Loki Laufeyson and the Myths of Asgard

When people first encounter Norse mythology, Loki Laufeyson is often one of the characters they’re most familiar with. In some cases, they may see him as a prankster or trickster who is fun and playful rather than sinister and harmful.

While this is true of loki in some regards, he also does some pretty bad things. For example, he’s responsible for the death of the god Baldr (Myth 3) and he fathered three monsters with the Jotunn Angrboda (Fenrir the giant wolf; Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent; Hel, who presides over the hall of the dead in Niflheim) and he is behind a wager that put Freyja into peril (Myth 8).

After helping the gods out of a few predicaments Loki got the idea to help build their wall around Asgard. He went and found the dwarf brothers Brokkr and Sindri, who were master craftsmen. He bet them that they could not make anything better than the treasures they had already fashioned for the gods and that they would be forced to take up arms against the gods if they failed.

Eventually, Loki’s mischief caused the death of the wisest of all the gods, Baldr, and as punishment the Gods pinned him to a rock and bound him there with the entrails of his sons Vali and Nari. He was also tied to a rock and a snake fastened to a stalactite above him that dripped poison into his face causing him to writhe in pain—the cause of earthquakes.