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Loki is an anomaly, his parents were a giant, Fárbauti, and a goddess (or possibly a giantess, we don't know for sure) Laufey.
(I can't find any decent images of either Fárbauti or Laufey)
Loki was originally considered a fire deity, before becoming the trickster we know him as. Farbauti means 'fierce strike' and Laufey means 'pine needles'. So his birth was ...
24
Giants are said to be element-based creatures.
Giants are extremely strong and are associated with cold and frost.[1] One giant is supposed to bring about the wind (Hræsvelgr), while another is associated with the sea (Ægir) and yet another with fire (Logi).
source: http://www.germanicmythology.com/original/cosmology4.html
[1]: Vafthrüthnismal ...
22
The Norse mythological texts record three primary places where the dead were perceived to go: Helheim (Old Norse Helheimr, “the home of the goddess Hel“), Valhalla (Old Norse Valhöll, “the hall of the fallen”), and Folkvang (Old Norse Fólkvangr, “the field of the people” or “the field of warriors”).
But they're indistinguishable and don't have any major ...
22
Dwarfs, mostly. Some particular examples:
Gungnir: created by the Sons of Ivaldi (Prose Edda, p 145)
Loki went to those dwarves who are called Ívaldi's Sons; and they made the hair, and Skídbladnir also, and the spear which became Odin's possession [Gungnir]
Mjölnir: created by Eitri and Brokkr (Prose Edda, p 146)
Then he [Eitri] took from the forge ...
22
No, the confusion between Loki and Logi goes back to 19th-century theories about myth, which saw Odin as the storm (or sun), Thor as literally thunder, and Loki as fire. No one accepts these ideas now, as Rudolf Simek and John Lindow make clear in the dictionaries of Norse myth. The general consensus about Loki is that pinning him down to one thing is like ...
22
It's true, Loki is believed to have been a god of fire, before being considered a trickster god. But, as Karl Seigfried tells us:
The “god of fire” idea is a famous mistake that is due to the similarity between the names Loki and Logi, the latter being a personification of fire in the well-known story of Thor’s visit to the giant Útgarða-Loki. The ...
21
The source of the story is the Þrymskviða poem (The Lay of Thrym), which is included in the Poetic Edda.
It was Thrymr, king of the jötnar, who stole Mjölnir. He then demanded the gods allow him to marry Freyja, in order to return it. Thor travelled to Jötunheimr to claim back his hammer, and he managed to sneak in dressed as a bride.
Loki wasn't ...
21
Yes, it seems so. In the Prose Edda, when Thor is presented with the hammer by Brokkr, this property is in the description (Page 147, here):
Then he gave the hammer to Thor, and said that Thor might smite as hard as he desired, whatsoever might be before him, and the hammer would not fail; and if he threw it at anything, it would never miss, and never ...
20
Most gods die during the battle together with the evil and the two people are left to repopulate the world. The Children of Odin addresses the event in an easily comprehensible way:
What said Odin to the Gods and to the Champions who surrounded him?
"We will give our lives and let our world be destroyed, but we will
battle so that these evil powers ...
20
It is typically assumed that when similarities are found between Christianity and another religion, whether in myth, dogma, or practice, the flow of influence is syncretism into Christianity. This tendency is largely due to the many instances of Catholic hagiology (mythology about the Saints) appearing much like myths from earlier pagan times before ...
20
Sorry to say, it's actually nothing more than the Elder Futhark, the eldest of the runic alphabets.
You can read more on it on Wikipedia. A good giveaway that it doesn't "say" anything is the lack of repeating characters on the pendant.
18
As said already, your story is taken from Þrymskviða. There's a retelling of the story named The Children of Odin, which refers to that in a more easily comprehensible way:
The actual story does not say that Loki stole the hammer from Thor.
Then when they were far from Jötunheim Thor missed Miölnir, missed the hammer that was the defence of Asgard and ...
17
In the Völuspa (part of the poetic Edda), the tale is told to Odin as a prophecy by a völva who tell him both the story of earth creation and destruction.
In the Gylfaginning (part of the prose Edda), which quotes extensively the latter, the tale is told by three characters in Ásgard (Hárr, the king, Janhárr and Thridi).
Presumably in the first case it ...
17
Although slaves aren't specifically mentioned, Odin's burial laws tell us that "every one will come to Valhalla with the riches he had with him upon the pile":
Odin established the same law in his land that had been in force
in Asaland. Thus he established by law that all dead men should
be burned, and their belongings laid with them upon the pile, ...
17
The Norse flood myth is actually a flood of blood, created when Odin, Vili and Vé slew Ymir, the primeval ancestor of the jötnar. From Snorri's Prose Edda:
The sons of Bor slew the giant Ymer, but when he fell, there flowed so much blood from his wounds that they drowned therein the whole race of frost-giants; excepting one, who escaped with his household....
16
I found an interesting site for comparing names. I can't trace the exact source(s) used for all four names, but the references given for the entire site may prove useful (and impossible to scroll through, admittedly).
Adam: Originally from the Hebrew אדם, "'adam", meaning "man".
Eve: Originally from the Hebrew חַוָּה, "chawwah", derived from חוה,"chawah", ...
16
The key point here is Roman Syncretism. The romans believed the world was full of different gods, and they didn't presume to know about all of them, or to know everything about the ones they already recognized. Thus, when confronted with a new god, they would tend either to adopt it into their religion, or equate it with another they already knew.
This ...
15
Maybe he actually did.
Hypothesis 1. The Dwarven Arts
According to The Unmanly Man: Concepts of Sexual Defamation in Early Northern Society, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen is convinced, for some reason, that Loki's milkmaid service "must certainly be taken to mean that Loki served as mistress to giants or trolls," which he qualifies by adding that the "...
15
Taking a look at a few things here.
The word Yggdrasil itself firstly. "Ygg," means Death. "Drasil" is a Nordic term that has the dual meanings of both "gallows" and "horse." So Yggdrasil itself means "Deadly Gallows". A kenning for Odin was Ygg and was listed in the anonymous Skaldic Poem Óðins Nöfn. There are those that speculate that Yggdrasil gets its ...
14
Odin's eye remains at the bottom of Mimir's Well:
I know where Othin's eye is hidden,
Deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir;
Mead from the pledge of Othin each mom
Does Mimir drink: would you know yet more?
Source: Völuspá, the Poetic Edda, translated by by Henry Adams Bellows
The point of the tale is to convey the message that no sacrifice is too great for ...
14
I have slightly modified the following from a Yahoo! Answers question I answered sometime ago.
He is referred to as a god in the Nibelungenlied and the Völsungasaga. In the Eddas he is generally referred to as an Ás, i.e., one of the gods called the Æsir. An example of this is in the Gylfaginning, from the Prose Edda, in which appears also the most ...
14
I found a different wikipedia source, for Hugin a Munin which states:
Scholars have linked Odin's relation to Huginn and Muninn to shamanic practice. John Lindow relates Odin's ability to send his "thought" (Huginn) and "mind" (Muninn) to the trance-state journey of shamans. Lindow says the Grímnismál stanza where Odin worries about the return of Huginn ...
13
First, note that the first known mention of Ask and Embla is in the Völuspá, in the Poetic Edda:
Then from the throng | did three come forth,
From the home of the gods, | the mighty and gracious;
Two without fate | on the land they found,
Ask and Embla, | empty of might.
Soul they had not, | sense they had not,
Heat nor motion, | nor goodly ...
13
There haven't been any myths which describe the relationship or stories of interaction between Fenrir and Jörmungandr.
This could be because, in Gylfaginning, it is told that Fenrir, Jörmungandr and Hel were just children when they were separated.
"evil was to be expected from them, to begin with because of their mother's nature, but still worse ...
13
A "Viking" was a a warrior who went raiding abroad. (See the Jorvik site for more on this.) They were probably the most famous medieval Scandinavians, but they were a small subset of all the Norse people.
Having said that, warrior gods would have been closest to their hearts, and Michael Enright has theorized that the rise of the god Odin was linked to the ...
13
Yes, both as figures in historical and semi-legendary stories, and possibly through borrowings of mythological themes and ideas.
History and semi-legendary material
First, let's note the actual historical background, attested in Icelandic sagas: it seems that Norwegian kings had some kind of traditional right to gather tribute from the Sami, usually ...
12
As your quote shows, the story of it's creation makes no such specification.
If stealing it qualifies as "using" (I believe, in the the Marvel universe, simply lifting the hammer qualifies), the Þrymskviða from the Poetic Edda tells the story of the giant Þrymr stealing Mjollnir, in order to extort the gods into giving him Freyja as his wife.
"I have ...
12
The two human survivors are Lif and Lifthrasir. They live through Ragnarök by hiding in Yggdrasil before the great battles, supposedly in Hoddmimir's wood. Apparently, Vafthrudnir told this to Odin in a prophecy.
They are mentioned in verse 45 of Vafþrúðnismál:
"Líf ok Lifþrasir,
en þau leynask munu
í holti Hoddmímis;
morgindöggvar
þau sér at mat ...
12
The meaning of those two ravens is not 100% answered, yet. One possible explanation is as follows:
In the Norse shamanic tradition, Odin's ravens represent the powers of necromancy, clairvoyance and telepathy, and they were guides for the dead. This poem expresses the shaman's fear of his loss of magical powers.
The Well of Remembrance by Ralph Metzner, ...
12
Many weapons were made by dwarfs.
Brokk and Eiti (Sindri) made Mjölnir (Thor's hammer) according to the Prose Edda and Odin's spear Gungnir which the dwarfs originally gave to Loki.
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