So Who Is This Loki Fellow Anyway?

An introduction by Del Tashlin

Well, this is no big assignment, right? I mean, it's hard enough to introduce someone to a human being, making sure to include all the different facets, interests, behaviors, identities, and predilections so that no one who knows that person will feel that their relationship has been left out – how to do this for a God, one known for having many faces and many ways of interacting with humanity? I'll give it a shot, if we can all agree that He is hard to capture in words, images, feelings, intuitions, thoughts, poetry and prose; okay?

Let me start out by stating what Loki, the Norse Trickster God, is not; primarily, what liberties have been taken by a certain comic book company when portraying him as a villain in graphic novel and film. He is not Tom Hiddleston, although if that's how He appears to you, I'm not one to judge. He is not the brother of Thor by blood or adoption, nor is his father Odin, or Laufey (in fact, that is His mother's name, thank you very much). He does not go around wearing odd green and gold outfits with insect-looking antennae on His head. He does not command a legion of alien forces bent on taking over the world. And He very much wants me to add, nor is He a “puny God”, no matter what the Hulk has to say on the matter.

Loki is first and foremost Jotun-born; that is, He is descended from the Giants in Norse lore. He had some sort of relationship with the wolf-woman Angrboda; some say She was His Wife, some His Mistress, but what cannot be denied is that They had sexual congress, from which was born three monstrous children: Jormangandr, the third-gendered serpent who circles the World; Fenris, the wolf bound by Tyr to keep Him from consuming the World; and Hel, His half-alive, half-dead daughter who was given Niflheim to turn into the land of the dead. It's interesting to note that although all of His children are odd looking and, well, monsters, that They all hold fairly important roles in Norse cosmology.

Somewhere along the way, Odin took Loki for a blood-brother, allowing Loki to become one of the Aesir to live in Asgard (the home of the Gods). Although He is listed among the Aesir in the Eddas, many Heathen and other Norse-derived reconstructionist groups see him as the Adversary. This may or may not stem from the tales being codified by a Christian Monk named Snorri, who painted the Norse Gods with an admittedly Christian bias. But this is a thing of much debate among those who follow the Norse Gods in one way or another, and I'm not going to get into it here. You, dear reader, should just be aware that those who choose to hail Loki without checking to see what His status is among the people they share blòt with, might find themselves driven out on a rail without understanding why. Now you know.

Loki's appearance is never really described in the Lore, but most people who have seen Him or depicted Him in art give him red hair; this may be due to the long-standing superstitions about redheads being cursed/trouble/tricksters in their own right. He is usually depicted as being tall, lanky, and fairly androgynous in that David Bowie sort of way. I have heard tell of Him appearing in many animal forms, as He is a shape shifter, including wolves, spiders, foxes, ravens/crows, horses, and snakes.

In most of the tales of Loki in the Eddas, He is the guy who both gets the Aesir into, well, let's call them interesting situation, as well as the guy who usually comes up with some solution. Mostly, He is cast in this role as many tricksters from traditions across the World are, as both instigators and problem-solvers – for without Tricksters, The Gods would likely just sit around being all God like and never have any epic adventures to tell tales of, and without Tricksters there would be no one to point out the Emperor has no clothes.

This leads me to the Lokasenna, the most Loki-centric part of the Lore. There has been some recent controversy as to whether or not the Lokasenna was created in order to make demonizing Loki easier for the Christians, in an attempt to drive out Trickster-worship since their own Trickster (Lucifer/The Devil) was portrayed as being 100% evil, whereas in most societies people had a much more nuanced view towards these sorts of entities. (See Lewis Hyde's great book “Trickster Makes This World” if this interests you.) Anyway, the Lokasenna. Supposedly the Aesir had a big dinner party and forgot to invite Loki. Instead of rolling a golden apple enscribed “For the Fairest” on it, like some other Trickster did, He jumped up and started pointing out the foibles and secrets of those who snubbed Him. This was such a terrible, awful thing to do – you know, pointing out that Gods can be fallible – that He was subject to a pretty terrible punishment: He and His innocent bride Sigyn bore witness while one of Their children was turned into a wolf and eviscerated the other. And if that wasn't enough, then Loki was bound to a stone with the entrails of His dead son, and a poisonous snake was positioned over His head to drip poison on Him, Chinese-water-torture-style, for all eternity. However, His devoted wife, who did nothing to deserve such treatment except love Him, stood by His side, holding a bowl to collect the venom. Her grief never ends, as every so often She must turn to empty the bowl, allowing the venom to burn His skin.

Now, sure, there was also a prediction that Loki was also slated to captain the ship that would bring about the end of the World, and so maybe this punishment was exacted also to keep Him from doing so. Again, this fact is another thing debated by Lokean academics, where some claim that it isn't, in fact, Loki who is going to lead the crew on the Naglfar, but that's another one of those debates I'm not interested in getting into – just letting you know it exists.

Anyway, it's important to know all these things about Loki, if you want to know Him at all, because many devotees interact with Loki at different parts of His mythos; some fall in love with the sly Trickster who knows how to get into and out of hot water, some pray to the magician and shape-shifter who can bend both living and inanimate matter to His whim; some  may write books about the devoted husband/lover of either Angrboda or Sigyn; while others witness His madness and pain as “Breaker of Worlds”, the Loki driven mad by torture. And yet these devotees are all worshipping the same Deity – like I said in the beginning, it's hard enough to funnel a human being into one archetypical facet that everyone interacts with in the exact same manner, and that goes many times multiple for Gods and other beings too big for our brainmeats to truly comprehend.

It feels like any Internet-based introduction of Loki would be incomplete without mentioning the proliferation of Loki's wives, especially on the blogosphere. Honestly, I can't say why He chooses to take so many mortal lovers/wives/spouses (because I can say definitively that they're not all women), or why so many of them seem to have taken to the Livejournals and Wordpressess and Tumblrs and other online media, but I can say that they are there, and they are pretty vocal. Maybe they're attracted to his “bad boy” persona, or maybe His sexual attraction is so strong that it's more easily felt across the God/human barriers. But you should know that they exist, and they're pretty opinionated, and I'm not one of them. It may sound kind of ridiculous to say, but I answer this question all the time: it is absolutely possible to develop a non-sexual, non-marital relationship with The King of Fools and be just as important, vital, and treasured by Him. He is appreciative of every mortal who remembers Him, tells His tales to new ears, leaves Him offerings on their altars or libations in His name, regardless of how your relationship with Him manifests. There is nothing better, special, more beneficial, or more devoted about being His godspouse – and to be clear, it's a relationship He chooses to have with you, not the other way 'round. Of course you can offer Him sexual energy, or make vows of celibacy or fidelity to Him if you choose, but godspousery is a two-way street, and is best left to the Gods to initiate.

But I wanted to let you, dear reader, know that there are plenty of us Lokeans who worship Him and offer our devotions who are not his spouse. Some identify as children (or monsters, or both), some as devotee or priest, some as talesinger/poet, and some who hail Him among many other Gods. He needs and takes all kinds – although in my experience, He has a special love of transgender, queer, and other oddly romantically/sexually/gendered peoples – to hail Him. Maybe you can, too.

Artwork by Destinyfall.