OF LOKI AND HIS PROGENY

There is another deity who is described as the calumniator of the gods and the contriver of all fraud and mischief.  His name is Loki.  He is handsome and well made, but of a very fickle mood and most evil disposition.  He is of the giant race, but forced himself into the company of the gods, and seems to take pleasure in bringing them into difficulties, and in extricating them out of the danger by his cunning, wit, and skill.  Loki has three children.  The first is the wolf Fenris, the second the Midgard serpent, the third Hela (Death), The gods were not ignorant that these monsters were growing up, and that they would one day bring much evil upon gods and men.  So Odin deemed it advisable to send one to bring them to him.  When they came he threw the serpent into that deep ocean by which the earth is surrounded.  But the monster had grown to such an enormous size that holding his tail in his mouth he encircles the whole earth.  Hela he cast into Niffleheim, and gave her power over nine worlds or regions, into which she distributes those who are sent to her; that is, all who die of sickness or old age.  Her hall is called Elvidner.  Hunger is her table, Starvation her knife, Delay her man, Slowness her maid, Precipice her threshold, Care her bed, and Burning Anguish forms the hangings of the apartments.  She may easily be recognized, for her body is half flesh color and half blue, and she has a dreadfully stern and forbidding countenance.  The wolf Fenris gave the gods a great deal of trouble before they succeeded in chaining him.  He broke the strongest fetters as if they were made of cobwebs.  Finally the gods sent a messenger to the mountain spirits, who made for them the chain called Gleipnir.  It is fashioned of six things, viz., the noise made by the footfall of a cat, the beards of women, the roots of stones, the breath of fishes, the nerves (sensibilities) of bears, and the spittle of birds.  When finished it was as smooth and soft as a silken string.  But when the gods asked the wolf to suffer himself to be bound with this apparently slight ribbon, he suspected their design, fearing that it was made by enchantment.  He therefore only consented to be bound with it upon condition that one of the gods put his hand in his (Fenris’s) mouth as a pledge that the band was to be removed again.  Tyr (the god of battles) alone had courage enough to do this.  But when the wolf found that he could not break his fetters, and that the gods would not release him, he bit off Tyr’s hand, and he has ever since remained one-handed.  How Thor paid the mountain giant his wages