one hundred and one lokis!

truffalicious:

Loki Good Loki Evil by *humon

“A lot of people don’t realise this, but the texts we usually consider “canon” about the Nordic myths were actually written 200-300 years after the vikings, by Christians who put a christian spin on the stories.

Before the Christians people didn’t believe that warriors went to Valhalla and the sick/old/women/children to the underworld Hel. The vikings seem to have believed that everybody went to Hel, but Christians turned Valhalla into a kind of Heaven and Hel into Hell.

The jotuns (giants) didn’t seem to be evil either. There is evidence to suggest that people worshipped jotuns alongside the gods, and some even claimed to be related to jotuns. The gods ruled culture, and the jotuns nature. But the Christians were obsessed with the idea of good vs. evil, and turned the jotuns into devils.

And then there’s Loki. The few texts written by the vikings themselves never call Loki evil, just a trickster who acted first and thought later. Even the later christian texts can’t agree on how evil Loki was. For example, in two versions of Balder’s death Loki isn’t even mentioned, while he is the big evil mastermind behind it all in another. Christians wanted a Devil, and Loki was an easy pick.”

Nordic! Loki was my first love… And along came Hiddles! Loki, and everything was shot to hell.