The Trickster, the Devil, and an Ambiguous World
by Jason GodeskyPleased to meet you—won’t you guess my name? But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.
— The Rolling Stones, “Sympathy for the Devil,” Beggars Banquet, 1968
It’s fairly easy to divide stories about Loki into two historical categories: pre-Christianity, and post-Christianity. All the Norse gods show certain evidence of Christian influence, but with Loki the division is fairly striking. Two examples, one from each group, should suffice to illustrate this stark dichotomy.
In the first story, set shortly after the end of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, the walls of Asgard were in ruins. A frost giant came to the gods, and offered to rebuild the walls for them; he even boasted that he could do it in a single day. The gods laughed at him, and so he made a challenge: if he could rebuild the walls in a single day, he must give them Freyja, goddess of love and beauty, to be his own. The gods laughed and told him, “Yeah, sure, go for it!”
The frost giant went, and came back with an enormous, powerful stallion. The horse dragged even the biggest stones with ease, and by midday, the walls were more than half finished. The gods began to panic, worried they would have to surrender Freyja to the terrible frost giant. Loki, himself a frost giant, merely smirked. “Leave it to me,” he said, and slipped off. The gods paid him no heed, and continued to fret as the walls grew higher.
Then, the gods noticed a beautiful mare emerge from the woods–and obviously in heat. More importantly, the stallion noticed as well. The frost giant went running as fast as he could after the stallion, as he chased the mare into the woods. The gods laughed at their good fortune. At nightfall, the frost giant returned in shame. “Thank you for rebuilding so much of the walls,” the gods laughed, “but you did not finish them! A shame you do not let your stallion out a little more often–he’s an impressive creature, but he obvously has his priorities! You did not finish the walls–Freyja stays!” The giant sulked off, but only then amidst the revelry did any of them notice Loki’s abscence. It was only then that he returned, rubbing his sore behind and walking funny.
Eleven months later, Loki gave birth to an eight-legged horse named Sleipnir, Odin’s steed, and proof that the frost giant could definitely “take one for the team.”
The second story involves Baldr the Beautiful, a young god who seems to come from nowhere but is beloved by all the Aesir and Vanir alike. He is invulnerable to everything–except mistletoe. Loki grows jealous of the attention Baldr recieves, and learns of his vulnerabilty. To display Baldr’s invincibility, Loki begins a revel where everyone throws things at the impervious Baldr. Loki helps the blind Höðr join in the fun by giving him a bow and arrow, and aiming it for him. Höðr lets it fly, and kills Baldr with the mistletoe arrow Loki gave him.
For the death of beloved Baldr, the gods tracked Loki down and caught him with his own recent invention–the fish net, as well as Loki’s children with Sigyn, Narfi and Váli. They transformed Váli into a wolf, who then killed his brother Narfi. Narfi’s guts the gods wove into bonds, to tie Loki to three slabs of stone beneath the earth. A giant snake looms over Loki, dripping venom on his face, but Loki’s faithful wife Sigyn remains there, catching the venom in a cup. But when the cup grows full, she must empty it, and while she does, the venom falls on Loki’s face–and the giant’s writhing causes earthquakes.
Baldr’s death precipitates Ragnarök–the end of the world where the gods and everything good dies, as the world is conquered by giants and plunged into chaos, barbarism and darkness. At that time, Loki will break free and marshall all the giants and all the children of Hel to make war on Asgard, the last war that will bring the twilight of the gods–and in that final battle, Loki and Heimdal will kill each other.
Can you guess which tale is pre-Christian, and which is post-Christian? Baldr was often explicitly compared to Christ; for instance, when C.S. Lewis said he “loved Baldr before Christ.” The first story displays Loki cut in the mold of the Trickster archetype. The Trickster is marvelously ambiguous–he lives by his wits, his morality is ambivalent, and his power is unquestionable. Tricksters are also often culture heroes: Loki invented many things and gave them to humans, such as the fishing net already mentioned.
The second tale, though, has no ambiguity whatsoever. Loki is evil, even diabolical. This follows a common trend for civilized thinking in general: Tricksters are stripped of their ambiguity, and turned into unrelenting, wholly evil characters. The Devil known to us in Judaism and Christianity makes his first Biblical appearance as Satan, or “the Adversary,” perhaps better translated as, “the Prosecution.” Satan is shown in heaven, with G-d, trying to persuade G-d that Job is faithful only because he has not been tested. Satan is not a rebel warring against G-d in the Book of Job–he is more the prosecution in some grand, cosmic trial, wherein G-d is the Judge. Isaiah’s references to Lucifer, the fallen morning star, do not refer to this figure at all, but were only attached to him much, much later.1
The term Beelzebub, for instance, reveals that the Devil may have had an early link to pre-Christian peoples in the Near East. The Philistines are believed to have worshiped “Baalzebub?; the word itself probably derived from an Assyrian word for “adversary in court? but in the New Testament Christ associated Beelzebub with the Devil (an enemy). Furthermore, the Devil is often depicted as a beast, a hoofed animal with horns and a tail, a sort of goat figure reminiscent of animal tricksters. Interestingly, the phrase “a wolf in sheep’s clothing? that today denotes a devilish, deceitful person rings similar to coyote tricksters and interestingly has roots in the New Testament (Mathew 7:15). Thus, it is likely that as Christianity developed, the concept of the Devil came to be defined more narrowly, becoming one-dimensional, the opposition to goodness. Trickster, on the other hand, is a thoroughly entertaining, often humorous mischief-maker and culture-hero, deceitful but also purveyor of goodness. In his examination of Winnebago Indian trickster mythology, Paul Radin wrote that the “Trickster is at one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and who is always duped himself.” Thus unlike Satan, Trickster embodies an ancient duality common among North American Indians and many other indigenous cultures.2
Emphasis added.
So, we have two examples of this process–one that took place so long ago we barely have any evidence at all for the transformation (the Devil), and one that took place more recently, leaving as much evidence for his Trickster status before the transformation, as for his diabolical status afterwards (Loki). Guy Cooper’s “Coyote in Navajo Religion and Cosmology” (The Canadian Journal of Native Studies VII, 2 (1987):181-193; PDF) provides a third example, where the process is near-contemporary. Coyote is one of the most important and powerful Trickster figures ever noted. Coyote emerged from the primordial medicine bundle with First Man and First Woman, as one of the original agents of creation. He became a Holy Person, and is one of the most popular figures in Navajo stories.
In this light, it is important, therefore, that the historical context of Navajo culture is included in any assessment of Coyote. The picture derived from the Origin myths and the Trickster tales is of an ancient deity, existing from the beginning and, as such, exhibits the general characteristics of the Culture Hero-Trickster, although, as there is no single creator figure in Navajo cosmology, Coyote interacts with a number of creator figures. Since the Navajo are known to have migrated from their main cultural grouping in the subarctic, their religion has obviously undergone change (Cooper, 1984). Among the Athapascans of the North, Raven is the Trickster-Culture Hero and this fact emerges obliquely in Navajo culture, as Raven (or Crow, the Navajo do not distinguish the two) is linked with Coyote in Myth and there is an obsolescent ceremonial—Ravenway—which Navajos believe is linked to Coyoteway. Raven and Coyotes are also observed in association in nature. Raven emerges, in the form of Crow and Black God, as Master of Animals in hunting myth, a position denied to Coyote who of course is a predator. Raven has been superceded by Coyote at some stage in Navajo history. Coyote in myths attains the position of Holy Person, with his own offerings and this is consolidated in Coyoteway, the ceremonial to restore harmonious relationships between humans and Coyote. As a predator he is associated with hunting. Hunting is, after all, a form of trickery requiring cunning, and there is no better survivor in nature than coyote. In fact, the paradigm provided by coyote as an animal is ideally suited to the status as Trickster figure.
The pressure of European contact transformed Navajo society, and in so doing, transformed their Trickster god, Coyote:
The reformulation of Navajo religion—in particular the adoption of Emergence mythology and cosmology, the structuring of the Chantway system—occured under Pueblo influence following the Pueblo Revolt in the late 17th Century. Warfare adopted many of the techniques associated with hunting, which declined in importance with the adoption of the agriculturalist and pastoralist economy. Both hunting and warfare became associated with witchcraft, particularly following the trauma of incarceration in Fort Summer between 1864-1868, caused by the suppression of widespread Navajo raiding, and Emergence cosmology and mythology is dominated by anthropomorphic deities who supercede the animal gods so important in hunting and shamanism. It is not therefore surprising that Coyote, whose power is associated with hunting and warfare, thus became also associated with witchcraft. The transformation abilities of Coyote, both to change his appearance and to throw his skin onto others, are closely identified with the werewolf syndrome, which forms an important part of Navajo witchcraft beliefs. Werewolves are believed to paint their faces in a similar way to Coyote, or First Scolder. Prayers to Coyote are believed to make you rich. Such a view could stem from the period when prayers to Coyote lent aid in hunting, warfare and its correlates, gambling and love. Nowadays however, one who is very wealthy is likely to be regarded as deriving their success from witchcraft practices. Coyote was associated already with witchcraft through his connection with First Man and First Woman, from whom, according to Navajo belief, witchcraft originated. This also provides Coyote’s association with death, since the dead return to the underworld, from whence came First Man’s group. Coyote originated death, feeds on carrion and often dies in myth and, as a sign of ill omen, can signify to the Navajo the imminence of evil or death. Furthermore, the transition from hunting to agriculture meant that coyotes, hither-to fellow predators of the hunt, now become a threat to the economythrough attacks on lambs.
In contemporary Navajo culture, “Coyote” has even become an insult.
The ambiguous gender of Tricksters is also worthy of note here. In the story related above, Loki changes gender to seduce the mare, and gives birth to a calf. Nadleeh, the Navajo version of the two-spirited berdache, was an important figure in the creation story like First Man, First Woman and Coyote. Such people were believed to have two spirits, a fact that made them powerful shamans. Almost exactly a year ago:
Gay and lesbian citizens of the Navajo Nation almost faced a serious setback last month when the tribal council unanimously voted to outlaw same-sex marriage. To anyone who’s familiar with traditional Navajo culture, the very idea seems absurd. These are the people who honored the nadleeh—the man with two spirits, one masculine, one feminine. Whenever such a man was born in a Navajo community, he would be permitted to dress like, act like, and perform the duties of a woman. He could even marry another man, and the community considered that to be equivalent to any heterosexual marriage. However, in recent years, the traditional Navajo point of view on homosexuality has been so devastated by western influence that… well, that we now have Navajos trying to ban same-sex marriage.3
It is the ambivalence of the Trickster that civilized folk find so threatening. Shamanism is a hunter’s religion. It is very much grounded in the understanding that life and death exist in balance, that the world is ambivalent and ambiguous. Shamans exist to try to mediate that ambivalence and ambiguity. The Trickster sums up that enormous swath of existence as an archetypal personification of everything that is uncertain, nuanced, and equivocal.
Civilization can be understood at its base as an attempt to cheat that–to paint the world as black and white, and then to increase the white forever, and eliminate the black. Jung wrote of the effect this has on the individual psyche, and often remarked that it may produce the same for a society as a whole. Existence is defined primarily by balance, and just as a brighter light produces a darker shadow, a stronger Ego only produces a stronger Shadow. Jung suggested that the Devil is the archetype of the cosmic Shadow, and the progression from Trickster to Devil is enlightening in this regard: in our attempt to eliminate everything bad, what we do instead is to polarize the Trickster, the ambiguous, ambivalent guardian of cosmic balance, turning it into a diabolical power determined to balance our refusal to acknowledge the realities of existence. The prosecution takes to hell to balance our dreams of heaven; Coyote takes up witchcraft to tear down the unbalanced world we make; Loki schemes of gathering all the monsters and giants to march on Asgard and shatter the Rainbow Bridge forever. In our desire to make the world all good, all the time, we fall into a trap the Trickster should have taught us to avoid: what we do is create an equal and opposite, compensatory evil that waits for its chance to wreak its vengeance. The Devil, the evil Loki, and the Coyote witch are all spiritual, mythological embodiments of the compensation civilization creates: collapse.
Tricksters test the boundaries of society, and establish what is acceptable and what is not by their experiments and exploration. They affirm society’s norms by breaking them. The ambiguity of that is something that a hierarchical society cannot tolerate. Civilization cannot tolerate myths that glamorize those who disregard power and hierarchy. Yet, the Trickster is archetypal, a powerful part of the human experience that cannot be denied. Robin Hood, Brer Rabbit–even Bugs Bunny–emerge no matter how much we try to stop them. The most powerful Tricksters, as seen above, must be demonized. Lesser Tricksters can be co-opted. Robin Hood can fight the “bad” King John, but only for the “good” King Richard. Bugs Bunny can punch Hitler for the U.S. of A.
Ultimately, civilization is a ruinous experiment in simplifying the world through complexity. Hierarchy tries to simplify the vast complexity of human relationships, and the civilized mind tries to reduce the ambiguous domain of the Trickster to a Zoroastrian struggle between “good” and “evil.” As we push towards “good,” we merely pushed the Trickster further into “evil” to compensate. In the end, life will always be about balancing good and bad. A “good” person is just as unbalanced as a “bad” one, and it is balance that we need to pursue more than anything else.
Ultimately, that’s exactly what the Trickster has been trying to tell us from the start.
[…]
You know, I didn’t even realize I posted this on 06-06-06. Jung might call it “synchronicity.” I call it “dumb luck.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 6 June 2006 @ 4:29 PM
Hey –
Nice Jason.
I’ve ‘known’ Loki since high school… but somehow was always unwilling to look at it, at all critically… so I managed to not really understand what I ‘knew’.
Always nice when another piece slips into place
Janene
Comment by Janene — 6 June 2006 @ 5:34 PM
A quick note on berdache in another culture (the Southern California Tongva)…
“THE FOUR ROADS TO TONGVA SPIRITUAL LIFE
..PRIDE.. ..RESPECT.. ..HONOR.. ..DIGNITY..
THE TONGVA
THE WEHEY PET
&
THE ‘AHKHI
The Role of Sexual Difference
Among the Indigenous People
of the Los Angeles Basin
A special group that could come from any of the Tongva social classes was the group of “Wehey Pet?, the two road people. Tongva society did not deny social engagement and involvement with those whose ssexual orientation was different. Instead, those whose sexual orientation was different performed major functions, often becoming shamans, storytellers, teachers, medicine keepers, and visionaries.
Some (the ‘Ahkhi) cross dressed and took on the “roles? of women; they were greatly valued by the eltie class and the chiefs. The Wehey Pet, who did not cross dress but who often crossed role designations, were responsible for the naming of children, the preparations for the burial of the dead and the insuring that rituals and ceremonies followed the proper protocol.
In 1769, Pedro Fages, a Spanish soldier, accompanied the De Anza expedition that traveled through California on its way to Montererry. He made special note of a special group of men who by their profession permitted the “heathen? to engage in sexual activity that scandalized the Puritanical Spaniards. He also states that the Indians were “…addicted to this… vice?. He is, however, most disturbed by the fact that these men were “…held in great esteem.?
We must also remember that this acceptance of sexual differences was found throughout most of the Americas. In Mexico and Guatemala, thousands of such men and women were burned to death by the Spaniards with Church blessign and permission. The same practice was followed in California. Both Wehey Pet and ‘Ahkji were specifically singled out for extermination by Church and State. The indigenous spiritual belief system of the Tongva was held in ridicule and hundreds of mend and women were tortured and murdered in order to “purify and bring civilization? to the “savages?.
Excerpt from Journey to Tovangar by Mark F. Acuňa”
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 6 June 2006 @ 6:30 PM
“Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition”
Those people where burnded by the Spanish inquisition, with permission of the king.
I, as a Mexican r aised pope-following catholic, believe the reason most Mexicans, something like 99%, are Christians is because of the wonders these inquisitors did killing every religous dissident. And people of other sexual orientations.
Comment by Anonymous — 7 June 2006 @ 10:51 AM
There’s more to it than just that. The Inquisition wasn’t about asserting religious orthodoxy nearly so much as asserting political control through religious orthodoxy. The other reason that 89% of the Mexican population is Roman Catholic (not 99%–6% are Protestant, and the remaining 5% are divided amongst everything else) is that the tolerated a certain amount of syncretism. You could keep nearly all your old beliefs and customs, so long as you changed some of the names a little bit, paid your proper taxes and tithes, and submitted to the authority of Rome and the State. It was never about religion–religion was only a means to the end of hierarchical dominion. No one dies for religion.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 11:01 AM
Nice Jason, very nice.
Growing up in this culture, I learned to fear the trickster (heck, Hotel California scared me when I was a kid, I was sure the devil was in it somewhere). Outgrowing Christianity helped a lot… and finding access to the original stories is such a blessing. Interesting that when I was surfing around a few years ago, looking for runic/mythic stories from that tradition (Loki and friends) I found some folks getting heavily into Loki as evil. A lot of dark stuff surrounding him. What interested me originally, was this trickster nature, but what I found there shoo-ed me off. I’m all in favor of reclaiming. Thanks for this step.
Comment by neighbor — 7 June 2006 @ 12:30 PM
Loki is also one of the coolest Marvel villains.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 12:44 PM
Interesting Fifth World note…
Odin = Shaman
Thor = Brave
Loki = Scout
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 12:50 PM
If you choose to be Thor, do you get a hammer, and a human allias as a Doctor?
Comment by Bubba — 7 June 2006 @ 1:15 PM
It’s not quite so slavish.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 1:25 PM
Doesn’t that place Mother Culture within the context of being one big Trickster?
I really enjoy reading articles like these!
Comment by tony — 7 June 2006 @ 4:41 PM
Hey –
Ohhh… stop it Tony!
Not everything is MC… and I kinda think that soem indigenous cultures might be a little over-wrought with you if you explained what the hell you were saying… after all, everyone HAS thier own MC, its only our own that is so dangerous.
Now to pretend you were being serious… MC certainly does not undermine herself by casting doubt on her own teachings through honest questioning, breaking the rules or exploring alternate possibilities. After all, ’she’ is ‘designed’ to prevent us from doing just those things.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 7 June 2006 @ 4:57 PM
A culture cannot test its own boundaries.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 7:37 PM
I disagree. I’d say that MC undermines itself a lot through breaking the rules. I mean, how many of their characters have to come back from the dead before… oh wait. You mean MC, Mother Culture. Not MC, Marvel Comics.
Well… Loki still kicks ass.
Comment by Mike Godesky — 7 June 2006 @ 10:13 PM
“Thief” is brought back from the dead by Raven i 8-bit Theater in “Of Tricksters & Thieves” and “Trickery, Trickery, Trickery”
Raven: “That’s funny. Most people don’t like the idea of being stuck in their own personal hell.”
Thief: “Oh, come on. I’m supposed to believe what a god of trickery says? In what possible way could infinite wealth be anything but my idea of bliss?”
Raven: “That’s just it. There’s nothing left to steal.”
Bricks (1 ton)
Raven: “Oh, you didn’t seriously think you’d end up anywhere else, did you?”
Thief: “You’ve got to get me out of here.”
Raven: “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I took this case for a reason.”
Thief: “I’ll do anything!”
Raven: “That was the reason.”
With a later cameo in “Interdimensional intrigue!:
Raven: “You told them to get a what?”
Bahamut*: “A rat tail. A dire rat’s tail.”
Raven: “Oh, that’s good.”
Bahamut: “Thank you. Do you think he’ll see it coming?”
Raven: “Not a chance.”
* The god-king of the dragons, naturally. He’s a dragon, and a king, and a god.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 8 June 2006 @ 1:49 PM
Talk about synchronicity / dumb luck, who knew that June’s God of the Month was the Trickster?
http://community-2.webtv.net/magentashadow/GOMC/
(via http://singlenesia.com/news/)
Comment by rich — 8 June 2006 @ 1:58 PM
Great article, plucky banter, and respect for MC (Marvel Comics - not Mother Culture). What more could a guy ask for? Very good stuff, very good indeed. Keep up the good work.
Comment by Modred — 8 June 2006 @ 10:44 PM
The other beautiful subtle note about Loki and the building of the Wall of Asgard -
Loki’s “help” to stop the Frost Giant from finishing the wall in time also created the weak gap which, at the ending of the world, all the monsters of the world come rushing through, with Loki leading from the front.
Sounds like a set up. And it also sounds like some ancient storyteller understood the inherent unsustainability of the new gods, the Taker way, and civilization. Trying to trick the nature giants? Good luck.
Comment by Willem — 10 June 2006 @ 2:10 AM
Thought some of you might find this interesting…
Utgard: The Role of the Jotnar in the Religion of the North
by Diana Paxson
Anyone who has ever picked up a book on Norse mythology knows about the conflict between the gods and the giants. It is pictured as an endless dualistic struggle between the forces of order and chaos, or good and evil, which will culminate in the epic struggle of Ragnarok. And yet, despite the gusto with which Thor bashes etins, the old literature leaves one with a curiously ambiguous picture. Ancient and terrible the Jotnar may be, but are they simply destructive, or does the conflict between them and the lords of Asgard have a deeper significance?
As I explore the spiritual ecology of the North I have come to believe that far from being the eternal enemy, the Jotnar may have a crucial role to play in the survival of the world and its inhabitants, including human beings. An analysis of their origins and functions not only illuminates their relationship to the gods (and therefore the meaning of the Æsir as well), but suggests a new way to interpret some of the ambiguities encountered in Norse attitudes towards the feminine and the natural world.
The mythologies of other early cultures reveal a pattern which may be paralleled in that of the North. Bearing in mind that traditional cultures do not have a single, canonical, “creation myth”, still, almost everywhere we find a first generation of deities who are responsible for the creation of the world and who are later supplanted by their children, the pantheon whose worship becomes the religion of the land.
The Graeco-Roman creation myth tells how Gaia, Mother Earth, arose from the empty “yawning” of Chaos and conceived the Titanic powers by Ouranos, who suppressed them before they could be born into the world. The last of them, Kronos, attacked and emasculated his father, separating him from the earth. The Titans who were then released were powers of the sun and moon, darkness and the dawn. Monsters of various kinds were also created. Kronos (Time) married his sister Rhea (Space) and they became the parents of the Olympian gods. Eventually the gods, aided by monstrous allies and the counsel of Mother Earth, defeated and imprisoned the Titans in Tartaros. Nonetheless, the time when Kronos and the Titans ruled was considered by the Greeks to have been a golden age.
Despite the theological sophistication of Hinduism, traces remain of a pre-Vedic system in which “The gods and the antigods are the twofold offspring of the lord-of-progeny (Prajapati). Of these the gods are the younger, the antigods, the older. They have been struggling with each other for the dominion of the worlds.” (Brhad-aranyaka Upanishad 1.3.1.[205]). These antigods are sometimes called asuras (later construed as a-suras, or “not-gods”), although this term, derived from the root as, “to be”, or Asu, “breath”, was originally used to identify the most important gods. Although the asuras are seen as opponents, many among them are described as wise and benficent and aid the gods. Among the asuras the Mahabharata includes daityas (genii), danavas (giants), kalakanjas (stellar spirits), kalejas (demons of time), nagas (serpents), and raksasas (night wanderers, or demons) They live in palaces in mountain caves, the bowels of the earth, the sea, and the sky and are said to be powerful in battle and magic.
In Egyptian religion, the oldest company of gods seems to have represented properties of primeval matter. According to E.A. Wallace Budge, “in primeval times at least the Egyptians believed in the existence of a deep and boundless watery mass out of which had come into being the heavens, and the earth, and everything that is in them.” (The Gods of the Egyptians, I: 283). These powers were represented by four pairs of gods and goddesses. The world as we know it was created by the action of the Khepera aspect of the sun-god, who says in the Book of the Overthrowing of Apepi,
“Heaven did not exist, and earth had not come into being, and the things of the earth and creeping things had not come into existence in that place, and I raised them from out of Nu from a state of inactivity.” (295)
This bears a remarkable resemblance to the opening of “Voluspá” –
In earliest times did Ymir live:
was nor sea nor land nor salty waves,
neither earth was there, nor upper heaven,
but a gaping nothing, and green things nowhere…
Was the land then lifted by the sons of Bor,
who made Midgard, the matchless earth…
(verses 3-4 - Hollander’s translation)
Unless one is prepared to believe that the author of the Edda read hieroglyphics, one must accept this idea as a way of conceptualizing creation common to many early peoples. The “inactivity” of Nu is a reasonable southern parallel to the eternal ice that encased Ymir. In both cases, the earth we know is “lifted” into a state of manifestation by the action of a more clearly personified power. In the Younger Edda, we learn that the world was fashioned from Ymir’s skull and bones, freed from the ice by the tongue of Audhumla, the primal female principle in the form of a cow.
In all of these mythologies, the elder gods are the world creators and elemental powers. Myths about them have to do with their origins and their battles against the race of gods who supplanted them. They may be portrayed as monstrous or fair, but always they dwell in wild places– “Utgard”– or in the element to which they belong. Although they are the opponents of the gods, they do not appear to be hostile to men. In fact they have very little to do with human concerns.
A number of theories have been offered to account for this cosmic struggle. A hypothesis adopted by many scholars has been that the elder deities, such as the asuras, were the gods of races conquered by the people who worship the gods. The asuras were the gods of pre-Vedic India, and presumably the Jotnar and Titans would be the deities of the pre-Indo-European peoples of their lands. However this theory does not explain why gods and giants should differ in function.
Although some of the Jotnar are allies of the Æsir– Ægir, for instance, who brews ale in his cauldrons so that the gods can feast in his undersea hall, or Vafthruthnir, who teaches Odin wisdom– their functions clearly have to do with natural forces. Æir is a god of the ocean; his wife, Ran, rules the depths beneath the waves, who are their daughters. However it is the Van, Njordh, who watches over ships and those who make their living on the sea. Fjorgyn is Earth, but Freyr and Freyja, the alfar and ármadhr, “harvest man” are invoked to aid in farming. It is not the gods who are the personified natural forces beloved of 19th century folklorists, but the Jotnar.
The gods, be they Æsir or Olympians, can be seen as the product of evolving human consciousness. Odin, first of the Æsir to arise, gives us the runes, the symbols and words of power by which the human intellect is enabled to comprehend the world. The Jotun expresses the natural power, while the god embodies the qualities needed for humans to deal with it. In the myths, the Æsir are able to interbreed with Jotnar or humankind. The stories of interaction between the gods and the giants can almost serve as a chronicle of the changing relationship between evolving human consciousness and the natural world.
Of all the Æsir, Thor, the thunderer and great slayer of giants, is the most elemental. He is the Son of Earth, and his rune is that of the thurs. He joys in the chaos of the storm, but he can use its energy to protect humankind. But his is not a war of extermination. In “The Lay of Hárbarth,” Thor tells us, “much might had the etins if all did live; little might had men then in Midgard’s round.”(23). As Gro Steinsland points out (1986), this is not a war of extermination, but of balance.
For a long time it was assumed that one distinction between Jotnar and Æsir was that the giants were never worshipped. However Steinsland has demonstrated that the giants, or more particularly the giantesses, did indeed receive cult worship in the Viking Age. She proposes that Snorri’s account of how the gods gave part of the roasting ox to Thiazi while traveling to visit Utgard-Loki reflects an ancient ritual in which offerings were made to the wilderness powers. Skadi’s reply to Loki’s taunts in “Lokasenna” refers to her holy groves and hallowed shrines, a boast supported by many place names, and she is not only the daughter of a giant, but the home she inherited from him is located in Asgard. However for the most part, the hallows of the Jotnar are to be found in Utgard– “outside the garth”– in the wilderness beyond the fields we know.
The Jotnar are elemental in character and force, associated with the regions or environments in which they live (cliff-thurses, berg risi, or mountain giants or trolls, rime-thurses, sons of Surtr, Æir, Ran and the waves, etc.) They rule the realm of Nature, and can thus be viewed as chieftains of the orders of nature spirits appropriate to various environments: the skogsrar, or “wood-roes”, of the forest, who can bestow blessings in exchange for offerings; the näckar, or “nixies”, sjöra, lake spirits, and forskarlar, the falls-men, in the water; the duergar (dwarves) who live under the earth, and the landvættir, or land-wights, for a region in general. These are what the people at Findhorn in Scotland call the devas, the spirits which inhabit and give health to the environment, ranging from entitities that express the spirit of a place or a group or species of living things (such as a forest), to the spirits of individual flowers and trees. Even during the Christian period they survived in Færie, in which noble races of elves are accompanied by all kinds of sprites and goblins. In medieval folklore, the Jotnar devolved into hags, giants and trolls, and their attendant nature spirits into dwarves, dryads and the like, but they continue to dwell outside the boundaries of the human world.
But not all of the Jotnar live in the wilderness. Giantesses are co-opted into the world of the gods as mothers and mates; in fact a majority of the Æsir are the children of Jotnar on one or both sides. Indeed, when an As or Van seeks a bride outside Asgard, his only source of mates is in Jotunheim. Scratch a goddess, and you are likely to uncover an etin-bride. The courtships of Skadi and Gerd are particularly noteworthy, and it is significant that they are married to Vanir, the gods most closely connected with the natural world. Odin himself sires children by a number of giantesses, most notably Jordh, or earth, the mother of Thor, and Rind, who bears him Vali. On the other hand, those female Jotun who are not co-opted by marriage appear to be more feared by the Æsir than are the males.
The male Jotnar slain by Thor are viewed as worthy antagonists who can sometimes be tricked into sharing their wisdom or powers. But the females, even Hyrokkin, whose strength is required to push Baldr’s funeral ship out to sea, evoke a primal terror. They are not only wild, but female, with all of the suppressed power of both the feminine and the wilderness. In his analysis of prayers to Thor, John Lindow identifies eight killings of female Jotnar and four of male.
Thor was the defender of Asgard, as Thorbjorn himself put it, against the forces of evil and chaos. These forces seem, in the reality of peoples’ lives… to have had a very strong female component… If those who fight for order are male, then it is appropriate that those who fight for disorder should be female.
(Lindow, 1988, p. 127)
At this point a good feminist should say, “how like a man”, but I think that the causes of this hostility lie deeper than simple misogyny. Norse culture in general approaches the feminine with a mixture of emotions, seeing it as irrational and equating loss of status with loss of control while at the same time retaining the memory of a long tradition of reverence for women and belief in their superior spiritual powers. This attitude is paralleled by equally ambivalent feelings about the world of nature. Is it therefore surprising that the Jotnar– the primal powers of nature– who are most feared should be personified as female?
Female biology makes it harder for women to suppress awareness of their physical nature in the way that men often do, and though women are less likely to seek battle, a woman once enraged may fight with a fury that ignores the rules by which men like to conduct their wars (certainly some of the women in the sagas are first class bitches, and the men might have been better off if their wives had been allowed to fight the bloodfeuds). These generalizations reflect the social stereotypes of our culture; in reality there is a considerable overlap between the genders in this regard, and intellect, intuition, and the like are uniquely mixed in each individual. Given this caveat, such social and biological factors may explain why men have tended to link the feminine with Nature, which can be both terrible and nurturing, as well as with the irrational, the unconscious, and spiritual power.
Steinsland makes a good case for the survival of rituals addressed to the Jotnar into the Viking Age. Rather than identifying this as a lingering superstition, let us consider what function retaining a reverence for powers first conceptualized at the birth of human culture might serve in a supposedly more “civilized” age. The scholars who look upon myths of the passage of power from Jotnar or Titans to the shining gods as a reflection of a historical process may be seeing only part of the picture. A more accurate way to describe the change might be as evolutionary. Evolution does imply change over time, but this change can consist of alteration within a continuing group as well as the replacement of one culture or species by another.
The human brain is an excellent example of an organism which has developed by adding new structures and functions to older ones. Most people today have access only to the newer levels of consciousness, and are disturbed by the “irrational” emotions that shake them when the older parts of the brain are aroused. In the same way, our civilization thinks of itself as “modern”, and has trouble understanding the social movements that arise when deeper needs revive older ways.
A major paradigm shift in our relationship to Nature is taking place in this century– a change that must occur if humanity is to survive. Ours is the first generation to be aware of the fragility of the environment. “Primitive” people retain an instinctive awareness that the only way to survive in an environment that is more powerful than they are is by learning to live in harmony with its forces. But as civilization and the development of technology have given humans more control over their surroundings, Nature has become an adversary. In the natural world, birth and death, creation and destruction, are parts of a continuing cycle in which both are equally crucial to long-term survival. Modern man can accept this in theory so long as he remains insulated from its realities by his technology, but especially in the ancient North, where the climate is unforgiving, it is understandable that in the Viking Age the world outside the walls of the garth should have often been seen as something to fear.
And yet, as Kirsten Hastrup shows in Culture and History in Medieval Iceland, access to the actual or psychic wilderness was necessary for magic. The outlaw, or “out-lier” is banished outside the boundaries of the community, and yet that position may enable him to serve it in ways impossible for those who stay safe within walls.
In the cases of both hamrammr and berserkr there is a movement, in body on the one hand, in personality on the other. Such movement seems to have been easily imagined, in a world where every man had his fylgja, his double in wild space.
(Hastrup, 1985, 153)
The tension is not only between order and chaos, but between control and power. This is why Thor never kills all of the giants, why the Æsir seek Jotun-brides, why Odin goes to Vafthruthnir to seek wisdom– and why worship at the shrines of Skadi and other Jotun continued into the Viking Age. From wilderness comes the energy that humans, like other species, need to survive.
What will happen if humans forget how to balance this energy? Ragnarok acquires a different meaning in each age. The “Voluspá” foretells a simultaneous breakdown in the natural balance and the social order. Odin marshals the Einherjar and the gods march out for the last time to meet their foes. When all is destroyed,
‘Neath sea the land sinketh, the sun dimmeth,
from the heavens fall the fair bright stars;
gusheth forth steam and gutting fire,
to very heaven soar the hurtling flames.” (56)
The order of creation described in the early myths is being reversed. The world will return to its primal elements once more.
For the ancient Norse, the fear was that natural forces would grow too powerful. But science shows us that it is equally dangerous to suppress a powerful force too far or too long. The film Koyaanisqatski presented a frightening picture of a world out of balance. Whether the Jotnar are allowed to rage unchecked or suppressed too completely, disaster will follow. Today’s vision of Ragnarok is of an age when natural cycles have been pushed so far out of balance that only the most chaotic and destructive of the powers of nature will remain.
Can this disaster be avoided? Early cultures, living in a world in which the seasonal alternation of birth and death was more accepted than it is today, tend to think in terms of cycles rather than of a linear progression. But though the Völva foresees destruction for the gods, the victory of chaos is not final–
“I see green again– with growing things,
the earth arise from out of the sea…
again the Æsir on Itha Plain meet…
again go over the great world-doom,
and Fimbultyr’s unfathomed runes.” (59)
The process of creation is repeated, and once more Odin’s runes give meaning to the world.
In a world of vanishing rainforests and global warming, it may seem that the Time of Earth Changes foretold by more recent prophets such as Sun Bear is unavoidable. In the long run this is probably true, for why should either a physical body or the world be expected to last for ever? For the world, as for us, death should be viewed not as an extinction but as a transformation so that the cycle can begin anew. Still, just as abuse of one’s body can shorten, or healthy living extend. a human lifespan, humans have the power to hasten Ragnarok or to lengthen this age of the world. With that power comes responsibility.
Environmentalists have provided us with more than enough information to start work on the physical plane, and there should be no need to repeat their instructions here. But those of us who follow the Way of the North have an additional opportunity. We are already vowed to stand with the gods– what we must do now is to understand their relationship to the Jotnar so that we do not end up sabotaging our own side.
We need the giants as we need the wilderness, as a source of the nourishment required for our physical and spiritual survival. They provide psychological stability by aligning the powers of nature and protection at the species level, for they are the spiritual ancestors of all living things. Even apparent chaos may hold a hidden harmony. This does not mean abandoning intellect and technology and returning to the primitive, but as we use the gifts of the gods, we should remember that even Thor does not attempt to completely exterminate his enemies. These days perhaps we ought to be supporting the Jotnar rather than fighting them.
Jotun myths have to do with creation and cosmic patterning. In recreating the myths we recreate the world. Along with the land-spirits, they should therefore receive offerings and honor. When we seek to work in trance, to draw on the deepest powers that lie hid in our own inner Utgards, the Jotnar may even be invoked first in the ritual.
Like other forms of paganism, the Northern branch of the Old Religion is an Earth-religion. As Steinsland puts it, “After all, it would be more remarkable if Norse tradition should miss any ritual dealing with powers on whom the whole of existence finally depended. The giants are as necessary to the world as the gods are.” (ibid, p. 221). In recreating the practice of Norse religion, we must not forget to honor those powers.
References
E. A. Wallace Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, I, N.Y.: Dover Press, 1969
Alain Daniélou, The Gods of India, N.Y.: Inner Traditions International, 1985
Kirsten Hastrup, Culture and History in Medieval Iceland, Oxford, 1985
C. Kerényi, The Gods of the Greeks, N.Y.: Thames & Hudson, 1951
John Lindow, “Addressing Thor”, Scandinavian Studies 60, 1988: 119-136
The Poetic Edda, trans. Lee M. Hollander, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1986
Gro Steinsland, “Giants as Recipients of Cult in the Viking Age?” in Words and Objects: towards a dialogue between archaeology and history of religion (Norwegian University Press/ Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 1986.
Comment by dreaming mountain — 12 June 2006 @ 8:17 PM
And I must apologize as I don’t have an author to site on the following snippet…I’ve been researchign pre-Chrstian Germanic and Old Ways European culture for the past several years as I explore my own heritage…I had this quote in a file on the giants of Germanic myth.
“Jötnar have been viewed as objects of cultic worship; as ancestors and primeval spirits; as the gods of a pre-Germanic population; as the powers of wintertime; and as forces of untamed nature, of death and infertility, and of chaos and destruction. It has also been argued that the giants continually try to steal the goddesses and symbols of order such as the sun and moon not because they are essentially disorderly, but because they have no opportunity for reciprocal exchange with the gods. Conversely, the Æsir practice violence, theft, deception, and oath breaking to gain what they want from giants, but their actions are depicted as justified. As time passed, the negative side of the giants became predominant in the mythology. A differentiation of the various types of giants was apparent in heathen times (jötunn is the generic term, whereas as þurs and troll designate malevolent giants), but the sources, which date from the late heathen or early Christian era, probably also reflect the Christian demonization of pagan mythological figures. Overall, Scandinavian mythology shows that the giants are not an external threat but are ineradicably part of divine society, both as mothers and monsters.”
Comment by dreaming mountain — 12 June 2006 @ 8:23 PM
I think Jungian archetypes are also of vital importance here. The wilderness is the source of power, but it is also unknown and terrifying; as such, it is the archetype of the unconscious mind. The gods represent consciousness, and our attempts to tame and master our own microcosm.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 8:44 PM
I agree with you…but its difficult because to the pre-Christian Germanic folk the gods and goddesses they held dear were as real to them as the soil they farmed and the forests that surrounded them. I think that modern archetypal interpretatiaons fail to honor that fact.
Comment by dreaming mountain — 12 June 2006 @ 9:15 PM
Oh, I disagree. Yes, they were as real to them as our myths about Jesus and such are real to us. That’s why Campbell urges people to study other people’s mythology, regardless of who “other people” might be. But more importantly, if you think that’s a dishonor, then I don’t think you understand what an archetype really is, because they’re just as real as the soil and the wind, too. It’s a much abused term, but in its reality, it is something real, powerful, and profoundly sacred.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 June 2006 @ 9:23 PM
Jason: “Oh, I disagree. Yes, they were as real to them as our myths about Jesus and such are real to us.”
dm: Who is “us”, though? The myth of Jesus is about as real to me as the concept of a free market economy, however to a devout Christian who believes he or she has had a “personal encounter with Christ” I have no doubt that his existence is as real as rain falling from the sky.
For modern industrial humans, understanding of pre-modern myth, as pre-modern peoples themselves would have understood it is extremely difficult. I’m not a fan of Campbell. Even the best modern scholars have a dual load of Christian and secular, post-Enlightenment baggage that they cannot help but drag into their work.
This makes the true worldview of pre-Christian Heathenry difficult to fully fathom by the descendents of those who destroyed it, as its suppression and eventually eradication by monothesim and the later eclipse of monotheism by secular sciences ultimately make it (pre-Chrsitian Germanic Heathenry) thoroughly alien to those reared in later eras.
I think with Germanic myth this situation is even more complicated, as the mythology recorded in classic Sagas and Eddas was compiled by Christians after Christianity had driven the old ways to their knees, leaving only wisps of what was once undoubtedly a complex pre-Christian theology.
Jason: “But more importantly, if you think that’s a dishonor, then I don’t think you understand what an archetype really is, because they’re just as real as the soil and the wind, too.
dm: Oddly enough, I’m a transpersonally trained psychotherapist…so I feel pretty comfortable with my grasp of archetypes.
And while archetypal interpretations of reality may be powerful and profoundly sacared…they are also extremely anthropocentric. To the archetypist, “gods” are not objective beings, but rather part of the very fabric of human consciousness, existing through the human thought field and not independent of it. They are as reliant upon human beings as we are upon them.
But my point is not whether this is right or wrong per se, but that from even a cursory reading of the eddaic and sagaic literature it is clear that anceint Heathens did not view the Sacred Powers as subjective or interpersonal shadows of a collective conscience, but rather as objective, personalized beings independent of humanity. I think that to draw interpretations from mythology and recast them though the fogged lens of our own worldview in an effort to suit our own needs and desires is, if not a dangerous action, then a dubious one at best.
As an aside, I was speaking to a friend the other day who dubbed you the “Noam Chomsky of the primitivist milieu” and to an extent, I’ve got to agree. The amount and variance of information you through up on the net is astounding!
–DM
Comment by dreaming mountain — 13 June 2006 @ 10:17 PM
I thought you might not understand archetypes, or at least, not understand them the same way I understand them. From my reading of Jung, archetypes are the templates of all existence. Synchronicity pushes them beyond the confines of the merely human psychology, and elevates them to the templates of existence itself. Humans do not make archetypes; archetypes make humans. Thus, “Let us make man in our own image, after our image and likeness.” Humans, and the whole universe around us, is formed from archetypes, not archetypes from humans. There is certainly the “safer” and more mundane idea where archetypes are merely expressions of human psychology, but Jung occasionally hints at, and rarely goes into depth about, the wider, cosmic archetypes, and the notion that everything in the universe is just an expression of them. I find that Jung’s archetypes in this sense are very difficult to disentangle from traditional ideas of Spirits, since every individual wolf is just one more experiment the Wolf Spirit tries at existence: itself just one more experiment the Animal Spirit tries at existence: itself just one more experiment the Great Spirit tries at existence….
More importantly, the distinction between perception and reality, between observer and observed, this strange notion that there is a meaningful difference between the individual mind and cosmic truth, is a bizarre superstition that any good shaman would denounce!
As far as Campbell, I love Campbell, and while your skepticism about the Christian’s ability to truly appreciate pre-Christian Heathenism has merit, I would suggest that such is no more (or less) the case for any religion one is not raised in.
I think traditional religion is typically well aware of its operation on multiple, simultaneous levels. I think this is a defining aspect of the holism of orality. I think it is actually a modernist and literate gloss that misses the fact that it is both, for lack of a better word, “literal,” and psychological–and metaphorical and spiritual and a lesson in natural science and many other things besides–all at once. Asking which level is “true” is akin to asking which face of a diamond is the “real” one.
Does that mean I sold out?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 13 June 2006 @ 10:43 PM
Jason: “…while your skepticism about the Christian’s ability to truly appreciate pre-Christian Heathenism has merit, I would suggest that such is no more (or less) the case for any religion one is not raised in.”
dm: Yes, I believe that to be true. In my experience, adopting the worldview of another is almost impossibile. Not to say its not a worthy endeavor to shade or drastically alter one’s worldview (considering the time we have been born into I’d say its vitally important) but total shifts…I’m skeptical that such a thing can truly be done.
I do think that we have an ally in the coming collapse, however, as it will DEMAND shifting and rebirthing on physical, psychological and spiritual planes…but being a pre-collapse human being attempting to adjust to a post collapse Earth will obviously color the totality of our lives and the lives of our early descendents at least.
Jason: “Does that mean I sold out?”
dm: hehe…no, but you are prolific. Too prolific for me to keep up with usually.
Comment by dreaming mountain — 14 June 2006 @ 12:25 AM
You’re right, but I also think you’re talking about a purity that’s not only impossible, but also quite unhealthy. I do not think it is possible or even necessarily wise to try to be “pure” as foragers, heathens, or any other unspoiled type. We’ve come from civilization; we can’t change our past, but we can change our future. I think our challenge is to create a synthesis, to combine the best of both worlds, and to create something new and sustainable, neither wholly indigenous or aboriginal, nor civilized.
In a word, an Afterculture.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 14 June 2006 @ 10:26 AM
Right on…that was definitely my point.
dm
Comment by dreaming mountain — 14 June 2006 @ 11:18 PM
what the hell is all this about?
Comment by Anonymous — 30 December 2007 @ 6:19 AM
I’m sorry, I’m going to have to be the one to dissent here. If there is one thing I know well, it is Norse mythology, and I will not in any way agree that you can divide Loki up into “pre-Christian” and “post-Christian”. Nor will I accept any concept that Loki is somehow innocent. He is a dangerous force. He has his good moments, to be sure, but harmless he is not. It is important to not confuse him with figures from completely different mythological systems. Loki is the force who upsets the balance of craftwork with the natural order, bringing about cosmological disasters where the weather is wrecked, and the forces of technology turn against the natural order. Loki breeds the monsters who will destroy the world. One of his sons, the Fenris wolf, represents war and rapacious hunger (can anyone say consumerism?) out of control ; the other son, the Midgard Serpent, fits in well with Fredy Perlman’s notion of the Octopus as the counterpart of the Leviathan. Superficial readings may render Loki as charming ; of course, sociopaths always are.
Comment by Ziggy — 31 January 2008 @ 9:41 AM
actually, in some ways, you [i]can[/i] divide up Loki into pre/post Christian. Norse mythology shows plentiful evidence of transformations along a number of points, Loki being one of them.
from my own personal experience, yes, Loki is an untrustworthy Trickster, but at least he’s honest about it ;). it’s actually Odin that i find more dangerous, imo.
from the texts we have available to us, it’s clear that Loki was, at one time, fully accepted by the Aesir & Vanir.
so i don’t think that Jason’s premise is entirely off-base. but then, there are a number of things that caused me to shy away from joining an Asatruar church and this article touches on most, if not all, of them, so i expect more than a few Norse Myth/Asatru enthusiasts to disagree with me.
Comment by jhereg — 31 January 2008 @ 11:55 AM
Historically, I don’t think you can make much of an argument that the advent of Christianity didn’t bring with it some much more sinister depictions of Loki, as he becomes a Christian-like Devil figure (see). In the earliest tales, he has a very ambivalent nature; in later tales, after Christianity had taken hold, he loses that ambivalence and becomes a simple demon.
But I think, Ziggy, you’ve mostly responded to a straw man here. When did I call Loki innocent or trustworthy? On the contrary, the very point of my article emphasized that Tricksters present an ambiguous, ambivalent force that does not readily submit to a simple, Manichaean division. That mercurial nature—as you put it so well, “the force who upsets the balance of craftwork with the natural order, bringing about cosmological disasters where the weather is wrecked, and the forces of technology turn against the natural order”—defines the Trickster’s role in just about any mythology. You should never trust a Trickster, and you could never mistake a Trickster for an “innocent.”
But that differs markedly from the deep, demonic figure that Tricksters become in civilized mythology, and that gets us back to the point of the article. With the advent of Christianity, people could simply not deal with Loki acting in such an ambiguous manner. He could not vascilate between good and evil, with his sole real allegiance lying with chaos, the way he did in the pre-Christian myths. Civilization cannot tolerate ambivalence or ambiguity, which the real world positively brims with. So, what it cannot classify as purely good, it must push into purely evil. So you see, again and again, Tricksters like Loki taking on darker and darker hues, until they’ve become entirely evil. That doesn’t mean they didn’t have a certain amount of darkness to them to begin with; it means that we can’t tolerate ambivalence, so when we find a character as ambivalent as Loki, we have to push him into some extreme.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 31 January 2008 @ 12:55 PM
I have no desire to tolerate an “ambivalence” that is willing to destroy that which makes for a good life. I’m willing to call it “evil”. Loki comes from an Indo-European context, which is inherently dualistic. It has nothing to do with Christianity. It’s much deeper. It’s related to the dualism one finds in a Vedic or a Zoroastrian context. The only good to be found is in recognizing scoundrels before they can do too much damage, and making sure they’re bound and/or exiled where they can’t do damage to the community …
Comment by Ziggy — 2 February 2008 @ 12:14 AM
That kind of dualism is precisely the simplistic attitude I’m condemning. As I argued here, it’s an ideological consequence of agriculture. Yes, you’ll find it in plenty of agricultural societies beyond Christianity, but it’s certainly not a universally Indo-European trait. Only with the advent of agriculture did people find it necessary to shoe-horn everything into one of only two possible categories. When you’re too ready to “recognize scoundrels,” to make sure they’re “bound and/or exiled,” then you miss the crucial roles such Tricksters provide: creativity, vigor, and keeping things fresh and dynamic. When you demonize the Trickster—that is, when you lose the desire to tolerate ambivalence, and gain a willingness to call it “evil”—you lose one of the most creative, important elements that keeps a culture from becoming stagnant and repressive.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 February 2008 @ 12:55 AM
Loki ISN’T a “Trickster”!
You’re applying a non-Indo-European concept to an Indo-European figure.
THIS figure is the one who is RESPONSIBLE for technology going out of control. He breeds forces that will destroy the world.
There isn’t any “ambivalence” or “ambiguity” about it! That’s simple ethical relativism, which is bankrupt.
To illustrate what I mean, let’s take a guy who everyone in the community thinks is a good guy. He helps people out. He’s generous. But he molests his children. There’s no ambiguity about it. The guy’s a scumbag.
Or someone who all the guys like. But he beats his wife. The guy’s a scumbag. Calling it “ambiguity” and saying, “Well, he makes some positive contributions to society” is irrelevant. I’m sure many people like a murderer. But we don’t say, Well, y’know, the little good he did is still worth it. We say, Begone, Be Outcast, Go Far From Here. Outcasting was in fact a quite tribal response to those who had simply broken too many sacred laws.
It’s just not worth it when you put the actions on a balance beam. There’s nothing “Christian” about that or “agricultural”. It’s just plain good common sense. “I’m sorry, whatever good you once did, you’re a menace, and you’ve got to go. We don’t want you around here.”
Loki is a sociopath. The “good” he does is to save his own ass when he realizes that he is in trouble for the trouble he’s caused. Personally, I don’t see any “creativity” or refreshment coming out of such trouble and misery.
We might need figures who stir things up from time to time, but that is different from saboteurs and antagonists pretending they’re our friends while stabbing us behind our backs.
Ethical relativists’ refusal to be able to say the word “evil” just shows a lack of fibre. There are some things that are evil relative to living a good life, and there’s no shame in so saying. Hunter gatherers are known to kill snakes or spiders if they find them in their own huts. They’re not going to be like “peace out” to something dangerous in their own quarters. They’ll recognize the danger and deal with it.
Just because I recognize evil doesn’t mean I classify the entire universe according to dichotomies. Good has a rich spectrum of colors.
Comment by Ziggy — 2 February 2008 @ 5:02 AM
That’s simply nonsense. The Trickster is not a Native American concept, it’s a universal mythological archetype. Most Indo-European cultures have Tricksters: not just Loki, but Hermes, Gwydion, Reynard the Fox, Puck, Odysseus, Veles, and even the patriarch Jacob. In asserting that Loki isn’t a Trickster, you’re running counter to basically every mythological expert over the past fifty years. In suggesting that the Trickster is “a non-Indo-European concept,” you’re simply showing that you either don’t know what the Trickster is, or don’t understand Indo-European cultures. Now, I will grant you that over the most recent 2,000 years, the spread of Christianity has made Tricksters more common in folklore than in religion for the reasons this article outlines, but that is a fairly trivial distinction.
In the later myths, when he’s demonized. Which is the problem. In the early myths, Loki acts for good as often as he acts for evil. He isn’t responsible for technology going out of control. The early myths probably did include him breeding the monsters of Ragnarok, but they also included myths like Loki rebuilding the walls of Asgard. The whole point of the Trickster character is that the represent not good or evil, but chaos, which sometimes results in good, and sometimes results in evil, but is ultimately where all the vitality of the universe comes from. Norse mythology is ultimately a very stoic, nihilistic mythology in its original formulation. The whole point of it is that the gods know they will die, but they continue onward. Loki’s brood may ultimately bring about the end of the world, but in the meantime, he’s also the main architect of the world having meaning. He’s the reason why Odin collects the souls of the dead in Valhalla; he’s the reason bravery and strength and all those Norse virtues matter. Even Wikipedia summarizes that much of the archetype in its first paragraph on the Trickster:
With Loki, as I said in the article, you’re looking at a figure where we can see, historically, the process of demonization. So yes, if you apply the later, Christianized stories, where Loki becomes a stand-in for the Devil, where mankind is reborn after Ragnarok in a vision not unlike the Apocalypse of St. John, and Baldur becomes a Christ-figure that Loki slays, then yes, there isn’t much that’s ambiguous or ambivalent about him. But those stories took on an increasingly darker hue as Christianity developed, because agricultural societies could not tolerate figures as ambivalent as Loki originally was, so they demonized him. They downplayed the stories where his antics led to good outcomes, made his motivations more and more malicious, and focused on the stories where his actions caused great woe and destruction. That’s what it means to demonize a Trickster. But in the original stories, he’s far more ambivalent; when you exclude the later stories, his actions lead to good consequences as often as they lead to bad ones. In fact, it’s mostly a fallacy to try to box them into “good” or “bad” at all. They’re creative, and what they do, first and foremost, is to keep the universe alive. I think there’s an undercurrent in the story of Ragnarok that actually underlies that. The zeal of the Aesir to put everything in order ultimately outdoes them. They chain up Loki and all his brood, and the world becomes stagnant. The Fimbulvinter becomes the ultimate expression of how lifeless the world becomes without the creative input of the chained-up Trickster. And because of that, the bonds loose and they’re all released, all at once. That kind of pent-up eruption is too much, and it destroys the world. But is that the fault of the creative force of the Trickster, or is it the fault of the tightly-ordered Aesir who tried to contain that force until the world began to die from it, and it exploded in their face?
Absolutely. I can’t remember who it was who said we judge work by the best example, and people by the worst example. A nice guy who occasionally murders people is still a murderer. But Tricksters don’t molest children, because they’re not villains. They’re ambiguous; nothing they do is really motivated by evil, though it might lead to bad ends as often as it leads to good ends. They’re more chaotic than that. They break the rules, they play pranks and jokes, they shift shape. For the most part, they’re not out to harm or help; they’re mostly just acting on impulse. Sometimes they’re foolish, and sometimes they’re cunning, but they also are generally one of the primary mythological figures because while everyone else is setting the way the universe should be, they’re the ones that bring the universe to life. Do you remember which myth it was where Loki molested some children? Because I don’t think there is one. The closest I can remember is when he stopped the frost giant from taking Freyja away, but the only thing that got molested there was Loki’s own, poor, sore butthole.
Depends on the law. You’re describing the Devil here, not the Trickster. The Trickster breaks the laws, but not maliciously like a wife-beater or a child-molester. He breaks much smaller laws, like, “don’t steal Freyja’s necklace, even for the Allfather, and certainly don’t then proceed to steal it back from the Allfather to give it back to Freyja.”
No, what’s agricultural (and specifically, in Loki’s case, Christian, insofar as Christianity is agricultural) is not being able to tolerate a figure who doesn’t play by the rules, constantly breaks his promises and minor taboos, and is as often the source of everything good in the world as everything bad in it, so you invent some new stories to push him into total evil. You have him outright murder Baldur, which I have to admit, even in my first readings of Norse myth, simply felt out of place and out of character. It’s not about exiling someone who’s done horrible, horrible things, it’s about attributing horrible, horrible things to someone to justify exiling them, because the ambivalence of the character is something you simply cannot tolerate.
Certainly, in the later tales that come from a more Christian influence, he is a sociopath. In the earlier tales, he’s still a coward who gets himself in a lot of trouble, and often finds some rather creative ways to get himself out of trouble, but that’s precisely what makes him a Trickster. He isn’t really out to hurt or help anyone; that would make him either good or evil. He just knocks things out of order. That’s what makes him the refreshing, creative force. A culture that becomes increasingly obsessed with order needs to turn Loki into something more sinister; have him simply murder Baldur, turn him into a Devil, and then exile him. So you exile the creative force disturbing your order, so all you have is lifeless, dull, order. The world itself grows weary and wants to die, because there’s no one there to upset the order from time to time and renew life. Fimbulvinter sets in.
Exactly. The latter is what Loki is in the oldest stories. The former is what he becomes in the newer, more Christian-influenced stories. That’s how we can see the historical process of demonizing a Trickster in Loki’s myths.
But hunter-gatherers don’t go out to kill all snakes and spiders, either. There’s a difference between recognizing something as dangerous, and labeling it evil. Snakes and spiders are dangerous to humans, but they’re certainly not evil. We’re dangerous to our prey animals or the plants we gather, but we’re not evil.
But I’m not saying that the Devil isn’t evil. I’m saying that our need to demonize a figure that is not good or evil says a great deal about us.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 February 2008 @ 10:11 AM
Jason, I am trying to share with you reflections stemming from my experience and expertise in this matter, and I ask that you take what I am saying in this light. I’ve written a 1200 page book on the topic of Norse religion, and therefore I’m in a place to know what I’m talking about. I am not simply some random individual spouting off his opinion about this matter. I am not trying to be antagonistic. I appreciate playful troublemakers myself so long as they are not sociopathic saboteurs.
Your point about Tricksters in general I am not taking issue with (although I’ll point out that Trickster-studies have diversified, with many older theories being challenged). I’m merely pointing out that Loki — in his OLDEST FORMS — does NOT fit the model you’re building here. You’re trying to imply a Christian demonization of Loki, and I’m telling you that he was already a demonic force WAAAAAAAY back into Indo-European times, long before anyone had ever even heard of Christ. He’s a saboteur, a sociopath, and an antagonist pretending to be people’s friends while stabbing them in the back. The entire POINT of the story is a cautionary tale about exercising discernment about who you let into your inner circles, and making sure you don’t allow sociopaths to have reign.
“In the early myths, Loki acts for good as often as he acts for evil. He isn’t responsible for technology going out of control.”
No, that’s just the point. In the earliest parts of the Indo-European epic, that is precisely what he does.
“The early myths probably did include him breeding the monsters of Ragnarok, but they also included myths like Loki rebuilding the walls of Asgard. The whole point of the Trickster character is that the represent not good or evil, but chaos, which sometimes results in good, and sometimes results in evil, but is ultimately where all the vitality of the universe comes from.”
I’m sorry, as I said, it just ain’t worth it. I don’t get any “vitality” from sociopaths. Sorry. It ain’t working for me. And he didn’t rebuild the walls of Asgard. He made a perilous (at best!) deal with a jotunn who made outrageous demands, (and it is the jotunn who rebuilt the walls) and then when it seemed like he wasn’t going to be able to pull off the deal without the gods losing everything that was precious, he had to go to extra measures to make sure the jotunn and his stallion weren’t able to finish the job in time. I will grant that the birth of Sleipnir was one of the very few actually good things that resulted from Loki’s actions. That much is admitted by everyone. But that is far outweighed by breeding monsters that destroy the world.
“He just knocks things out of order. That’s what makes him the refreshing, creative force. A culture that becomes increasingly obsessed with order needs to turn Loki into something more sinister; have him simply murder Baldur, turn him into a Devil, and then exile him. So you exile the creative force disturbing your order, so all you have is lifeless, dull, order. The world itself grows weary and wants to die, because there’s no one there to upset the order from time to time and renew life.”
I’m sorry, that’s not how it works. You’re imposing a framework onto this material that it can’t and won’t fit into. You’re not getting that Loki IS NOT A “CREATIVE FORCE”. I understand what you’re getting at. There CAN be disruptive-creative forces that rejuvenate life. Loki ain’t one of them. The idea that our world will “grow weary, lifeless, [and] dull” because people aren’t trying to burn our houses down or kill one of our brothers or any other of a number of acts of mayhem just doesn’t fly with me. Pranks are one thing ; mayhem is another. Loki is a saboteur. He has his reasons for what he does, and I’m compassionate to those so far as they go, but that still doesn’t mean that being bound isn’t the best thing for him — until he can at least learn to play without causing utter mayhem.
Fredy Perlman suggests that even amongst a genuine North American Trickster, exile and banishment was seen as appropriate if the mayhem went too far :
“Potawatomi storytellers of the Great Lakes told of a certain Wiscke, an ancient trickster who, long ago, almost became Archon over Neshnabe, over free people … Yet the Council banished Wiske.” (Fredy Perlman, “Against History, Against Leviathan”, p. 240)
“And of course they know what to do about the long-membered one: expel him from their communities, exile him to lands where life is nasty, brutish and short, push him away from the lush and teeming woodlands and lakes.” (Ibid., p. 262.)
To me, it’s one thing to say, well, we’ve got this guy, and sometimes he stirs things up and causes some trouble, but he’s not antagonistic towards the community, and really brings some refreshing life in from time to time. Ok, that’s a particular personality profile. It’s quite another thing to say, well, we’ve got this guy in the community, he’s really a black ops agent, but hey, y’know, no problem, let’s let him stay because how could we imagine life being exciting without continual sabotage of our existence?
Loki doesn’t need to be a “devil” or “demonized” in order to be a force of sabotage so dangerous that he needs to be exiled. And he was exiled and bound from the very first, long before Christianity.
“No, what’s agricultural (and specifically, in Loki’s case, Christian, insofar as Christianity is agricultural) is not being able to tolerate a figure who doesn’t play by the rules, constantly breaks his promises and minor taboos, and is as often the source of everything good in the world as everything bad in it, so you invent some new stories to push him into total evil. You have him outright murder Baldur, which I have to admit, even in my first readings of Norse myth, simply felt out of place and out of character.”
Um, Loki ADMITS to killing Baldur, in his own words. He is the “radbani” of the event. If that feels “out of character”, you’re not getting the character. Loki projects all of those fun characteristics you’re probably liking, but that is the charm of a sociopath. Sociopaths are often quite fun, charming, playful, and “who could complain” about their little pranks? Yah, until they start burning down grandmothers’ houses. Then they smile and say, “What? Wasn’t that fun, too?”
Someone who doesn’t play by the rules and constantly breaks his promises might be a force of “chaos”, or he might be a sociopath. This isn’t all fun-loving stuff. We’re not discussing a neutral-chaos here or a life-affirmative chaos, but a mayhem-oriented chaos.
Now just exactly what that is good in the world is Loki a source of? Sleipnir? Ok, I’ve granted that. He is creative when he’s saving his own ass. Do we refer to the gifts to the gods that the Sons of Ivaldi and Brokk and Sindri crafted? But he didn’t make those. Do we credit him with the creation of the fish-net in Gylfaginning 50? But he didn’t invent that. We know he got the net from Ran. Do we say, well, he retrieved Idunn for the Aesir? That is no net-good because he was the one who took her away in the first place! So that counts for nothing, as it was only a restorative act that cancelled out the ill he had already done. Do we say, well, he brought the wergild for Ottr? But he killed Ottr. Moreover, he goes about this in such a way as to cause the curse of the Rheingold, which brings untold misery to generations of people. I’m willing to credit him the help he gives the little child in Lokatattur, and indeed, he goes to quite some trouble to help that child, and so we’ll give that to him as a total good and gain.
So let’s add it up :
GOOD :
1. Gift of Sleipnir.
2. Helping out a child.
Those are indeed good things. If we knew nothing else about a figure, or even if we had heard that he was a little bit of a troublemaker, but we knew he’d done those things, we might shrug. But let’s look at the other side of the equation :
MAYHEM :
1. Generates strife between clans of crafters leading to catastrophe.
2. Generates Three Monsters who will destroy the world. One of them will kill someone who is supposed to be his blood-brother, and the other will kill his blood-brother’s son.
3. Openly admits to bringing about Baldur’s death. But by waiting to admit this until Hodur has paid for the crime with his life, he’s also cleverly brought about the death of Hodur.
4. Brings about the curse of the Rheingold.
#1,2, and 3 outweigh anything in our first column in terms of sheer weight, while even in terms of numbers, the number of acts of mayhem outnumber the good acts. If I had someone in my community whose balance sheet was this lopsided, and had been such a source of mayhem, I’d toss him out, wouldn’t you?
“But those stories took on an increasingly darker hue as Christianity developed, because agricultural societies could not tolerate figures as ambivalent as Loki originally was, so they demonized him.”
The Indo-European societies were agricultural / pastoral long before Christianity came around, and Loki is a product of an Indo-European society. If you want to extend your argument about Christianity and point out that Indo-European societies, agricultural/pastoral as they were, were engaged in similar processes relative to mythological figures identified elsewhere as Tricksters, that would be a perfectly reasonable thesis. One might wonder how Loki might have looked if he had been conceived in a non-Indo-European context. But it’s not Christianity that had these effects on him. In fact, if anything, in the older heathen poems, he’s even more sinister than in Snorri’s stories, generating an ambush on Thor.
“Depends on the law. You’re describing the Devil here, not the Trickster. The Trickster breaks the laws, but not maliciously like a wife-beater or a child-molester. He breaks much smaller laws, like, “don’t steal Freyja’s necklace, even for the Allfather, and certainly don’t then proceed to steal it back from the Allfather to give it back to Freyja.””
Hey, such things I’m willing to put beneath notice, even as I put his multiple adulteries beneath notice. Whatever. But Loki’s crimes make a wife-beater or child-molester seem like small fry. And yes, from the most heathen of sources.
“Absolutely. I can’t remember who it was who said we judge work by the best example, and people by the worst example. A nice guy who occasionally murders people is still a murderer. But Tricksters don’t molest children, because they’re not villains. They’re ambiguous; nothing they do is really motivated by evil,”
That’s why I say that Loki is NOT a Trickster. When you go back into the older heathen sources, there is an undeniably sinister side to him, regardless of how likeable he is. That doesn’t mean that I see Loki as “the Devil”. To do that, I would have to invest ALL evil-power in him, and make him the SOLE AUTHOR of all evil, and the one force opposing the forces of good. That doesn’t happen in Norse mythology. He’s of an entire nation of jotnar who engage in all kinds of mayhem in the world. There are all KINDS of things one has to watch out for, not just Loki. But Loki’s one of them.
If I weren’t convinced of a) several serious and grave crimes on his part, and b)that these are of heathen, not post-Christian provenance, I would tend to take your position and argue that there’s no point turning a mere troublemaker into a sociopath and saboteur. And in my defense, I began with that assumption, and insisted on taking Loki’s best with good faith at every step of the way. Despite all that, I have been forced by preponderance of evidence to not turn away from his crimes.
Don’t get me wrong. I like Laufeysson. I really do. In his best moments I can appreciate his point of view. And within reasonable bounds, I wish him well. To paraphrase from Fiddler on the Roof,
“May God Bless and Keep Loki —- Far Away From Us!!!”
Comment by Ziggy — 2 February 2008 @ 9:06 PM
That’s interesting, but I don’t see anywhere that you’ve used your real name, and you don’t mention the book’s title. Could you give me a citation? I’d like to look it up.
I don’t doubt that you know what you’re talking about, but I hope you’re not expecting me to substitute your judgment for my own because you wrote a long book! As Pascal wrote, “I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.” I kid, but until I’ve had a chance to look at the book in question, I can hardly use it as a standard to judge by. But that’s neither here nor there for our discussion; an argument from authority is a logical fallacy. We have plenty of evidence to discuss, and I have no reason to doubt your familiarity with it.
A perfectly respectable position to take, but do you have any evidence for it? There are, of course, any number of people who’ve offered evidence counter to it. I’m hardly the first person to make this claim. What I could find quickly online to back me up included Stefanie von Schnurbein’s 2000 article in History of Religions, “The Function of Loki in Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Edda’,” specifically that “the prominent function Snorri allows Loki to assume in Baldr’s death could be traced to Christian influences.” I’m sure you’re even more aware than I of the problems of Christian glosses applied by Snorri in the Prose Edda.
If the more sinister tales are older than current evidence suggests, which is what you need to prove, I think. For instance, did Loki play a major role in Baldr’s death? In later versions of the tale, he is the architect of the entire affair. In earlier versions, such as Baldrs draumar, Loki’s role is suspiciously lacking. Here are stanzas 8 and 9 or Baldrs draumar, from Larrington’s translation:
No mention of Loki; in fact, the earliest connection drawn to Loki occurs in the Prose Edda, written by Snorri Sturluson, a devout Christian who applied a great many Christianizing updates to the old myths.
Can you point to some evidence for that assertion?
Here’s an example: ask your average Christian for the Christmas story, and it will likely include both shepherds and magi, even though the shepherds appear only in Luke, and the magi only in Matthew. Later on, we synthesized them. When read from the original sources, the stories change a great deal.
The earlier stories are the ones where Loki does good, or at least ambivalent, things. The earliest evidence of Loki that I know of comes from carvings of him giving birth to Sleipnir. Now, you can certainly find plenty of evidence for Loki-as-sociopath, but look where that evidence comes from. The murder of Baldr is probably the best example, but is there any source that implicates Loki before Snorri Sturluson? That would suggest that before the influence of Christianity, Loki was a much more ambivalent god, not because murdering Baldr was considered ambivalent, but because in the earlier version, he didn’t murder Baldr. I’m not saying the interpretation changed, I’m saying the stories changed to make him more malevolent, the stories put Loki behind everything bad that happened. Neither am I claiming that it was necessarily Christians behind that change, at least directly; it could just as easily be more modern pagans, trying to keep the myths competitive with the rather seductive allure of a simple dichotomy of black and white. It certainly makes the world simple, if nothing else.
That’s rather the point: I’m making the claim that he wasn’t always a sociopath. People couldn’t handle his ambiguous nature, so they invented some new stories about him that made him a sociopath.
Is it? Loki’s children by Sigyn, Narfi and Vali, simply become Odin’s victims. His three children by Angrboda play a role in Ragnarok, sure, but that’s not the only thing they do. Neither did Loki breed them to destroy the world; his children, like him, are chaotic forces, forces that make the world change. When the prophecies predicted that they would bring trouble for the Aesir, they bound Jörmungandr in the sea (but that doesn’t stop Thor from basically tormenting the snake on his fishing trip, or trying to lift his paw in cat form), cast Hel into the land of the dead, and hunted down and chained Fenrir. Fenrir grows too big for his chains; ultimately, trying to contain those chaotic forces leads to Ragnarok far more directly than Loki’s siring of them. The prophecy is self-fulfilling.
Jörmungandr is the chaos of the sea. Fenrir and his children chase the sun and moon through the sky, creating day and night. Hel’s name comes from the Indo-European word for “hider”; she’s a chthonic god, including the dead, buried secrets, and the past itself. She, too, became demonized with the spread of Christianity, originally appearing as a fairly neutral, chthonic goddess. They contribute to Ragnarok mostly because of the lengths the gods go to, in order to keep them from contributing to Ragnarok. The Aesir’s attempts to control the chaotic forces of change leads to the end of the world far more directly than anything Loki ever did.
No, that’s not it; I’m not getting what evidence exists to suggest that Loki is not a creative force. From the stories I can see with the earliest evidence, that’s precisely what he is. Can you show me some evidence that the stories where Loki does act like a sociopath are older? Because that would change things. I know Loki certainly is not ambiguous whatsoever in the stories that stand now; the real question is, when did those stories emerge?
Agreed. There are plenty of stories with Loki as prankster, even Loki as coward. And then, dating from a later time, stories of Loki as sociopath. Pranks are one thing; mayhem is another. In the earliest stories, Loki pulls pranks. In the later stories, he commits mayhem. He burns down houses and kills brothers. If you want to prove your point, what you really need to provide is some evidence that those stories aren’t as late as they appear. For instance, if you could prove that Loki was involved in Baldr’s murder in stories dating back to, say, 800, then I’d have to cede the point. But saying that murdering Baldr makes Loki a sociopath doesn’t really get us anywhere; we both recognize that much. What we’re really differing on is whether Loki was always Baldr’s murderer, or did Loki become Baldr’s murderer as he was shifted from ambiguous Trickster to sociopathic Devil? I’ve suggested that Loki’s myth show a historical process of a Trickster turned into a Devil; arguing that Loki as he stands now is a Devil hardly overturns that point.
Agreed. That’s why Tricksters are different from Devils. The former is a Trickster; the latter, a Devil. What this article analyzes is how we cannot tolerate Tricksters, so we turn them into Devils. The story changes. Originally, they were not antagonistic, stirred up trouble, but generally made life interesting. But when we can’t handle that, we change the stories to make them saboteurs and sociopaths. You get Snorri turning Loki into the grand mastermind behind Baldr’s murder, where previously it had simply been Hod, all by himself. Snorri tells us, no, it wasn’t Hod; it was Loki, and he just used Hod. The story changed. If we’re talking about post-Christian Loki, I agree with you completely. But I’m talking about Loki’s transformation, from a Trickster, into a Devil. Now, maybe you can make the argument that post-Christian Loki is identical to pre-Christian Loki, and that no change took place, but assuming that would be begging the argument. That’s what needs to be proven. You need to provide us with some evidence that these stories that qualify Loki as a sociopath aren’t actually as recent as they appear.
So where’s the evidence for this claim? Where’s the pre-Christian stories where Loki is a saboteur and a sociopath? You keep stating this baldly, but that is the very substance of the argument, it is precisely what you need to prove!
In Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, in which he changed many of the myths to make them more compatible with his Christian religion. The question isn’t whether or not Loki’s a Devil in the post-Christian myths; the question is whether or not those stories are older than Christianity. For that, I see no evidence.
Or, there’s actually two different characters: the original Trickster, and the Devil he was turned into. You get this kind of thing when somebody picks up a character and takes him in a radically different direction. Ask any Robert Howard fan what he thinks of L. Sprague de Camp’s Conan. I always got a similar vibe from Loki in Baldr’s stories. It doesn’t fit with the older material; he suddenly becomes a sociopath out of nowhere.
That really only works if you assume Snorri made no changes. Yes, if we want to make sense of the character with all the stories as presented currently, your interpretation is dead on. But the question is, were some of these stories added later to change Loki’s character? Then, that mismatch isn’t a sociopath’s charm, it’s the seam where two characters were patched together. So, if you assume that no changes were made to the story, then you have evidence that no changes were made to the story. It’s circular. Unless you can provide evidence for the antiquity of those aspects of Loki’s character, it’s simply a tautological assertion without evidence.
You’re begging the question here again; are we talking about a mayhem-oriented chaos, or a life-affirmative chaos? Let me bring this down to earth a bit more: Baldr-murdering-Loki is a force of mayhem-oriented chaos. So, if we took a look at Loki in 800, did he kill Baldr, or was that something that was added later, as Loki was demonized, because people became uncomfortable with the very idea that chaos can be life-affirming, and began changing the stories to make all chaos mayhem-oriented? Did people start to add in, “No, Hod didn’t really kill Baldr; you see, it was Loki, who tricked Hod,” later on? That’s the question. We agree that murdering Baldr crosses the line from Trickster to Devil. The question is: when did people begin identifying Loki as the Devil? Was he always the Devil, or was that added later? The Poetic Edda doesn’t mention any of Loki’s sociopathic acts. Snorri does. Doesn’t that suggest that in an earlier version of the story, Loki was a very different character?
You just described the typical Trickster to a T. They rarely invent their gifts; more often, they steal them. Just like Prometheus stole fire from the gods. It’s still thanks to Loki that the gods got them.
Firstly, I think your list is decidedly biased; you’ve systematically discounted everything a Trickster offers! And, we’ve already discussed most of the items in your “mayhem” list, but ultimately, a list of pro’s and con’s seems a bit superficial for a question like this, don’t you think?
Not all of them. Indo-European is a language stock, not necessarily a way of life. The Norse were practicing a much smaller-scale kind of agriculture, one that involved foraging (fishing, specifically) much more than most. Is it an untainted, aboriginal culture? By no means, but it shows elements common to many cultures, sometimes more strongly than other European societies with a more developed agriculture. As that system of increased complexity penetrated Scandinavia (which happened to include Christianity at that point), the cultural ramifications of greater complexity began to occur, including a distinct discomfort with the Trickster that is so pivotal to life in less complex societies. That that transformation happened to take place as Christianization is rather incidental, but it is specific.
Are you referring to the story in which he’s introduced to the Aesir? These are the stories I’d like to have some evidence for. If they are as old as you say, that would change things, but you haven’t provided evidence for these claims here, you’ve simply stated them baldly.
Evidence for this?
Evidence for this?
I’m not sure of that; most Christian theologians say that human free will is capable of generating a good amount of evil all on its own. But I think you’re taking my use of the term Devil a bit too literally here; I’m really just talking about any sinister, sociopathic god of mayhem and destruction.
Then I think we’re mostly agreed but for one detail: I don’t see any evidence for (B). I think that’s the crux of the argument. I think that’s what needs to be proven.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 3 February 2008 @ 1:02 AM
Lokasenna 28 :
“Loki kvað:
“…
ek því réð,
er þú ríða sér-at
síðan Baldr at sölum.”"
“Because I plotted/planned/designed
that you see not riding
Balder anymore to the halls.”
That’s my translation. Compare :
“I am the cause
that thou seest not
Baldr riding to the halls.” (Thorpe)
and
“Mine is the blame that Baldr no more
Thou seest ride home to the hall.” (Bellows)
Before he admits this, he says,
“Enn vill þú, Frigg,
at ek fleiri telja
mína meinstafi;”
“Yet will thou, Frigg,
that I should tally up more
of my harmful charms/spells/runes?”
He knows he’s admitting something terrible, and in fact is proud of the fact. “Mein” means “hurt, harm, injury, damage, disease”. Freya calls these deeds in 29 “leiðstafi”, “loathsome runes.”
Lokasenna 33, 39, and 41 all make clear reference to Loki giving birth to the monsters, including Fenris.
And to top it off, Gefjun, whom Odin describes as knowing all of the orlog of old (21), says of Loki, “ok hann fjörg öll fíá.”, “”and he life all hates.”
Now whether you configure that as “And he hates all life”, or “And all of life hates him”, it amounts to pretty much the same thing.
Finally, it is this poem which reveals that Loki was exiled and bound to the rock.
That’s in Lokasenna, a legitimate Eddic poem in Codex Regius. It’s heathen. So, from a heathen source, we have Loki’s open admission to bringing about Baldur’s death, and the open knowledge that he birthed the monsters. Because of this, Gefjun says that “all of life hates him” (or “he hates all life”). This follows, because everyone, except Loki (assuming we identify Thokk with Loki, as Snorri does) wept for Baldur.
Hollander points out that Snorri quotes a slightly different version, proving that he was familiar with the already-existing poem, and that it had greater circulation.
“For the text of the lay we are altogether dependent on the Codex Regius. However, this text was not used as a source by Snorri, though he quotes one stanza (29) in a slightly different form. The weight of evidence points to Norway as a place of origin, and suggests the latter half of the tenth century as the period of composition.” (Lee Milton Hollander, The Poetic Edda, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, 1962, p. 90.)
Hollander’s sources lead him to date it somewhere between 950 and 1000 AD, before the Christian conversion in Iceland. Another source dates this poem to the same time period :
“The Lokasenna was probably only a century later in origin than the Old Saxon Heliand and Genesis…” (Scandinavian Language Periodicals, Publications of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, Urbana, Illinois, 1916, p. 248. Heliand is about 825 AD.)
We are still well within heathen times and the Viking Age.
Alaric Hall, Elves in Anglo-Saxon England : Matters of Belief, Health, Gender, and Identity , The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2007, p.36 says that Lokasenna is “a tightly constructed poem and mythologically well informed.”
Hyndluljod 38 and 39 confirm Loki’s begetting of the wolves. Hyndluljod, which appears in Flateyjarbok, contains (in stanzas 29 -44)another even earlier poem, Voluspa en skamma, which Snorri quotes, and so which obviously predated him. The material in Voluspa en skamma is highly mythological, and thus of older provenance.
So, I’ve amply demonstrated here, from heathen sources, that Loki :
1. Brought about Baldur’s death.
2. Birthed the Monsters of mayhem.
3. Was exiled (and bound) for his crime.
These are all heathen figures. Whatever Snorri may have added, he added upon this base.
There are Indo-European parallels. Amongst the Greeks, there was a figure whose name means “Mocker” (Momus), who was brother to Strife, Fraud, and Nemesis, known for setting people in strife, and who was eventually banished by Zeus for his strife-causing. If we bracket the strong possibility that Momus is simply a heiti for Prometheus, then we also have the example of Prometheus, the Greek Loki cognate, also a troublemaker, being bound to a rock. Several other examples from Indo-European mythology could be edduced. Suffice it to say that the troublemaker bound to the rock is an ancient IE motif, and Loki is square within that pre-Christian tradition.
Furthermore, the strife that Loki causes between the Sons of Ivaldi and the brothers Brokk and Sindri, artisans of nature and the weather, which results in such terrible woe for the world, can be found in the Greek tradition (with the elves’ cognates the Telchines), between the Rbhus and Tvastar in the Rig Veda, and traces of the resulting weather havoc can also be found in Avesta. It’s a widespread Indo-European story, probably related to some ancient disaster or drastic weather-shift. If you’re looking for people who demonized the Trickster by blaming horrible events on them, it is to this long-gone pre-Christian era amongst the Indo-Europeans you might want to look.
Further confirmation of some of these traits of Loki comes from Voluspa, the quintessential heathen poem. 36 and 37 describe the murder of Baldur, and 38, which directly follows, mentions Loki bound in the underworld. The allusion is clear.
Furthermore, using Vegtamskvida as an argument that Loki was not involved, because the vala there only mentions Hodur being the cause doesn’t quite work either, because one has to consider the source. Odin essentially calls her Angrboda in verse 19 by accusing her of being the mother of three monsters, a known reference to Angrboda, who is Loki’s accomplice in birthing the monsters of mayhem! It would not suit the purpose of two saboteurs working together to reveal who had really brought about the death, because by avoiding that connection, two deaths can be brought about : Baldur and Hodur, who had previously worked together as a team (and were known in IE cognates as the Asvins and the Dioscuri).
Thorsdrapa, a heathen poem, argues that Loki led Thor into a full ambush :
“The father of the sea-thread [Loki] set about urging the feller of the life-net of the gods of the flight-ledges [Þórr] to leave home. Loptr [Loki] was a mighty liar. The deceitful mind-tester of the war-thunder’s Gautr [Loki] declared that green paths led towards Geirröðr’s wall-horse [house].”
Loki sets the thing up, letting Thor think that everything will be ok, and an attempt is made on Thor’s life. This attempt fails, but that does not touch the fact of the treason.
In Saxo Grammaticus’ History of the Danes, Book One, we find Odin instructing the young hero Hadding in how to escape the clutches of “Loker”, described as both a “tyrant” and a “foe”, who is surrounded by ravenous beasts. Loker tries to have his beasts devour Hadding, but Odin’s instructions allow the young hero to escape. It is generally admitted that Loker is Loki, and the fact that Loker is surrounded by ravenous beasts, while Loki is the father of monsters, confirms the suspicion. Here again we find Loki presented as a “hostis” or “foe”.
And all of this, while quite sufficient and very well grounded, is just the beginning. One can edduce other sources to demonstrate that Loki is responsible for generating wars on earth, stirs up strife and prevents reconciliation, and repays good with evil.
I think we are well within sociopathic territory, and have walked outside the boundaries of the playful and troublesome prankster we’ve been discussing.
Comment by Ziggy — 3 February 2008 @ 4:12 AM
Hey Jason,
A couple things just occurred to me which may allow an interesting joiner between our two contrasting ideas.
It occurs to me that there IS a time when Loki fits more of the “Trickster” archetype you are invoking, but it is not an extra-mythic, pre-Christian time, but rather a specific time within the mythic chronology.
This is the time before he eats Gullveig’s heart. Hyndluljod 39 tells us
“39. Loki, scorched up
in his heart’s affections,
had found a half_burnt
woman’s heart.
Loki became guileful
from that wicked woman…”
The half-burnt woman’s heart refers to some wicked woman who was burned. This mythologically fits one figure :
Voluspa “25. She that war remembers,
the first on earth,
when Gullveig they
with lances pierced,
and in the high one´s hall
her burnt,
thrice burnt,
thrice brough her forth,
oft not seldom;
yet she still lives.”
Many commentators adjudge that Gullveig (= Power of Gold, Gold-Greed) represents a Personification of Greed.
In the words of Padraic Colum, who poetically retold the Norse Myths in his “The Children of Odin” :
“For Loki was one of those whose minds were being changed [160] by the presence and the whispers of the witch Gulveig. His mind was being changed to hatred of the Gods. Now he went to the place of Gulveig’s burning. All her body was in ashes, but her heart had not been devoured by the flames. And Loki in his rage took the heart of the witch and ate it. Oh, black and direful was it in Asgard, the day that Loki ate the heart that the flames would not devour!” (Chapter : “Foreboding in Asgard”.)
As you can see, Colum bases his statements here firmly on the dovetailing of Voluspa 25 and Hyndluljod 39.
Gullveig, as we know from Voluspa 26, was a great sorceress. That the Power of Gold is able to cast spells on people the history of civilization has certainly proven.
Here is an opportunity to affirm BOTH your and my perspective, within the pre-Christian heathen context, that gives an especial warning :
The Trickster is an ambivalent, playful, creative force who gives some good for every ill he does,
UNTIL and UNLESS such time as that already tricky, difficult, mischevious, and capricious force
JOINS FORCES
with the Power of Gold-Greed.
THEN, all bets are off.
I think that is not only a marvelous (and quite well grounded in the lore) compromise between our positions (in fact a synthesis thereof), but a fantastic message, as well.
It gives space to that part of Loki that you sensed, and gives it a definitive time period within the lore, while at the same time demonstrating what forces must be added into the mix for everything to go haywire.
The Power of Gold Greed is already enough of a difficult opponent, seductive and enchanting to the minds of men.
The Power of Caprice sometimes serves good ends, but often ends up landing people in trouble, too.
But when these two forces are put together, a formidable but ill-conceived alliance begins that perverts all sides and results in the birth of world-consuming monsters.
Loki on his own may be precisely as you portray him, and such he remains, until such time as he consumes the heart of Gullveig. Mythologically, consuming the heart of someone takes their power and soul into one’s own being. From that point on, all of the deeds I’ve documented above, which your mind resisted attributing to Loki because they don’t fit his character, result. In a sense, we were both right. You were right that it did not entirely fit Loki’s character. It doesn’t — until his character is perverted and twisted by taking Gullveig’s heart-soul within himself. Of all the impulses the Trickster should have resisted, that was the very one of ones. It is that impulsive act of curiosity and mischief that takes him over the edge.
I don’t know if you will see eye to eye to me on this compromise, but I hope I have adequately demonstrated its grounding in the lore, and the plausibility, therefore, that both viewpoints were quintessentially heathen, and represent a profound message about the convergence of greed and caprice. This occurred to me while I was reflecting upon our disputations and realizing that while I disagreed with you, I also agreed with you, in part, which sparked my memory of this critical juncture in the mythic map of time. I should add that in my book Wyrd Megin Thew, where I in fact take a highly appreciative look at Loki, I speculate that the poison that is made to drip in Loki’s eyes as he is chained to the rock is perhaps intended as a purgative to purge Gullveig out of his being, a kind of crude, early, Odinic psychopharmacological psychiatric intervention … Does that mean there is hope, however small, that Loki might recover his older tricksterish self before Ragnarok? Stay tuned, I suppose, or, perhaps more to the point, in order to find the answer, we, the supplicants or initiates or adepts or whatever we wish to call ourselves, we have to find out how to purge the Gullveig within so that our playful caprice is not poisoned by the voracious greed for gold.
Comment by Ziggy — 3 February 2008 @ 7:13 AM
A couple quick points in support of this :
In Lokasenna, Freya says to Loki,
“29.
Ærr ertu, Loki,
er þú yðra telr
ljóta leiðstafi;”
“Mad/Frenzied are thou, Loki
when you tally up
your ugly, loathsome spells;”
and Odin makes a similar accusation :
“21.
Ærr ertu, Loki,
ok örviti, ”
“Mad/Frenzied are thou, Loki,
and completely out of your wits,”
In 47, Heimdall too accuses him of the same thing :
“svá at þú ert örviti,”
“so you are completely out of your wits,”
It is true that Loki is drunk in this scene, but I think that something a little more is being implied here. Mad/Frenzied is a little something more than drunk. “Overdrunk” would be the usual term.
They’re all implying that he really must have lost it and gone over the deep end, that he has actually gone mad.
Perhaps this is precisely what the eating of Gullveig’s heart does to him.
Comment by Ziggy — 3 February 2008 @ 7:25 AM
If one wanted to, one could see the whole mythic cycle as a tragedy : “The Fall of Loki”, and when Trickster falls and is perverted, so goes the rest of everything else.
Perhaps Loki should simply have been left alone by everyone. As it stands, the gods wanted him amongst themselves. (Well, at least Odin did!!) Perhaps amongst the Aesir the “good” side of his ambivalence began to develop and grow.
But the Jotnar were possessive and jealous and wanted him back, so they sent an agent to bring him back for good : Gullveig. She succeeds in her mission, far beyond their expectations. For all the good Loki did, he rebounds back into chaotic mayhem like a rubber band. In the process, he himself is consumed. Since Loki is caught with a net he himself created, we have the old motif of the Trickster Tricked, caught in his own trap.
Poor Loki must suffer and endure all this first so that we might learn, and would not have to. In a way he paints a picture of a strange, inverted Christ, taking on the world’s sins (through literally enacting them), and then being crucified for them (as it were). Trickster as Christ? Only a Trickster could inspire such a bizarre, macabre, and funny image.
Comment by Ziggy — 3 February 2008 @ 7:46 AM
well, i’ll happily concede that Ziggy has a far better grasp of the texts, than i.
i’m still far from convinced of the conclusion, but perhaps i should let it lie. the conclusion itself doesn’t seem as important to me as the method of arriving at it. there’s much to be said for static reality, but i think it leads us astray here. Archetypes may be unchanging, but Gods are certainly not. and that very malleability over time and over space contributes to a great deal of confusion, especially when we have only a very ripped and torn tapestry to view. is our purpose to know the static reality of yesterday? or to know the dynamic reality of today? vicarious or direct?
of course, this line of thinking inevitably leads us to futile discussions of objective & subjective, but surely we must find a way around that? looking at the past as an act of sankofa is quite right, but let’s not forget to come back, eh?
ah, well, i probably shouldn’t even post this, but i will anyway. do with it what you will….
Comment by jhereg — 4 February 2008 @ 7:50 AM
Ahhh, now there’s the stuff! Now you’ve got a convincing argument on your hands!
Given that, I have to cede the point that in early, heathen sources, Loki has some clearly Diabolical traits, yes. This raises an interesting question, which goes beyond my level of knowledge. As I mentioned before, “Neither am I claiming that it was necessarily Christians behind that change, at least directly; it could just as easily be more modern pagans, trying to keep the myths competitive with the rather seductive allure of a simple dichotomy of black and white. It certainly makes the world simple, if nothing else.” Obviously, before Christianity won out, it first had to contend with the older beliefs. So how far back can we date something like the Lokasenna? I readily grant that that is a bona fide heathen source, and much more reliable than Snorri’s Edda, but even the oldest poems in the Poetic Edda were still composed after some kingdoms began converting to Christianity. For example, Atlamál hin groenlenzk must have been composed after 985, at which time Sweden and Iceland were involved in quite a struggle over whether Iceland would convert to Christianity. Eyvindr skáldaspillir probably also dates to the second half of the tenth century. I readily grant that dating the Poetic Edda’s various components has long been problematic, but that’s rather my point. Saxo Grammaticus wrote well after even Iceland had converted to Christianity. I realize there’s some difficulty getting any source old enough by those standards, so this might be something of an unfalsifiable proposition, but we also have carvings and depictions, if not texts, that reach well into the pre-Christian past. Are some of these old enough to prove that this was always Loki’s story, or is it recent enough to suggest that before Christianity won out, heathens may have felt some pressure to adapt by adding a more starkly Manichaean element? I have to admit, you’ve marshaled a great deal of evidence here, more than enough for me to admit that you make a good case. Were it just me, I’d concede defeat; but I didn’t come up with this idea myself, I got it from others who’ve studied this more than I have, so it makes me think that perhaps you have a good argument, and perhaps they have a good argument, too—perhaps there’s simply not enough evidence to really prove which side is correct? Unless you know of still other evidence that’s even older; that would really settle the score.
That, I think, we’re agreed, but very often the transformation of a mythic figure’s character reflects some acknowledgment of their historical progression. For example, the Greek myths of Dionysus speak of his migration from the East and joining the gods on Olympus—and we know that he was originally a Persian god that the Greeks adopted. I think that, in the absence of any definitively pre-Christian evidence (by which I mean before Christianity was a real factor in Scandinavia), that very element provides the best suggestion for a historical transformation. The transformation of Loki’s character throughout the story would be problematic for an original storyteller, unless he had essentially two Lokis that he needed to reconcile: an older, Trickster Loki with whom everyone was already familiar, and the new, Diabolical Loki, who brings the stark, Manichaean conflict to Norse mythology that will make it better able to compete with the new religion beginning to lure away converts.
I do very much like your interpretation of the story as it stands, though, and you make a convincing argument on the historical case. I’m just still a little unsure about what the evidence really adds up to. Certainly, the texts you quoted leave no doubt about Loki’s nature, as you said; but does this tell us about his original nature, or are they (admittedly early) evidence of his transformation? You make a good case, but I still see a question there.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 February 2008 @ 8:22 PM
Well, consider, if we, for the moment, bracket any external religious influence, that the Germanic peoples were dealing with the problems of greed long before any encounter with Christianity. If we take the Greed figure of Gullveig here, she corresponds well enough to similar personifications in GrecoRoman antiquity to establish her grounding in an IndoEuropean figure, but the correspondence is not exact enough to establish a borrowing, either. I think it’s obvious that any society has to tassle with Greed, but societies on the mainland in Europe, especially those struggling with Mediterranean empires, have had to deal with the effects of greed in especially potent forms. That these would become part of their teaching stories from an early time ought not to be doubted.
My reason for giving these stories an early rather than a later date is precisely the correspondence with other Indo-European stories, some of which can be dated far earlier and do not admit of any diffusive influence. That suggests that at least core elements of these stories originates rather early.
These core elements may have been adapted or expanded in a historical period where untrustworthiness (Loki) and greed (Gullveig) had suddenly taken on new prominence, but I wouldn’t trace this to the encounter of the German people with Christianity. Far more significant was their encounter with the Roman Empire, which sent spies and exploitative merchants in. As Fredy Perlman pointed out, war over generations and generations, along with enslavement and involuntary drafting into the Roman army transformed these societies. These made Iron Age Germanic societies more militaristic than Bronze Age ones had been, whose emphasis was probably more on Nerthus. The stories of Loki and Gullveig at those times would have been warnings rather than present, out of control hazards.
In the famous Bang and Bugge Vs. Rydberg debates, it has been almost universally conceded that Bang and Bugge, who were arguing for Christian influence on Norse myths, lost the debate, while much older Indo-European influences were conceded as well. How likely would it be that the U.S., in a War with Iraq, would take on Islamic features in its religion? Or vice-versa? Not too likely.
I’d suggest that “manichean” elements of religion have been part of the Indo-European mindstate, at least in soft form, going back all the way to PIE times. These softer forms may become aggravated by military engagement. After several generations of militarism, they may sharpen and harden ; after all, there is an enemy to overcome, and one must overcome them. This explanation doesn’t need any Christianization ; in fact, one could merely argue for “parallel evolution” between Christian forms and Germanic forms by noting the militarist orientation of some of the Essenes holed up in their desert formations, and of course the increasing militarism of the Germanic folk once they were assaulted by the Roman Empire. I think Fredy Perlman does an elegant job in accounting for manichean elements in Zoroastrianism by suggesting that it was originally a revolutionary movement attempting to overthrow leviathan, and thus there was an element of imbalance and out-of-controlness that could not be admitted into the circle of balance and thus needed to be conceived as being absolutely shut out and overcome. Once there is that kind of enemy, assuming that the revolutionary energy is coopted, it’s easy for it to settle down into dogma.
But all of that said, I think that the message behind the stories of Loki and Gullveig as they evolved are very good messages. As my friend Carla glossed it recently, when the lawyers (Loki) and the bankers (Gullveig) get together, watch out!!
Comment by Ziggy — 4 February 2008 @ 9:09 PM
Excellent point; I may have fallen into a trap I usually warn others about, and blamed Christianity for more than its fair share. And I agree, we can see a certain amount of Manichean thought among agriculturalists long before Mani! (Though, I suppose we should expect that; Christian thought predated Christ, Buddhist thought predated Buddha, etc., since none of these figures came out of a historical void, and all of them wove together elements of thought from their own time and place.)
Well, actually, it seems quite likely. Entities at war frequently become more like their opponents. The seeds of the Renaissance fell in Europe in part from all of the Islamic influence the Crusaders brought home with them. Over the course of the Cold War, the U.S.S.R. and China both accepted more and more capitalistic programs, while the U.S. accepted more government-run social programs. In this particular case, sharpening Loki’s character would simply help make their religion more competitive. “Dualism is sexy,” you might say. Who would want an ambivalent Trickster, when you could have a titanic battle of good versus evil?
But you make a good point about alternating hardening and softening of those dualistic themes in Indo-European mythology, and that Germanic myth would likely have seen a hardening of that theme dating all the way back to conflicts with Rome.
It still seems to me that Loki’s stories do show some indications of a Trickster turned into a Devil, but you’ve convinced me that if such a transformation occurred, it occurred much earlier than I had originally thought, less in the time period of Christianity pushing into Scandinavia, and perhaps as far back as the Roman Empire. Of course, going back that far, I don’t know if any evidence even exists for that discussion, so that may well seem like an unfalsifiable claim.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 February 2008 @ 9:20 PM