Angela

Angela | writer | genderfluid, they/them | Proud Lokean | 30 years old

[lokean-angela]

Offering Bowl for Loki (work in progress)

I ran out of candles to light for Loki, and I recently bought air dry clay, so I decided to make this offering bowl for Him. It’s currently in the process of drying, but once it’s dry I’ll paint over the runes (which is Loki’s name written in Elder Futhark runes) and possibly the edges of the bowl with acrylic paint.

[lokean-angela]

[promiseiwillwrite]

Stories and Kennings

When I was young, I read a story about a Jotun who became a God's Brother, and could turn into anything.

I heard a story where he got his mouth sewn shut instead of getting his head chopped off. I thought he was very clever. But that he would absolutely have torn his lips open, without anyone ever telling me that's what happened. I imagined his wife taking care of him after it happened.

I read the story about a prophesy, and the great lengths to which Frigga went to protect her son.

I read the story of his Murder.

I never understood why any of Frigga's efforts or Balder's well being mattered to Loki. Maybe Loki just liked to push Boundaries. Maybe he just liked to see if he could get away with things. Maybe he Hated Balder because Balder was Hot.

Maybe Loki decided to get Even with the Gods for taking his kids, and really treating them badly. Especially Fenrir... Can you imagine how awesome a protector he might have been for Asgard if they had just let him be free?

(Or how he might just have taken over...)

Maybe it was all part of the Blood Brother Deal.

I read the story of how Loki ran away after helping Hod Aim, and sat in a hut with a door on every wall. How he made the Net, and then threw it in the fire. And How he Became a Salmon to get away.

I read how he was caught with a net made the same way he'd made his before burning it.

And I thought about it. Salmon represent Inborn Wisdom. Things that cannot be learned. And returning full circle.

And The Invention of the Net certainly must have impacted humans greatly.

And then I thought about how Loki had also Once Become a Fly, in that same story where he got his Mouth sewn Shut.

Why, when you've got a choice between becoming a Salmon, or a Titanothere, or a fly or a Horse or a turtle or a pangolin, if you were trying to Evade Capture, Why would you invent a Net and then Become a Salmon and Jump in the River?

Unless it was not about escape.

Unless it was to show that people can get out of anything if they choose. That was what I took from the story.

Unless it was about the Story he had agreed to help Create.

And then I imagined Sigyn freeing Fenrir, Because of everything that happened after, to her own sons. I might have done that, to get even.

And I imagined her, starving slowly, with her amazingly buff arms, holding that bowl, and the scars across the backs of her hands and down her wrists from the poison.

We love who we love.

I imagine them all, in a nonlinear sort of way, shifting through every moment now, each version of themselves changing with the tellings and re-tellings.

And I think that they have all grown and are still growing, while people believe, and tell the stories.

I can't imagine what it does to or for a god, to have other stories written about them, far removed from their original culture hearth. I can't imagine if it brings them Mirth or Humanity, if it gives them room to grow and change, if it can provide a sweeping redemption arc, or cheapens their structure somehow.

I know if I was a god, I would probably get as much out of it as I could. I think I would welcome Every Time some living person spoke my name, whether in reverence, or reference to some poorly drawn lines. Hero, Villain, Victim, and Hero Again, Eventually you expect it to come back around.

But If it was me, I would make room for all of it. So that my story would keep going... And Maybe find a Better ending than "And All was destroyed in Fire."