Of Loki´s parents, Farbauti and Laufey, we know very little. The only time Farbauti is mentioned in the eddas is in the passage quoted above, whereas Laufey´s name is used in kennings in the Poetic Edda as mentioned, in addition to her being mentioned in Snorri´s Edda. Rooth suggests that the names carry symbolical meaning: "Farbáuti,...,which is considered to mean the wind, may well be concerned with the wind as the cause of illnesses "(Rooth 1962 p.173), given the "evil" nature of Loki. The meaning of Laufey, on the other hand, is more problematic, and to correctly define her name as "`lövjerska´,a woman who fiddles with medicines and herbs, seems uncertain" (Rooth 1962 p.173). Her alternative name, Nál, suggests according to Rooth a connection to a shooting pain, just as being pierced with a needle. The names of Loki´s two brothers, Helblinda and Byleistr, also carry symbolical meaning: Helblinda meaning "totally blind" and Byleistr meaning "lame" or "crippled". Here Rooth points to Irish Celtic influences, which will be discussed in detail elsewhere in this essay, where "the transition from monsters and demons to hypostases and illnesses or defects is also obvious " (Rooth 1962 p.169). Loki is also the father (and mother!) of many beings: he has two sons with his mistress Sigyn, Nare or Narve and Vale, and three children with the giantess Angrboa: Fenrir, Jormungandr and Hel; to these children he is the father. He has also conceived a foal with the stallion Svailfare, Sleipnir, and lastly he has given birth to the giantess Hyndla after having eaten the burnt heart of a dead woman. Rooth points to similarities between Snorri´s account of Loki´s bestial children and that of mediaeval conceptions of the biblical origins of evil: Loki as the father of great supernatural beings corresponds to Cain as the origin of monsters and giants: influences from the Christian traditions cannot be ruled out, as I have stated elsewhere in this essay. Loki´s bestial children are strongly connected with the escathology of the eddas: Fenris and Jormungandr as well as their father both play crucial roles in the last battle between the Aesir and their enemies. His daughter Hel falls into a somewhat different category: she is the queen of Helheim, and gathers there her army of the evil dead. Jormungandr is not altogether evil, though: when committed to biting his tail at world´s end he really is a part of the cosmological order, as de Vries claims (de Vries 1933 p.175). |
