It might be clear, that, without the modern explanatory interpretations in the third column, the poem seems incomprehensible. And we do not know, whether the ‘modern’ interpretations are correct, because, most likely they, were deduced from the 13th Century myth of the Prose Edda. That implies, that the later myth, based on this very older poem, is used to explain that same old Skaldic poem! Snorri Sturluson used that old poem to create his very own story. It looks all very near to circular reasoning.
Anyway, it seems rather clear, that the Sturluson myth was created by bringing together several fairy tale motifs, which is built on an old well-known and often-used scheme:

– A conflict arises, (Loki, Hœnir and Odin vs. Thjazi),
– by cunning, the enemies are triumphed over (Thjazi’s death).

Looking at other Loki myths, a similar scheme often can be recognized in varying forms. Especially in old folk tales, such literary schemes usually do not appear, and therefore, many of those myths seem to be the creative work of professional skalds and other authors – whether they used older folk tales in written or oral form, or completely relied on their own inspiration, combined with knowledge of the penchant and understanding of their audience is in almost all cases not known.

From the Faroe Islands comes the longer ballad ‘Lokka Tattur’ (Loki’s tale) in which Loki is presented as a cunning but not a vicious god. The ballad narrates about a conflict between a human and a giant. After Odin and Hœnir fail to solve the problem, it is Loki, who, through cunning again, solves the conflict in favor of the human. In this story, Loki acts without any malicious intentions towards the ones he is helping.
The age of this story can not be clearly determined, both an early Viking origin and a post-Viking origin are advocated; if the first view would be correct, then it would support an early Loki without malice.
Whatever, concerning the several Loki myths, there is cause to question whether viciousness indeed was foisted in the course of time to Loki. Did Loki, perhaps, fail short of expectations to the warrior ideals of the late Norse Noblemen, and was that the reason that his earlier high esteem was changed? Because, although Loki is in many conflicts the victor, he does not reach that by strength and heroic combat, but by intelligence and cunning – a way of achieving victory, that likely was not really appreciated by the majority of the class of population of those Norse nobles from late Viking times.
Generally, myths often indeed change in the course of time, they are altered by the narrators according the understanding and outlooks of the contemporary audience. There are many examples for that.
So, let us accept for now, that there was a time, that in the known Norse myths not everything malicious was laid at Loki’s door, a time, he just was seen as a clever and cunning god. Would it really be a peculiar thought to accept, that the problems occurring to several gods were not caused by Loki, but originally by these gods themselves? Sure, Loki was asked then to solve those problems. It would fit to his downfall, that the cause of those problems then later also were shunted and ascribed to him.
A Loki, not malicious in origin, would also much better fit to the defense of Asgard, the main world of the Norse gods. They have Thor with his tremendous powers and his magic weapons who slays the enemies, and Loki who uses his slyness – power and cunning … that together generally would fit to what we know about the Germanic peoples from pre-Viking times.
While we are dealing now with disputable topics concerning Loki … the assumption, that Loki would be an enemy of the Æsir and Vanir gods also can be challenged. The view, that Loki can be seen as one of the Æsir himself was already expounded and also his alleged malicious behavior. Accepting him as an Æsir god, and a late foisting malicious behavior on him would break away a lot of reasons for this assumption of being such an enemy.
But there is still Loki’s role at Ragnarök, that Last Battle in which many gods die, and the world submerges. In Sturluson’s Prose Edda, Loki joins the army of Asgard’s enemies. Other places in related literature only record, that Loki is steering a ship that him brings to the battlefield. In Sturluson’s description again, Loki and Heimdall kill each other, in other related descriptions that is not mentioned at all. But if that would be true, then that would not make Loki an enemy of all Æsir, it makes him an archenemy of Heimdall … and perhaps of few others who caught and imprisoned him.

In the skaldic poem Húsdrápa, attributed to the skald Ulf Uggason, who lived in the 2nd half of the 10th Century, it is narrated about “Singasteinn” (meaning a singing or chanting stone), which is obviously either the name of a piece of jewelry or, more likely, the name of a piece of land, possibly an island, as is assumed quite often. Loki and Heimdall compete with each other in the shape of seals for that ‘sea-kidney’, as Singasteinn is described poetically. The story narrates, that Heimdall robs it from Loki. The vague conjecture exists, that it concerned here Brisingamen, the jewelry of the goddess Freyja, which would have been stolen by Loki and which Heimdall took away from Loki and gave back to Freyja. However, that conjecture is not supported by indications from Old Norse sources. It is likely again just an attempt to project some kind of coherent logic in the Old Norse myths. As the story describes it, Loki owns something precious and Heimdall took it away from him; no wonder, that Loki is shirty towards Heimdall.
It is even possible, that Sturluson used this incident between the two gods from that old ‘singasteinn’ poem, by interpreting it as an ongoing enmity between the two gods and, maybe it seemed to him a good thought, to let both have a last and final fight. That would ‘complete’ and ‘finish’ the enmity and would fit too perfectly to the aim of his Prose Edda: a book for Skalds and storytellers – and a good story has to offer a satisfying end.

Let us leave now this ‘feud’ between Loki and Heimdall and step over to and take a closer look at the myth, in which it is narrated, that Loki cuts off the hair of the goddess Sif, the wife of his companion Thor.
Did Loki really do that?
Or, is that deed, during the changing views and his downfall in the eyes of men just ascribed to him? In the several myths, Thor seems to have a bit of an irascible character. Couldn’t Thor have done that himself while being in one of those short-fused moods? Or, could perhaps Sif it have done herself, and then accused Loki of it, perhaps to drive a wedge between the two companions, who, in Sif’s view, are too often away and too long on the road?
But if we would accept this indeed as being done by Loki, why would he have done that? I have not the slightest idea. Had Thor perhaps to his companion boasted a bit too much with the qualities of his wife, and was it Loki’s intention just to tease Thor a bit?
Then Loki shows himself in this myth, in which he, after cutting off Sif’s hair, and successfully orders new golden hair, made by dwarfs, as a being, who likes to rib others in the form of gimmickry; and also as a being with huge supernatural power and able to command dwarfs. And, seen through contemporary spectacles, these things really are ‘just’ joking, perhaps mischief. All the more, when comparing it with deeds by Thor, like crushing heads of giants or compared to Odin’s decisions of giving the victory in battle to one side, which leads to doom and death of the losers, which are complete armies of men.
Is, eventually, Loki then just a friendly cunning god who sometimes likes to joke and prank others?
Thinking of the two proverbs “The quarrel of lovers is the renewal of love” and “Teasing is a sign of affection”, could lead to the assumption that, in fact, Loki likes the other gods.
Sure, clearly, good-natured raillery has its limits, and Loki shows his indignation about the way others teased him as he speaks to the gathered gods and goddesses at the feast organized by the sea giant Ægir. In a venomous speech, he shows himself extremely well-informed about secret intimacies and other deeds of the gods, of which these most likely had been seen as passed into oblivion.
Regarding Odin, we know, he gets lots of information from his two ravens Hugin and Munin. But from where does Loki gets his rich and detailed knowledge of those ‘godly secrets’? To his other competences, he obviously is also a god of secret knowledge.
If Loki is indeed the god of the ‘practical jokes’, the god who likes to play tricks on others, then he is far away from being the Norse equivalent of the Christian devil, as he is called sometimes. Closer to that might be another view, in which he is seen as a ‘trickster’.

This Trickster concept needs some explanation:
A ‘trickster’ is a figure or character, who presents himself as shifty and ambiguous, whose actions aren’t just simply destructive. They effectuate often transformations of the soul, the psychic and the cognition of people. Not always, but remarkably often, the trickster god is related to the creator deities. Several Native American peoples know the trickster god ‘Coyote’, the younger brother of the main god ‘Wolf’ and, as shown before, in Norse mythology Loki is related to Odin.
According to a Viking creation myth, the three gods Odin, Hœnir and Lodurr created mankind. If it is accepted, although, admittedly, it is disputed, that Lodurr indeed is an older name for Loki, then Loki himself is partially responsible for the coming into being of mankind. After the shapes of the first man and woman (Askr and Embla) were created, Odin gave them breath, Hœnir contributed the energy and Lodurr warmth and a healthy look. In this view, we all got something from the trickster, we all might have something trickster-like in our personalities. And yes, admit it, we all indeed do have that in our characters, maybe hidden until it suddenly burst to the ‘surface’.
That is, by the way, no legitimacy for you to undertake dubious actions!
Other examples for trickster gods are Hermes, the god of thieves from Greek mythology, and Guahayon, a god from the Taino-Indians, a tribe from the Greater Antilles. From the latter, here is an example of his trickster-acting:
Together with his brother-in-law, Guahayona, he robbed the women from the harem of a prince and fled with them across the sea. He brings all women, except one, to an island, with the one woman he liked best, he traveled to another island.
On one hand, this looks like clear malignant behavior, on the other hand, he tears them away from a kind of slavery, and brings them into new territories where they can live free and have to meet new challenges.

The trickster is not a hero, and neither an exceptional figure who dominates all others. In fact, he actually stands for life itself, which is so often incomprehensible and even sometimes cruel, but still goes on and on.
In the various mythologies of the world where a trickster appears, he is the one, who can laugh last, because he, finally, in some way, turns out as the winner.
Another characteristic of a trickster from mythology is, that he either direct or on detours gathers magical attributes for other gods; through Loki, Freyr gets his magical ship, Odin his famous spear and his eight-legged horse Sleipnir and Thor his famous hammer Mjölnir. If magical tools of the gods have been lost, it is the trickster who gets them by his cunning back again, like in the myth where Thor’s hammer was stolen.
A trickster can make other gods laugh, which is also a token of a trickster. All together it seems acceptable to see Loki as a trickster god.
It is also Loki whose acting is the reason, that among the gods no stolidity, sedateness, idleness or sluggishness appears. He keeps them on their toes and causes them to join together, again and again, even if he has to take the blame himself for it, and even if he has to suffer pain for it.
With Loki, always something is going on, Loki’s actions over and over provoke the passion of the other gods.
He can be quite gruesome, but every time the other gods are learning something from it which expands their fields of experiences. Loki’s deeds surely have sense and purpose, although often just underlying.
Incidentally, when dealing with stories from Norse mythology, we have to bear in mind, that those myths and poems had to appeal to the contemporary audience; what looks cruel in our society today, was in that former society customary. Nevertheless, do not be mistaken, in many ways our society is very cruel too!

It means, that Loki also should be for us humans, today, a good example and a mainspring not to long stay satisfied with what is achieved, but soon keep again on the go, resume the thread again, stay open for new experiences, and proceed with new challenges. Because, if that is not done, the ‘trickster’ can hit us at a moment we are not prepared, not resilient for such things, and then it strikes the harder.
Indeed, even today, Loki often induces feelings of anxiety and discomfort. But we exactly need also such feelings and emotions. They often lead us to look over our mental walls, they can shift our intellectual and psychological borders and they make us aware of our own limitations.

Loki constantly challenges us, and he does not care at all about any limits of decency, of behavior, or an alleged non-ability. Through him, we are confronted with our own dark sides, and those, who are seeing themselves in a better light than reality permits, should not wonder if the Trickster appears – usually with unpleasant consequences.
The self-aware and self-confident pagan should not ignore Loki, when he or she honors the gods. Like Sigyn, who stays to her husband Loki in bad and testing times, so should we do too.

When Loki comes into play, it is almost always spoken that he is a Scandinavian deity, who would not or hardly have had human worshipers. And people elsewhere would not have known him. However, that is not really a fact. Because, in the region where the West-Germanic peoples lived, a supernatural being was known under the names Kludde, Lodder, Lode and (Loeke), and in the folk tales, this being shows a distinguishing resemblance with Loki as we know him from the Norse myths. ‘Kludde’ is going around in Flanders and the Netherlands scaring people where he can. It is more than once suggested, based on etymology, because of the shared sympathy for water and fishes, and because both are able to shape-shift into the shape of a horse, that Kludde and Loki would be the same god. Several tales exist about Kludde or Lodder, which indeed show Loki-like tricks. An example:

Some farm laborers had to bring eight horses from the pasture to the barn. However, a ninth horse had joined the group. Because the men did not know to whom that one belonged, they decided to also bring it to the stable. Thereupon, the youngest of the laborers then had to ride that horse. At crossing a shallow creek, that same horse suddenly moldered into two parts, and the young laborer fell into the water, while at the same moment Kludde appeared at the other side of the creek, and jeered at the soaking wet boy.

In England Loki is also known. It is not comprehensible unequivocally, who had brought him there; the most likely suggestion is, that the Vikings did that.
Anyway, Loki was known in England, which, for instance, is shown in the text of an old spell:

Father, son and Holy ghost,
Nail the devil to this post.
Thrice I smite with Holy Crock,
With this mell I thrice do knock,
One for God,
And one for Wod,
And one for Lok.

This spell would have been practiced by an old woman to cure her grandson. While nailing three horseshoes to a board, she would have spoken these sentences. Wod stands for Woden, and Lok for Loki. Because at the time England was already converted, the Christian god was also added to the spell.

Which role Loki further played among the Germanic-Celtic English people is not clear. If, however, the characteristics are considered, that are classified as being typically British, then a wide new area of speculation can be headed. Doesn’t the expression ‘practical joke’ comes from there? That might be thought-provoking.
From the Arthurian legends we know the sorcerer Merlin, who, on one occasion, changes the appearance of King Uther Pendragon into the shape of the Lord of Cornwall to let him go to bed with the married Ygraine (with whom Uther had fallen in love), who he then impregnates with King Arthur. In that same night, that Lord of Cornwall, the husband of Ygraine, dies in battle. So, if Uther had just waited for a few hours, that whole masquerade would have been superfluous. And Arthur, in his turn, is slain later by his own bastard son Mordred.
Isn’t that really a Loki-like story?

Generally, if Loki is added to many an episode of England’s history, many pieces of it perhaps might become better explainable and understandable.

But we leave England again and step over to a last Loki item …

When is spoken or narrated about Loki, he is almost always depicted as a male god. But in the shape of a mare he gave birth to Odin’s horse Sleipnir. And in another tale, after Balder’s death, Balder would be allowed to leave Hel and return to Asgard if all beings on earth would weep for him. That failed, because there was one old woman who refused to weep for the deceased Balder. That woman is interpreted widely as being Loki, who would prevent a return of Balder.
These examples imply, that Loki is able, by choice, to be male or female. Knowing that, the thought is not reprehensible at all, to see Loki as an androgynous god (meaning, having the characteristics of both sexes). That would be something he would have in common then with the Greek god Hermes.
Thinking back in this context to the story from the beginning of this lecture, in which Loki ties up his testicles and a goat to one rope, every man would think immediately with disgust for the excruciating pain that must have caused. But if Loki also can think feminine, then a masculine instinctive protecting behavior concerning those genitals perhaps may not have played a decisive-rejecting reaction for such a thing – being able to think or to be feminine even may have brought Loki at all to do such a thing voluntarily.
If we consider, that the Norse myths are written by men, in a society that clearly can be characterized by patriarchal domination for at least already over a thousand years, a society in which the role of the women was socially subordinate – then, was that perhaps the reason to think automatically of the companion of Thor as being exclusively male?
In addition, the idea, that a woman would have been substantially involved in the creation of mankind, may have been unimaginable for most Norse people at the time. For many people that view still exists today.

And that brings this talk almost to its end.
Previously, it was said about Loki, who cut the hair of Sif, Thor’s wife. Because not everyone knows the whole myth, I conclude with that story, in which Loki gets himself into trouble with his cleverness, but also saves from it with relatively little damage thanks to his wilyness. This story also tells how various gods obtained their magical tools through Loki.

Loki, for mischief’s sake, had cut off all Sif’s hair. But when Thor learned of this, he seized Loki, and would have broken every bone in him, had he not sworn to get the Black Elves to make Sif hair of gold, such that it would grow like other hair. After that, Loki went to those dwarfs and they made the hair, and also the magical ship Skídbladnir, and the famous spear called Gungnir. Then Loki wagered his head with the dwarf called Brokkr that Brokkr’s brother Sindri could not make three other precious things equal in virtue to these ones. Now when they came to the smithy, Sindri laid a pigskin in the hearth and asked his brother Brokkr blow, and did not cease work until he took out of the hearth that which he had laid in there. But when he went out of the smithy, while the other dwarf was blowing, straightway a fly settled upon his hand and stung him. Yet he blew on as before, until the smith took the work out of the hearth; and it was a boar, with mane and bristles of gold. Next, he laid gold in the hearth and again bade Brokkr to blow and cease not from his blast until he should return. He went out; but again the fly came and settled on Brokkr’s neck, and bit now half again as hard as before; yet he kept on blowing even until the smith took from the hearth that gold ring which is called Draupnir. Then Sindri laid iron in the hearth and asked him to blow once more, saying that it would be spoiled if the blast failed. Straightway the fly settled between Brokkr’s eyes and stung his eyelid, and when the blood fell into his eyes so that he could not see, then he clutched at it with his hand as swiftly as he could,–while the bellows grew flat,–and he swept the fly from him. Then the smith came thither and said that it had come near to spoiling all that was in the hearth. Then he took from the forge a hammer, put all the precious works into the hands of Brokkr his brother, and said for him go with them to Ásgard and claim the wager.
Now when he and Loki brought forward the precious gifts, the Æsir sat down in the seats of judgment; and that verdict was to prevail which Odin, Thor, and Freyr should render. Then Loki gave Odin the spear Gungnir, and to Thor the hair which Sif was to have, and the ship Skídbladnir to Freyr, and he told the virtues of all these things: that the spear would never stop in its thrust; the hair would grow to the flesh as soon as it came upon Sif’s head; and Skídbladnir would have a favoring breeze as soon as the sail was raised, in whatsoever direction it might go, but could be folded together like a napkin and be kept in Freyr’s pouch if he so desired.
Then Brokkr brought forward his gifts: he gave to Odin the ring, saying that eight rings of the same weight would drop from it every ninth night; to Freyr he gave the boar, saying that it could run through air and water better than any horse, and it could never become so dark with night or gloom that there should not be sufficient light wherever he was going to, such was the glow from its mane and bristles. Then he gave the hammer to Thor, and said that Thor might smite as hard as he desired, whatsoever might be before him, and the hammer would not fail; and if he threw it at anything, it would never miss, and never fly so far as not to return to his hand; and if be desired, he might keep it in his shirt, it was so small; but indeed it was a flaw in the hammer that the fore-haft was somewhat short.
This was their decision: that the hammer was best of all the precious works, and in it there was the greatest defense against the Rime-Giants; and they gave sentence, that the dwarf should have his wager. Then Loki offered to redeem his head, but the dwarf said that there was no chance of this. ‘Then take me, if you can,’ said Loki. But when Brokkr tried to lay his hands on him, Loki was a long way off. Loki owned magical shoes with which he could run through air and over water. Then the dwarf asked Thor to catch him, and Thor did so. Then the dwarf was going to cut off his head, but Loki said that he might have the head, but not the neck. So the dwarf took a twine and a knife, and would have bored a hole in Loki’s lips and stitched his mouth together, but the knife did not cut. Then Brokkr said that it would be better if his brother’s awl were there: and even as he named it, the awl was there, and pierced the lips. He stitched the lips together, until Loki ripped out the twine out of the holes.
That’s why Loki got off well in this adventure with only two lipped lips, a very mild punishment for the time.

And that completes this lecture.
Thank you all for your patient and attentive listening.

Gunivortus Goos
(Previously known under the pseudonymGardenStone)