Loki - A giant.
He became a member of the Aesir when Odin made Loki his blood brother.
He is the god of mischief, a trickster, and very cunning.
After causing the death of Balder, he was bound by the gods until the Ragnarok, at which time, he will be freed.
Loki is one of the major deities in the Norse pantheon.
He is a son of the giant Farbauti ("cruel striker") and the giantess Laufey.
He is regarded as one of Aesir, but is on occasion their enemy.
He is connected with fire and magic, and can assume many different shapes (horse, falcon, fly).
He is crafty and malicious, but is also heroic:
in that aspect he can be compared with the trickster from North American myths.
The ambivalent god grows progressively more unpleasent,
and is directly responsible for the death of Balder, the god of light.
On the day of Ragnarok, Loki's chains will break and he will lead the giants into battle against the gods.
Loki is often called the Sly One, the Trickster, the Shape Changer, and the Sky Traveler.
Loki is often thought of as the most negative of the Gods.
He became a God when he fraternized with Odinn, but as we know Loki was a Jotunn.
His father was the Jotunn Farbauti and his mother was Laufey (sometimes called Nal),
he had two brothers, Byleisturand Helblindi. Loki is the father of Midgardsormur,
Fenrisulfur and Hel, the foes of theGods. Their mother was the female Troll, Angurboda.
Loki's "wife" was Sigyn. They have two sons, Nari (or Narfi) and Vali.
Loki was very good looking but he had a bad temper, was wicked, cunning and deceitful.
Loki is also called "vinur Hrafnasar" (the friend of the God of Ravens, Odinn),
the friend of H nir and "Thors runi" (friend of Thor).
This does not seem to fit with the Loki we know, for he is so often the Gods' enemy.
Loki has also got some names, like e.g. "VammGoda" (the disgrace of Gods), that show how evil he was.
In the beginning Loki was a friend of the Gods and often accompanied them,
especially Odinn and Thor, though his rashness and thoughtlessness often gets them into troubles.
Later on his friendship with the Gods became more and more unstable and at the end
he had become the Gods' worst opponent, and was even thought of as a devil.
This might besome kind of an influence from christianity.
The worst thing that Loki ever did was when he got Baldur killed. Baldur's death
was said to be the Gods greatest misfortune of all. Because of that Loki was punished,
as said in the story Gylfaginning.
At Ragnarok Loki gets free and fights against the Gods, becomes the opponents' leader.
Loki fights Heimdallur and they both die.
Loki was never worshiped as the other Gods, which is quite understandable.
Loki Laufeyiarson, in Norse mythology is the "god" of mischief, a son of Farbauti and Laufey,
and is described as the "contriver of all fraud." Loki actually not a god at all, but a Jotun
(the Titans and Gigantes of Norse mythology), although he mixed freely with the gods
for a long time, even becoming Odin's foster-brother.
The trickster god is a complex character, a master of guile and deception.
He is also conceived of as a fire spirit, with all the potential for good and ill associated with fire.
Loki is also an adept shape-shifter, with the ability to change both form
(examples include transmogrification to a salmon, horse, bird, flea, etc.) and sex.
Loki was the father of many creatures, men and monsters.
With Glut, his first wife, he was the father of Einmyria and Eisa.
Having liaisons with giantesses was nothing unusual for gods in Norse mythology
both Odin and Freyr are good examples; and since Loki was actually a giant himself,
there is nothing unusual about this activity. Together with Angerboda, he had three children:
* Jormungand, the sea serpent;
* Fenrir the giant wolf preordained to slay Odin at the time of Ragnarok;
* Hel, the goddess of the realm of the dead.
Loki was flying as a hawk one day and was captured by Geirrod, a frost giant.
Geirrod, who hated Thor, demanded that Loki bring his enemy
(without his magic belt and hammer) to Geirrod's castle.
Loki agreed to lead Thor to the trap.
On the way to Geirrod's, they stopped at the home of Grid, a giantess.
She waited until Loki left the room then told Thor what was happening
and gave him her iron gloves and magical belt and staff. Thor killed Geirrod,
and all other frost giants he could find.
Loki was not so much a figure of unmitigated badness as a kind of celestial confidence trickster,
who always managed to persuade the gods to give him another chance.
Some anthropologists have compared him to Coyote, a trickster figure of Native American mythology.
Loki would free himself, however, in time to attack the gods at Ragnarok
along with the other giants and his monster children.
"Loki, Norse God of tricksters, jesters and fools."
A figure somewhat reminiscent of the Chinese Monkey King at times,
whose persona in myth underwent changes over the centuries,
Loki, for all his ambiguity, was a positive figure before Christianity took over his tale.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/l/loki.html
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cherryn....cgi/Loki.html
http://www.islandia.is/~oldnorse/gods/loki.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki
http://loki.ragnarokr.com/
http://loki.ragnarokr.com/pipindex.htm
http://www.luth.se/luth/present/swed...gods/johannes/
Loki
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