Thorsday: Loki's Children

Last week's Thorsday triggered a couple of follow-on posts from the geoblogosphere, namely by Dave Bressan at History of Geology, and a rebuttal from Daniel at Sandbian, discussing the role of Fenris (aka Fenrir), the wolf in the above picture, in causing earthquakes. So I thought for today's representation of characters from Norse mythology, I would find a picture of Loki's children... and I'm very pleased to have found The Baldwin Project, from whence the picture and excerpt below are taken.

Now the Dwellers in Asgard knew that these powers of evil had been born into the world and they thought it well that they should take on forms and appear before them in Asgard. So they sent one to Jarnvid, the Iron Wood, bidding Loki bring before the Gods the powers born of him and the witch Angerboda. So Loki came into Asgard once more. [182] And his offspring took on forms and showed themselves to the Gods. The first, whose greed was destruction, showed himself as a fearful Wolf. Fenrir he was named. And the second, whose greed was slow destruction, showed itself as a Serpent. Jormungand it was called. The third whose greed was for withering of all life, took on a form also. When the Gods saw it they were affrighted. For this had the form of a woman, and one side of her was that of a living woman and the other side of her was that of a corpse. Fear ran through Asgard as this form was revealed and as the name that went with it, Hela, was uttered.

This series started out as a lark, basically to celebrate the enjoyment I found as an elementary schooler with the Norse gods and their tales. But it has resulted in a realization of how much I have forgotten. When Dana came in to town Monday, she brought her book of Norse mythology to lend me- I've already read a bit of it.

Long story short, this series has rapidly evolved from simple silliness to a rekindling of my interest in the tales of Europe's northwest.