect kindness and human love, suppressed their less agreeable characteristics, and led them to so high a civilization that their descendants are now the most powerful and most cultured of all Aryan and non-Aryan races.

In the Scandinavian theogony Thor and Loki represent these two sides of the Norse character. Thor, the sworn enemy of the frost-giants, is the deified power of work. When their enemies approached Asgard, all the Asas were wont to call upon him to defend them ; and he, seizing his hammer Mjölner, his belt of strength, and his iron gloves, with lowering brows sallied forth to overthrow the wicked Trolls. He is typical of the bravery of a people who defied the natural elements, and who, after struggling all winter with real storm demons and frost giants, could arise triumphant at the first touch of spring. On the other hand, their " grin of Brobdignagian humor,” their conception of amusement, as yet primitive, be it remembered, was idealized in Loki. This idealization, once they gave it shape, carried them with it, nolens volens. As if unwittingly, they were forced to bring it to a conclusion which is as true as it is terrible. Loki’s life was one of pleasure. He had no other aim than self-gratification. And now for the truth involved therein. Any one who pursues such a career uninterruptedly, though he begin in light jesting or petty egoism, is apt in the end to degenerate into a vaurien, a hypocritical Pecksniff, perhaps a criminal, or at least a bore. Loki’s selfishness and love of pleasure converted him into a fiend. He was by no means a demon in the purest sense of the word, though he afterwards became the devil of Christian Europe. He belonged by blood to the race of giants, but he lived with the Asas, and is represented as one of them in both Eddas, and in the Prose or Younger Edda is included by Har in the list of the twelve great Asas. He was always cunning and fond of his own amusement, but at first he was only a good-natured Momus, a laughter-loving Puck, who contributed to the mirth of Asgard by his jesting and mummery. He was as ready to undertake a mission in behalf of the Asas as he was willing to enjoy himself at their expense. The intermingling of good and evil, first manifested in Loki, influenced later the formation of many mediæval myths, which seem intended to be half jest and half serious. But this indifference to everything save his own emotional nature was the element which occasioned his becoming as diabolically wicked as the Talmudical Samaël or the Persian Ahriman. Sometimes intriguing for the Asas, sometimes against them, he never cared to which side he attached himself so long as he could find a field for his insatiable roguery. In addition to this instability of partisanship he was as arrant a coward as Falstaff or Panurge, and through his cowardice became like a weathercock, which is changed by every puff of wind. With each successive exploit, no matter from what motive it was undertaken, he was more enamored of his trickery, which was finally his sole inspiration, in response to which he committed that outrage which exhausted the already wearied patience of the gods. As logically as if seeking to demonstrate a moral axiom, the Northern myth-makers related to the people the legend of Loki, and seemed to impress upon them by his forcible example the fact that there is no true goodness save when work and recreation are equally balanced in the life of an individual. Whatever form recreation may assume, if it be healthy and well moderated, it will in time acquire a higher standard ; if, on the contrary, it be carried to excess, the result will be deterioration of purpose and weakening of moral force. A child’s pleasures are very inferior to those of youth, and these, again, are immensely below the joys of manhood. So it is with the national nisus. At first there is the tendency to rejoice in deeds of cruelty, and the minstrels sing of battle-fields, and triumphs of war. Later comes the period of knight-errantry, and the favorite songs are overflowing with the sweetness of love and the beauty of women. And this in turn is succeeded by a still more perfect and glorious age, when work is apotheosized, and the representative men of the people cry out that there is no salvation except in activity and no pleasure save that which has its roots in human sympathy. The Norsemen knew nothing of the system which was to evolve from the germs laid in the Eddas. But in their straightforward, Northern, manly way, they unknowingly inculcated a truth which the Eastern Aryans, with all their metaphysics and subtle reasoning, had never divined.

The myth of Loki has been related many times and in many ways. It has been explained by comparative mythologists in its connection with Vedic myths, and the relation of the Northern Asa to the Hindu Agni has been carefully considered. But its true moral significance has never heretofore received the study and attention which are due to it. The solar myth may be the only satisfactory explanation of the meaning of the Mahabharata, the Homeric poems, and the Volsung Saga, but in itself it cannot account for their distinctive features. These three great national epics could never have been the products of one land and of the same people. Agreeing in broad outlines, they differ very little in minor details. The gods of India, Greece, and Scandinavia may all have had the same origin, but in each country, as the elemental myths became systematized, they were influenced by the peculiar ideas of each branch of the one primeval stock. Therefore a knowledge of these myths is important, not only for the advance and furtherance of the sciences of comparative mythology, philology, and religion, but also as aids in the study of moral evolution and sociology.

Loki, like Lucifer before the fall, was fair of face and beautiful of person, But he was the father of the Fenris wolf, the Midgard serpent, and the awful Hel, whose abode was in Niflheim, whose table was Famine, and whose knife was Starvation. Sweetness born of bitterness was in his case reversed. Excelling in craft and cunning, and fickle in disposition, he was the originator of deceit, and the backbiter of the Asas. His first adventure, related in the Edda of Sæmund, appropriately refers to an occasion when he was acting in behalf of one of his fellow divinities, and when his actions might be ascribed to benevolence. He is introduced, as it were, taking his first step in his downward career. His ends were good, but, as has happened with many mortals since, the means he took to attain his end in themselves became an end. Thor had lost Mjölner, and he suspected the Jötuns of the theft. In his perplexity he went to Loki and held counsel with him. There is something very striking in the fact that Thor and Loki are so frequently supposed to undertake their expeditions together. Success, in the Eddas, often appears to depend upon the alliance of the principle of activity with that of recreation. It is like a prophetic warning, the decree of an inspired Vala, which reveals to man the knowledge that his success in life can only result from a just equilibrium of work and pleasure. After a short consultation, the two Asas hurried to the dwelling of Freyja, the Northern Aphrodite, and from her Loki borrowed a feather garment which she possessed, and in which he clothed himself. So disguised, he flew to Jötunheim, — “ the plumage rattled ; ” he interviewed the giant Thrym, who confessed himself the thief, but refused to give up the stolen treasure unless he could have Freyja for his bride. The feathered Hermes quickly hastened home, and delivered his message. Poor Freyja! To her it must many times have seemed that beauty was a heavily burdened gift. The goddess was wroth, and there was anger among the Asas. The plot thickened, and Loki quietly enjoyed the general discomfiture and his own importance. A council was held, and it was determined that Thor must be disguised in woman’s garments, and sent to the Jötun as the desired bride. The mission little suited the slayer of Trolls, and he chafed against it; but Mjölner must be recovered, and he alone could do it. At this juncture Loki stepped forward. He was certain there was fun to be had out of the enterprise, and so declared that he would go with Thor and help him carry out the play. He would be the maid, for it was only seemly that the fairest goddess in Asgard should not go alone to meet her bridegroom. Then they both began the journey: one maddened at the indignity forced upon him, the other only too well pleased with the masking. In the evening they arrived at Jötunheim, where every preparation had been made to give the bride a joyful welcome. Supper was served. Thor was hungry, and in his hunger forgot the part he was playing. He was no adept in deception, and came near ruining the success of the expedition. Ravenous as the Dragon of Wantley, he alone devoured an ox, eight salmons, and all the sweetmeats, and washed down the plentiful meal with three salds of beer. Thrym stood by amazed, as well he might be. Was this a bride, who could eat so voraciously and drink so much mead? Had Thor been alone the game had been lost. He had deigned to dissimulation enough, and with his natural impetuosity and belligerence could never have passed the giant’s criticisms. But there sat by him a “crafty serving-maid,” who was in his element, and loved nothing better than pleasant deceit and wily stratagem. Quickly, so as not to give Thor time to speak, Loki allayed the suspicions of Thrym by declaring that the bride had been so eager to come to Jötunheim that for eight days she had eaten and drunk nothing. Thrym stooped, and peered through the veil that covered Thor’s face. The eyes that met his were as startling as the wolf’s eyes within the grandmother’s cap were to little Red Riding-Hood. What eyes are these that shine so brightly ? asked the giant. The wily Loki once more interrupted with his ready answer. How could they be otherwise than bright, he said, since the bride had fasted for so long. Fasting and watching and longing had made her fair face haggard, and her eyes shone with the fire of desire. The play was now almost over. Thrym’s sister came into the hall, and, as was the custom, asked for a bride-gift. But the Jötun directed that before there was giving of gifts the hammer should be brought and laid on the bride’s lap, and the marriage sanctified. And in this manner the lost Mjölner was restored to its rightful owner. Then Thor’s soul laughed within him, and he arose, and slew Thrym and the poor old sister : —

The slaughter was complete, and the hall ran with blood even as did the hall in which Odysseus exultingly slew the suitors. The simple phraseology of the old Northern chronicle is more forcible than an elaborate modern version of the story would be. The two Asas, in whom are typified the two important elements in the life of the Norsemen, are at once beheld, with their opposite natures distinctly defined. Thor, the idealization of action, could but sit and chafe at the falseness of his position. Though he understood the high stakes he was playing for, he could not quite enter into the spirit of this to him novel method of conducting the game. When hard work was required and blows were to be given Thor showed himself in all his greatness. But this sitting still in feminine guise was hard to bear. It was as if Heracles had been forced to conquer the Hydra by the wiles of a siren, or as if Samson could overcome the Philistines only by the stratagem of a Judith. Thor never so completely manifested his active nature as in his attempted passivity. Loki, who was really his guardian spirit through this adventure, and to whom its success must be credited, betrayed at once his inward inclination to practical jokes. He never would have attacked a giant in fair and open combat, — he was too cowardly ; but this only added to the pleasure he took in fooling Thrym, as it seldom fell to the lot of giants to be fooled, and he had also the satisfaction of witnessing the misery of Thor. The evil which he afterwards developed was only beginning to assert itself. In the Lay of Thrym, he is still only mischievous, but his mischief gives signs of the fruit it was destined to bring forth. As though the taste he had on this occasion of the sweets of mischief-making seduced him entirely from the path of kindliness and unselfishness, he plunged into a course of hoaxing, teasing, and blackguardism which is more suggestive of the Bowery, or the Seven Dials in London, than of a heaven. In other mythologies the line between demon and deity is more accurately drawn. Loki is first god, then god and devil combined, and finally devil pur et simple. The story of his fall is far more logical than the legend by which the Talmud accounts for the fall of Lucifer. Step by step he sank lower morally, until he descended to that depth from which there was no escape. He wrought his eternal damnation not by one single act of rebellion, but by his constancy to the pursuit of evil.

Variable as a weather-vane in one point, in his greed for trickery he was ever the same, and this very unity gave rise to a strange seeming of duality. Now, his mischief was light and airy, as he flitted around the halls of Geirod in his bird disguise, while a servant chased him ; or when, transformed into a wasp, he worried the friendly dwarfs, he was only a jolly Robin Goodfellow. But when, in fun, he slew Balder, his devilishness exceeded that of all the devils in hell. The same emotion gave the inspiration to both classes of action, though the results differed so enormously. The great contrast between his good and his evil deeds at times puzzled even the early myth-makers. They could not consciously follow the line of argument which unconsciously they had at first adopted. They could not quite understand the incongruity, and they explained it away — let it be hoped satisfactorily to themselves — by separating into two distinct beings the one who in the beginning was single. Loki, though an Asa, was related to the Jötuns, and it was very simple to account for the seemingly unaccountable by ranking him at one time as a god and at another as a giant. Thus in an earlier age the Greeks imagined two Sapphos, one a goddess, another a mortal; ignoring the fact that the true Sappho was intended or accepted as the highest type of woman, all but divine. She was the combination of female genius with passion. In one myth the twofold nature of Loki led to startling consequences. In it occur the perplexing incident of a face-to-face meeting of Loki’s two personalities, AsaLoki with Utgard-Loki, and the strange phenomenon of one portion of this dualism falling a victim to the other. It sets forth hoaxing and practical jokes of a gigantic kind, fooling within fooling, quaint conceits, and a species of sleightof-hand deception, — all enveloped in dreams or nightmare, until we, like the tricked Asas, must go our way wondering. And then it all ends in Maia, as the Hindus would say, in thin air and delusion. The necromancy of Jötunheim far surpassed that of Asgard, and Loki, as Jötun, was the prince of necromancers, the arch-Cagliostro, who not only cast his magical spells over the Asas, but showed them how limited and hampered the power possessed by divinity was. Gods who were obliged to fight like ordinary mortals, and who could not even distinguish delusion from reality, were far from being omniscient or omnipotent.

Once, out of pure mischief, Loki cut off the golden hair of Sif, Thor’s wife. Another time, when the daughter of Thjasse had come to Asgard to avenge her father’s death, and the gods had succeeded in making a treaty with her, one of the stipulations being that they should make her laugh, which heretofore had been an impossibility ; and when all had failed in doing this, Loki, by playing the buffoon and the juggling jester, was as successful as the maid Iambe was in her efforts to lighten the gloom of the sorrowing Demeter. But it was not until the famous feast given by Egir that Loki allowed the growing evil within him to show itself, and his malignancy and narrow, petty-minded jealousy to foreshadow faintly the deed that was to be his crowning exploit. “ How fares it with the Asas?” the Vala asks, in the Voluspa Saga. Grievously indeed, we can answer, when Loki was near. Egir gave a feast, and all the Asas were there except Thor, who as usual was busy crushing Trolls. During the feast two of the servants were praised, and the praise so enraged Loki that he killed one of them, and for this was chased away to the forest by all the guests. He soon returned, however, into their midst, and poured out a volley of abuse upon the assembled party. He was a greater master of abusive and insulting epithets than the Protestant reformers ; he was as much at home in invective as the Parisian gamin, and quite as ready to hunt up old discreditable incidents in the career of the abused, or personal blemishes, as politicians and newspaper men are during a presidential campaign. If, as Rabelais has it, when Shrovetide spoke it was coarse brown russet cloth, Loki’s speech was common burlaps or rough sailcloth. Odin, the Allfather, asked the gods to give Loki a place, for the latter had reminded him of the days when they had drunk beer together in friendly companionship. Bragi objected, and Loki directed the first instalment of his raillery upon the master of wisdom and flowing speech. He was valiant enough, the tormentor declared, when comfortably sitting within Egir’s hall, but without, when there was question of blows and fisticuffs, who could be more backward than Bragi ? The war of words raged high. Idun interposed, but to no avail. Her efforts at peacemaking were rudely returned, for she was told that she of all women was “ most fond of men.” Finally Odin himself sought to bring to an end the untimely rankling, but Loki sneered at him, and held him up to scorn because, years before, the Allfather in disguise as a Vala had wandered among mortals ; and that, “methinks, betokens a base nature!” cried Loki. Then in turn Frigga, Freyja, Njord, Tyr, and Frey, and all the other brave Asas and fair Asinjes were made butts for this rude ridicule. When Thor came in Loki at first would not be silenced, and had his laugh at the Thunderer, who had passed a night in fear and trembling within a glove-thumb, and who in the end must be swallowed by the Fenris wolf. But Loki was timid, and well knew the might of Mjölner and the meaning of its owner’s white knuckles. His courage gave way before Thor, and he departed from the banquet hall; not, however, without a parting shaft at the other gods, of whom, as he insinuated, even he need not be afraid.

In the Elder Edda Loki’s capture and imprisonment are supposed to have followed the altercation at the feast of Egir, and in the words which Loki addressed to Frigga there is an allusion to the death of Balder, as if that calamity had already befallen the Asas. But the Younger Eddas make the fall of Loki result from the evil he had wrought in slaying the summer god, and this seems a more logical order of events. We can readily understand that Loki, by his wholesale abuse and the contumely with which he covered the dwellers of Asgard, had lost all favor in their sight, and had been banished forever from their society. He had disclosed the blackness of his heart. The die was cast, his Rubicon crossed. Henceforth the demon within him was triumphant over what there had been of god-like.

Longing and searching for new deviltries which would throw his preceding tricks into the shade, his eyes fell upon Balder, and the way was clear before him. Balder was the favorite in Asgard; he was the White God, the God of Summer, the Beautiful, and the best beloved son of Frigga. It had been decreed that no harm should come to him from anything in heaven or on earth, save through the mistletoe, which was an insignificant shrub, and hence appeared powerless to work him evil. Sometimes, for amusement, the Asas made a target of Balder, and would throw at him sticks and stones and other missiles, and all took great pleasure therein. But Hoder, the blind god, stood to one side, and had no part in the games. Then came Loki the Tempter and gave Hoder a piece of mistletoe, and promised him to so guide his arm that he too could have a shot at Balder. Hoder, unconscious of the nature of his weapon, threw it. Balder fell, and there was silence in Asgard. The summer had faded beneath the first breath of winter, and all nature was desolate and forlorn. Hermod, on the famous steed Sleipnir, rode to Hel, and asked her to set Balder free from her gloomy regions. But she said no, unless perhaps he could prevail upon every living thing to weep the loss of the White God. Then messengers were sent far and wide, and they begged all things to shed tears for Balder. And then,

But as the messengers rode homewards they came to a cave wherein dwelt an ogress. This really was Loki in disguise; and he jeered and mocked them, and asked them what good Balder had ever done that he should so bewail and bemoan his loss. What was Hecuba to him that he should weep for her ! And the joy departed from their hearts, and they went their way sorrowing. The Asas arose in righteous indignation, and vowed vengeance upon Loki. He made his escape, but only for a time. In the end Thor captured him, and he was fastened to a rock, and a serpent hung directly over his head so that its venom should fall upon his face. Sygin, his wife, came and held a dish in which to catch the falling venom. But whenever it was filled and she went to empty it, then the drops fell upon Loki, and in his agony he writhed and twisted his body so violently that the whole earth shook, and this was the cause of earthquakes.

With Balder’s death the light had gone from Asgard, and there were no more rejoicings. The Asas knew by the Vala’s prophecy that their end was near, and in silence and sadness they awaited Ragnarök. At its coming Loki broke his bands asunder, and openly displayed his bitter enmity to the Asas by placing himself at the head of all the evil spirits, the frost giants and the mountain giants, the Fenris wolf and the Midgard serpent. Then Heimdal blew on the dread Gjallar horn, and the combat began. Odin perished, and Loki and Heimdal met in a deadly duel which resulted in the fall of both. Asas and Jötuns and all living things were destroyed.

This is the story of Loki. We see him passing through every stage in the journey from good to evil. He begins with actions which are the outcome of superabundant activity misdirected, and these in turn lead him to deeds undertaken out of sheer wantonness and caprice, and, still pursuing the one path, to those which are inspired by malice and pure love of evil for its own sake. This myth is essentially Northern in conception and execution. It is curious to contrast it with those legends of other mythologies which at a first glance suggest a kindred inspiration. In the old Japanese mythology there is a Sosonoono-Mikoto, who at first appears as a hay-god playing pranks upon his sister and brother divinities, and his tricks far excel the early ones of Loki. But as he grows older he casts aside the childish state and its toys and play, just as after boyhood and college years most young men bid farewell to joking and hoaxing, and he becomes a great and just god. The Greel Hermes, when but two hours old, steals the cattle of Phœbus Apollo, and is as merry and mischievous as the elfin Puck. But his mischief has no thought of malice or touch of evil. Whatever may be its beginning, it all ends in a laugh or a smile, as if a bomb-shell in descending were to burst open and rain down flowers, sweetmeats, and perfumes. But that which in Loki enters with light comedy and broad burlesquing retires in tragedy and tears. It is as if a scene on the stage opened upon a fairy ring in the forest, where Titania and Oberon and all their fairy attendants are dancing and sporting merrily. But slowly, so that the process of transformation escapes even the most observant, the scene changes, and the audience suddenly find themselves whirled away to the Brocken, and introduced into the riotous revelry of the Walpurgis night. The soft horns of elfland are drowned in loud incantations ; the fairy ring is covered with burning caldrons and all the hideous paraphernalia of magic rites ; Titania, Oberon, and Puck are transformed into Mephistopheles, Lilith, and the ignis-fatuus. Instead of pale moonlight, the fiery flames of hell burn high. Bluebells, cowslips and daisies have withered, and where they once grew, rue and St. John’s wort and rosemary and all rank weeds flourish. So the nightmare creeps into the fairy dream. From a garden of Eden to a fiery abyss, from heaven to hell, was Loki carried in his fall. The joy he felt in the expedition to Thrym’s castle was the “little rift within the lute,” or the small speck on the horizon, which, at first unheeded, in time bursts into the wild and furious tempest.

Elizabeth Robins.