77 any other Mythology. We learn from the Edda that he was the son of Farbaute, a giant, by the witch Laufeya. Although sprung from a race the mortal enemies of the Aser, he was, in some manner not explained, mysteriously associated with Odin in the infancy of creation. At that time they swore brotherhood together, and Loke was in consequence admitted to Valhalla, where a seat was allotted to him on the same bench with Thor. He had many good natural gifts, was tall, slight, well formed, of good address, and eloquent; but, on the other hand, he was fickle, sarcastic, malicious, cruel, a lover of evil, and exceeded every one in cunning. He was, moreover, a coward, and the first inventor of deceit and dishonour, vain, much given to boasting and always desirous of being seen in the society of the principal Aser, especially of Thor. His natural perversity and hatred of the Aser led him, notwithstanding, on many occasions to conspire with the Giantsjagainst them, and it will be seen that on more than one occasion they were brought into extreme difficulties in consequence. Still his subtlety usually enabled him to evade the punishment which his crimes so richly merited. Besides his name of Loke, he was sometimes called Loptur and Lopta. Amongst bright Asgard’s lords Is one, As-Loptur hight:

78 Like honey are his words, His heart is foul with spite, His form is passing fair, And winning is his mien, But, still, his guileful leer Shews all is false within. Though, oft, his traitorous wiles The Asers’ ire provoke, His smooth tongue, still, beguiles, And stops th’ impending stroke: Oft, cited to appear, He cowers the Ash before,1 At Odin’s table near His place to Asa-Thor.                            Oehlenschläger. Loke had a wife whose name was Signi, and who, notwithstanding all his defects, shewed her devotion to him in a remarkable manner. By her he had- two sons, Nari and Vali, whose terrible fate will appear in the sequel. His more celebrated offspring, however, sprang from an amour with a giant woman, whose name was Augerbode, or the messenger of evil. These were Fenris, the wolf; Jormungandur, the great serpent; and Hela, the queen of death. The Edda accounts for the production of these horrible monsters by telling 1 The great Ash, Ygg-drasill, under which Odin and the twelve Aser used to administer justice.

79 as that they were begotten after Loke’s nature had become depraved, in consequence of his eating the half-roasted heart of a witch which he had found. The gods having been forewarned that this progeny of Loke would one day cause much evil to Asgard, sent to the land of Giants to secure them. Odin cast Jormungandur, or, as it was also called, the great Midgard’s serpent or worm,2 into the ocean where it grew to such a prodigious size, that it girt round the whole world. There it was to lie with its tail in its jowl, in sullen expectation of revenge at Ragnarokur. Midgard’s giant snake, Which in the ocean hurled, His tale in jowl doth take, And girdeth round the world.                         Oehlenschläger. Jormungandur was the chief object of fear and hatred to gods and men.3 2 The bold promontory which terminates the neck of land, at the mouth of the river Conway, in Denbighshire, is still called the great Orm’s, or Worm’s head. Orm being the Danish for worm. So also the remarkable point at the western extremity of the district of Gower, in Glamorganshire, at the entrance of the Bristol channel, is called “the Worm’s head.” 3 Magnussen considers the great serpent to be a symbol of the raging sea.

80 Heia was thrust down to Niffl-heim, where she received the sovereignty over nine worlds, and ruled over all who died by any other than a violent death. Hence her title of queen of the dead. Her palace was called from her Hel-heim, and was very spacious, but cold and gloomy, and filled with shivering, shadowy specters. It was surrounded by a lofty fence, with huge grated gates. “Hela’s hall,” says the Prose Edda, “is affliction; her table, famine; her knife, hunger; her valet, delay; her handmaid, slowness; her threshold, a drawbridge, her bed, lingering sickness; her tent, cursing.”4 Her attendants, the evil Nornies, used to appear to dying persons, by night, to call them away, and she herself was supposed at times to make herself visible to those 4 Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram, Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna; .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .             .         .        .        .        .        .        .         Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curæ, Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque Senectus, Et metus et malesuada Fames, ac turpis Egestas, Terribiles visu formæ, letumque labosque; Turn consanguineus leti sopor, et mala mentis Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine bellum, Ferreique Eumenidum thalami et Discordia demens.                         Æneid, lib. vi. 1. 268 to 280.

81 about to die. She was hideous to look upon, one half of her body being blue, the other of the natural colour. It is not said who was her husband, but her sons are mentioned as the followers of Loke at Ragnarokur. Her palace is thus described by Oehlenschläger: Close crowded, side by side, Cold Helheim’s shadowy folk, Aghast, the strangers eyed, With glazed and fearful look: And still, as Thor drew near, Shuddering, his path they fled, Their shivering forms were bare, Snakes o’er them venom shed. Between two rocks enclosed, At th’ end stood Hela’s throne: Of heap’d up skulls composed, And many a mouldering bone: There sate the spectre queen, A monster, dire to view, Her body wither’d, lean, Distort, half white, half blue. A naked bone she held In her lank, clammy hand, Tore which the pale ghosts quail’d; On the lone ocean strand, In the moon’s magic light, Long, bleaching, it had lain; Now serves the queen of night T’ assert her silent reign.

82 Save hollow, deep-drawn sighs No sound the cavern gave; All round damp fogs arise, Th’ air smelt as fresh-stirr’d grave. For light of cheerful sun, Three funeral tapers glared, By each a skeleton Its fleshless form uprear’d.                            Oehlenschläger. Hela had a cock of a dusky red colour, and a spectre horse, which is called by the peasants Hel’s horse, to this day. With Fenris the wolf,5 the Aser had somewhat 5 The superstition respecting men-wolves which prevailed so widely during the middle ages was probably derived from Fenris. Boissardius, in his posthumous work on magic, declares that two shepherds in the archbishopric in which he was born were publicly burned, having confessed that by means of an ointment given to them by the devil, they were frequently in the habit of changing themselves into wolves, and of committing in this shape great ravages amongst the neighbouring flocks. He adds that these transformations had become very common in his time, especially in Prussia, Livonia and Lithuania, and adduces testimonies to this effect from various writers, and amongst others from Herodotus. The father of history, however, only states that it had been asserted that certain men amongst the Scythians once in the year became wolves, and after some days resumed their proper form, but at the same time intimates his disbelief of the fact. One story is gravely told on the authority of Garzonus—     “That a man-wolf who had caused much destruction amongst the flocks in Russia, having been at length captured by the peasants, was taken before the prince of the country, and being closely questioned, acknowledged that he did frequently assume the form of a wolf. The prince offered him pardon on condition of his doing so before those who were assembled. He consented, and having withdrawn to a little distance and performed the magic ceremonies taught him by the devil, on a sudden he stood before them a gaunt wolf, with bent neck, bristles erect, and glaring eyes, but bound in chains as before. The prince caused two fierce Molossian dogs which he had provided to be let loose upon the wolf, who tore him to pieces before he could resume his natural shape.” Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in his work de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, writes, “De animalibus sylvestribus luporum genus ex hominibus conversum, quod Plinius lib. viii. c. 22. fabulosum et falsum confidenter existimandum esse affirmat, tales in terris ad Septentrionem maximè vergentibus etiaranum magnâ in copiâ reperiri adjicerem, 1. xxviii. c. 15. So in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, lib. i. speaking of Lycaon. Fit lupus, et veteris servat vestigia formæ; Canities eadem est, eadem violentia vultûs; Iidem oculi lucent: eadem feritatis imago.

83 more trouble than with the other two. When they had got him into their power, they sought to secure him with bonds, but none could be found sufficiently strong for the purpose. They constructed, therefore, a massive chain, and begged Fenris to try his strength upon it, which he consented to do, and broke it with the greatest ease. They exerted

84 their utmost art to make a second of double the strength of the former, but by a slight effort he brake this also. They now sent Skirnir to the black elves, or dwarfs, to procure a chain capable of resisting any force that could be exerted against it, and he brought back one, called Gleipnir, which to all appearance was no stronger than a silken thread, but which, notwithstanding, was so skillfully composed, that no force was sufficient to break it. Thus provided, the Aser repaired with Fenris to a solitary island, and there proposed to him to allow himself to be bound with Gleipnir. The wolf replied that it would reflect but little honour on his strength to break a small silken cord, but that, on the other hand, slight as it appeared, art and magic might have given it extraordinary powers, and he therefore refused to suffer himself to be bound. On this the Aser began to taunt him, and observed that if he had not strength to break such a cord they would themselves set him at liberty, as too weak to be an object of terror to any. The wolf, who was not so easily to be deceived, replied, I know well that if I cannot help myself, I have but little favour to expect from you; but, lest any one should reproach me with cowardice, I am willing to suffer myself to be bound, on condition, as a pledge that you mean honestly, that one of your

85 number will consent in the mean while to lay his hand in my mouth. The Aser were now put to silence, for no one amongst them seemed disposed to place himself in the power of Fenris. At length the undaunted Tyr,6 the son of Odin by a giant woman, advanced boldly and laid his hand in the wolfs jaw, who then allowed himself to be bound with the cord, one end of which was dragged through a massive rock, and made fast in the centre of the earth. When this was done, he began to exert his utmost strength, but the more he struggled to free himself, the more closely did Gleipnir encircle him, and he was at length forced to abandon the attempt. The gods rejoiced to find their most dreaded enemy thus secured, but Fenris in revenge bit off Tyr’s right hand. Since this, he has been one-handed, but wields his sword in his left hand as effectively as he did before in the right. So little was he terrified by this adventure, that he alone has the courage to give Fenris his daily food, for the wolf would suffer no one to 6 Tyr was one of the chief of the Aser, and a great favourite with Thor, on account of his courage, for which reason also he was worshipped by warriors, and when any one distinguished himself in battle he was said to be as brave as Tyr. He was as prudent as he was brave. The planet Mars was sacred to Tyr, and the third day of the week (Danicé Tirs-dag) was named after him as also the Runic letter(T) Tir.

86 approach him, and howled so fearfully, that the gods were obliged to thrust a sword through his jaws, and in this state’ he is to remain until Ragnarokur. The chain with which Fenris was bound was composed, as the Edda informs us, of six things, viz. the noise made by cats’ feet, the beard of a woman, the roots of rocks, the nerves of bears, the breath of fishes, the spittle of birds. When, in Thorns journey to Jotunheim, he and his companions arrive suddenly before the gate of Helheim, and Loke, unwilling to meet his daughter, is about to return in anger, Oehlenschläger puts the following words into the mouth of Thor: But Thor, with warning voice, Cried out; “Laufeya’s son Beware! bethink thee twice, Nor on destruction run: What boots it to repine At that the fates decree! Befits it Loke to whine, And yield so womanly? The tall maid, Angerbode, Thou tookest to thy bed: All know, of giant blood No produce ever sped. What then—thine amorous fit, No doubt, in Skulda’s7 book 7 Skulda the norny or fate who presided over the futures

87 E’en from the first was writ; Then why this angry look! Horror thy race inspire, But who contempt can feign? Fate doom’d their birth, in ire, To scourge both gods and men. From thy loins sprang the plague, E’en Odin’s self can fill With trouble. Panics vague, Which oft the boldest chill, Arise strange god from thee. In Asgard’s realm of joy, ’Midst banqueting and glee, Dire thoughts our mirth alloy. When Fenris shakes his chain; In Valhal’s festive hall Silence and terror reign, No god but feels appal. On Earth’s fair bosom look, Smiling with flower-deck’d field, Hill, dale, lake, rippling brook, Doth scarce to Asgard yield:— Were’t not, that pain and death Her sons in bondage hold,8 And the fell serpent’s wreath Her prison’d shores enfold. Hela thy blood to call Well proud thou mightest be 8 All pestilential diseases were supposed to proceed from the serpent.

88 Of craven cowards all Unpitying scourger, she. Avenger of my might The brave her name esteem, Then think not, Loke, of flight, Nor thy race luckless deem.                            Oehlenschläger. It has been already said that Loke was fond of being seen in the society of the great, and on this account he often contrived to accompany Odin and Thor on their excursions. In one of these with Odin, an adventure befell him which led to important consequences, and had nearly been fatal to the whole race of the Aser. IDUNA’S RAPE AND RECOVERY. “Three Aser, Odin, Loke, and Hænir, quitted Asgard to travel. They had to traverse vast mountains and wildernesses, where no food could be obtained, but at length they came to a dell where a herd of oxen were feeding, one of which they seized and killed for their supper. “Odin and Hænir strolled about in the neigbourhood, whilst Loke was employed in preparing the meal. After a time, when he imagined that the ox must have been sufficiently roasted, he took it from the fire, but was much surprised to find it

89 still raw. He tried it again, but do what he would it remained in the same state. “Whilst he was endeavouring to explain to himself how this could be, he heard a noise in the tree above him, and, looking up, perceived an enormous eagle on one of the branches. Loke, said the eagle, it is I who have prevented the ox from being roasted, but if you promise to give me a share, you will find that it will be cooked quickly enough. Loke agreed, and the eagle flew down from the tree, and seating himself by the spit, seized hold on both the shoulders of the ox. “Upon this Loke got angry, and taking hold of a billet of wood which was near at hand, struck at the eagle with all his might, who instantly flew upwards, and one end of the billet stuck fast to his back whilst the other adhered to Loke’s hand. Away he flew over wood, rock, and river, dragging Loke after him at such a rate that the luckless Aser thought his arm must have been pulled off, at the same time that his feet were trailed along over the stones and tops of the trees.9 “Loke now changed his tone and bewailing his ill luck, called upon Odin and Thor for help, but 9 The curious reader may here trace the prototype of Daniel O’Rourke’s eagle, so humorously described in the Fairy Legends of Ireland.

90 the eagle, who was the Giant Thiasse in disguise, told him that he might spare his cries, for that he should never get loose unless he would bind himself by an oath to bring Bragi’s wife, Iduna, and her apples out of Asgard. “Bragi was the god of eloquence and poetry, and so good a Scald that Runes were said to be upon his tongue.10 He was rather given to strong drinks, and, if Loke may be credited, not very celebrated for courage. His wife, Iduna,11 was the daughter of the dwarf Ivalldr, and had in her charge certain apples, of which the gods used to eat when they found themselves growing old, and were thereby immediately restored to youth and vigour. “It was these apples which Thiasse was desirous of getting into his possession, and Loke, who hated the Aser in his heart, made no difficulty in taking the oath, and being released from his unpleasant situation, returned to his companions. 10 It was a custom with the Scandinavians that at the burial feast of a king or Jarl, his heir should sit upon a bench before the throne until a health was drunk, sacred to the god Bragi, upon which he rose up and swore that he would perform some signal feat, and then drank out the cup. 11 Some have seen in the union of Iduna with the god of poetry and eloquence, an allusion to the power of those arts to confer immortality.

91 Nothing else particularly worthy of notice occurred on this expedition. “At the appointed time Loke persuaded Iduna to leave Asgard, pretending that in a certain wood, at a short distance, he had discovered apples more I beautiful, and of a more excellent quality than her own, which he recommended her to take with her hi order to make the comparison. “They had scarcely left the boundary, when Thiasse came flying rapidly towards them, in his old shape of an eagle, and catching up Iduna carried her off. “The Aser were in the greatest consternation at this loss. They became wrinkled and grey-haired, and subject to all kinds of diseases; the trees and flowers all withered, and spring was turned to autumn. A council of the gods was held to endeavour to discover how Iduna had disappeared, but all that they could learn was that she had been last seen going out of Asgard with Loke. He was accordingly brought before the assembly and threatened with a painful death. Thor, who was present, seized him and threw him several times so high up in the air, that his heels touched, alternately, the moon and the sea, telling him that this was a sample of what he would get unless he brought back Iduna. “Loke, almost frightened to death, engaged to

92 search the goddess out in Giant-land, provided that Freya would lend him her hawk’s dress (Falke-ham). Having obtained this he flew away, northwards, and fortunately reached Thiasse’s residence just as the Giant had rowed out to sea, so that Iduna was at home, alone. He changed her into a swallow, and taking her in his claws lost no time to fly off with her. “As soon as Thiasse returned and missed Iduna, he put on his eagle’s dress (Orne-ham), flew after Loke, and by the rapidity of his flight was gaining fast on him. “When the Aser saw the hawk coming with the swallow in his claws, and the eagle close after him, they went out to the walls of Asgard, where they heaped up a vast pile of chips. As the hawk approached the town, he descended towards the walls. The Aser now set fire to the chips, and, as the eagle could not at once check his course, the ascending flames burned up his wings so that he could fly no farther, and fell to the ground. The Aser, who were standing around prepared for the event, immediately slew him, and in this manner the gods were saved from destruction, and Thiasse lost his life within the walls of Asgard. This event is very celebrated.” The foregoing tale may serve as a specimen of one of Loke’s numerous adventures. How, when

93 Thor’s hammer had been stolen by the Giant Thrym, he discovered the theft and gave information of it; how he contrived to recover it by making Thor dress himself like Freya; how he made love to Sif, Thor’s wife, and when Sif repulsed him with scorn, in revenge, cut off her matchless hair; how he procured, for the gods, incomparable rarities from his kinsmen the dwarfs; and how at length he brought on his own cruel punishment, and hastened the destruction of the gods by maliciously procuring the death of the gentle Baldur, whom all things in nature loved; will be told in the sequel. He was enabled to escape many dangers by means of his power to assume various shapes, and by the aid of certain shoes, which gave him the power to traverse land and sea with the utmost speed. The word Loke or Loge signifies a flame, and Magnussen suggests that Loke is a personification of fire, which in its nature partakes of good and evil, and was found in earth and heaven, with the gods and the giants. In Jutland rank weeds are still termed Loke’s corn, and the peasants in Norway, Iceland, and some parts of Denmark, call the devil Loke to this day.