THE TERRIBLE ONE'S HORSE: CHAPTER 8

LOKI, MISCHIEF-MAKING COMPANION OF ODIN AND THOR

Loki is not only blood-brother to Odin, but a constant companion of both Odin and Thor/Jupiter in the Norse myths.  Although his nickname Lopt means “the air, atmosphere, the sky, heaven” (Cleasby-Vigfusson Icelandic Dictionary), viewing him as a mere hypostasis of a triune Sky-Father/Storm-God has not received much support.

It is vital, then, that we get a better grip on his primary name.  I would link Loki to Gothic *luks, ‘an opening’.  In the various Germanic languages, this root yields meanings such as ‘enclosure, enclosed place, fastening of a door, prison, lock, secret abode, cave, opening, hole, gap”, etc.

For a comparison of the significance of such an etymology, we need to look at Caelus, the Latin form of Ouranos.  Caelus is derived from caelum or coelum, to which we may compare Greek koilus, ‘hollow, cavity’.  Coelum seems to be related to cavilum, whose root is cavus, ‘hollow, concave’, or as a noun, ‘a hollow, cavity, hole’.

The idea is this: the sky or heaven, which is a vault, is also A CONCAVITY, a HOLLOW dome.

The Greek Ouranus/Latin Caelus has among his offspring Oceanus.  The Midgard Serpent, sired by Loki, like lots of other sea-serpents going way back (cf. Ugaritic Lotan, Biblical Leviathan), is emblematic of the sea that encircles the earth.  Loki can also be compared with the Greek storm-giant Typhaon, who sired the dog Orthus, Cerberus the three-headed dog at the entrance to Hades, the Lernaean Hydra, Chimaera, and the Sphinx: Loki sires Fenrir, the Norse equivalent of the lunar dog Cerberus. Typhaon, sometimes called (or conflated with) Typhoeos, was said to cause earthquakes under Mount Aitna, and fiery lava flows from the same volcano when he turned restlessly: Loki is bound in the underworld and his writhing causes earthquakes.   

As for Loki’s fathering of Hel, the underworld goddess, we may compare Zeus the Sky-Father’s begetting of Persephone or Kronos’s begetting of Hades.  Kronos was the Sky-Father after Ouranos, whom he castrasted and deposed, just as Zeus was the Sky-Father after the defeat of Kronos.

While an exhaustive treatment of Loki’s myths would be even more revealing, for now I will content myself with the above outline of his nature as sky and storm god – a nature not unlike that of his companions, Odin and Thor.