Toby
Head Alpha
Number of posts : 1300
Registration date : 2008-09-26
Age : 33
Location : Behind you
 |  Subject: Loki:: Trickster and god of mischief and fire  Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:45 am | |
| Loki is a giant in Norse mythology. He is the personification of cunning, trickery,
and evil.
Although Loki is a giant, he lives with the gods because Odin
adopted him. He has the power of changing his appearance (called Shapeshifting)
and even gender, although he had to borrowed Freyja's
magical dress at times to change into birds. Once, Loki changed himself
into a mare, and he bore the
son of a horse. This eight-legged horse is then called Sleipnir, and became
the favourite horse of Odin. Loki also has many monstrous children, namely Hel, Fenrir,
and Jordmungand. He
and his children became enemies of the gods in Ragnarok.
Loki is a coward, liar, cheater, thief, and murderer. He cut off the
hair of Thor's
wife, Sif,
stole Freyja's
necklace, gave goddess Idunn
to the giants, etc. In a poem called Lokasenna (Loki's
Arguments), he made up lies to insult all gods and goddesses. The last
evil thing he did is to kill the god Baldur,
using the blind god Hodhr's hands. For
this, he was tied into a tree until Ragnarok.
At Ragnarok, Loki was freed by the giants, and he fought with his rival,
the god Heimdall. Both killed each other.
There is a common mistaken idea that Loki is a god of fire. But Loki
is a giant, not a god. And despite modern scholars' efforts, they found
no evidences that he was ever worshipped. The misconception came from
Richard Wagner's opera "The Ring of Nibelung" in 19th century, where he
created a character called "Loge" (Loki), who has the form of fire. It
is also because Loki is often confused with the fire giant Logi. But
Logi and Loki are two different characters in myths, and Loki never had
anything to do with fire. | |
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