A Tale of Loki's Youth (UPG/Family Lore)

 Dear Reader,

This morning I am going to share with you another tale that my mother told me. She said it was told to her by the hidden folk of the land as she was gardening. As we all know, caring for the land makes the hidden folk who live there quite kindly inclined towards us. Thus, they gave her this gift that I pass on to you, though it is bitter.

Loki and Farbuti

One day, young Loki was playing in the ashes of the hearth-fire as his mother stepped out of their home to fetch wood to kindle and burn for the day. He enjoyed drawing pictures and making them move like the puppet his mother had made for him last Yule.

"Boy, get out of those ashes and come with me," Farbuti ordered in a thunderous voice. Slowly, Loki got up. As he walked to his father, Farbuti's large hand gripped his right arm and dragged him closer. Loki could smell the sour scent of ale on his father's breath. It was not long after daybreak and Farbuti was already deep in his cups. "You're going to stop playing with magic," Farbuti growled.

Loki looked up at his angry father and swallowed hard. "It's womanly. Do you want to be ergi?" Farbuti continued. Loki's form shifted like a dancing flame as Laufey came in with her armload of wood. She hadn't heard what Farbuti had said, but she gasped in surprise at Loki's transformation into a comely girl. Farbuti shook his child in fury, certain this was one of Loki's illusions. Flaxen hair shook as the child's unchanged green eyes looked up at him with a combination of terror and fury. Farbuti smacked the girl-child in his grip once across the face. "You are to be a man," Farbuti roared with rage, "I sired no daughter."

Laufey dropped the wood to the floor with a clatter, catching Farbuti's ear. He turned and shoved Loki in the direction of his mother. "This is your fault," he growled, stalking forward. Laufey put her child behind her as she took up the spear she kept with her walking stick.

"Get out," Laufey said quietly. Farbuti reached to snatch the spear out of Laufey's hand when she struck him about the head and shoulders with the butt of it. "I said leave," she ordered him, "And never come back."

"Who are you to order me?" Farbuti snapped.

Loki transformed again, this time into a dragon just small enough to wrap protectively around his mother and fit into the house. Spitting acid and flame at his father as he spoke, Loki said, "She is my mother and mistress of this house."

Farbuti looked at the dragon in horror. He edged his way towards the door. Loki's cat green eyes watched him just as his mother's did. "Leave," Loki hissed. Farbuti fled the place he had come to call home after long years of wandering. Loki moved to follow him and Laufey patted the dragon on the snout. 

"Let him run, you have a mess to clean up and then we'll have breakfast," Laufey said. The dragon transformed again into a red headed boy. As he began stamping out the small fire he started, his mother spoke again. "Loki, you can be what ever you choose. You will always be my child and I will always love you." Loki looked over sheepishly as he stomped.

Hel, Queen of the Dead.

 Dear Reader,

The following is my unverified personal gnosis. The previous post regarding demons vs. khear was based upon experience and discussions with others regarding their experiences with demons. This post picks up a thread from the previous post regading the difference between Hel, the Norse Queen of the Dead, and the Dark Queen of Filianism. This is going to be a bit of a weird post for orthodox Heathens and Filiyani. Disregard it if it makes you uneasy, this is based in my experience and your milage may vary.

Hel is the daughter of Loki and Angrboda. She is half alive and half dead. When the Aesir learned of the prophecy of Ragnarok, they took the children of Loki and Angrboda. The wolf-child Fenris was bound. Jorgmundr, the sea-serpent, was cast into the oceans. And Hel was sent down into the realm of Helheim to rule over the dead. There's a lot of complex things about that myth but it is beyond the scope of this post to get into it. (I have an unorthodox position on this myth as well.)

Helheim is an Underworld realm. To get there, one must follow a road that crosses over a river that roars with the noise of battle upon a bridge gaurded by the giantess Modgud. After crossing the bridge, one comes to a walled place where there is a gate and a bloody hound named Garm that guards it. To get to this place, one must travel down and to the North upon the Road to Hel. Helheim is located beneath one of the roots of the World-Tree and is mentioned as being one of the Nine Worlds held by that tree. Some say that Nifhel is before Helheim as others say that Nifhel is below it.

There are many Underworld realms. Each mythos has one and it is generally the abode of at least some of the dead. Now, let me step away from discussing the different places of the Underworld for a moment. The Dark Queen is located at the lowest level of the Filianic Underworld. She is a malevolent being towards the living and seeks to hold all souls hostage from Déa. While some sources paint Hel as such a being, the mythos of Hel shows her as a generous hostess to all who enter her realm. In the story of the death of Baldur, she gives Heimdall a way that Baldur might be resurrected and reclaimed from her hall. The Dark Queen would do no such thing. Given that there are sources that speak of reincarnation within the Norse mythos and in modern Heathenry, it would be reasonable to believe that Hel is not the greedy Queen of Death who refuses to let the souls that come to her leave. 

Hel is, perhaps, more accurately described as a stern ruler of her lands but a welcoming hostess to all souls that come and abide with her until it is time for them to reincarnate. This is the position that I personally hold. Now, this is where things get weird and intersect with Filianism.

When Hel is cast into Helheim, she is trapped for a time in the realm of the Dark Queen. Then Anna makes her voyage into the realm of the Dark Queen. Hel is powerless to help Anna upon her voyage because the Dark Queen holds sway over all the lands of the Underworld. When Marya comes to rescue Anna, Hel is witness to the rescue and resurrection of Anna. Hel is also witness to the flight of the Dark Queen and her court. After Marya returns to the Celestial realm but before Anna returns to the upper world, Anna puts Hel in charge of one of the realms of the dead. Hel has a fence built to keep out the Dark Queen's forces and puts forth a watch-maid and a guardian at the gate to keep an eye out for the Dark Queen's return. 

With Ragnarok / the inbreathing of the all of creation by the Dark Mother, Hel returns to her potential existence state prior to her birth as does all of Déa's children (and their descendants, whom are also her children). Then the cycle begins again. 

Hel is not the Dark Queen or a servant of the Dark Queen. She is but the ruler of one of the Underworld realms of death who guards the dead from the Dark Queen's mischief so that they might reincarnate and eventually leave the cycle of reincarnation and go to Avala. As Hel is tied to a level of manifestation, she will return to the Dark Mother at the end of Ages. Because she is a child of Déa that bears a measure of her divinity within her, she is not subject to mortality in the same fashion as we the living. And for the matter of khear, Helheim is not low enough in the Underworld to be fully consumed by the taint of it. Thus, Helheim is a place of rest for souls between incarnation. Nifhel, on the other hand, would be quite close to the abyss of khear and, as such, is a place of torment and suffering.

July for Loki: Post No. 1 - Sai Vikhë and Loki: Parallels

Dear Reader,

Within orthodox Filianism and Déanism, Sai Vikhë is the janya of discord and strife (among other things). Some find it difficult to reconcile Sai Vikhë's discordiant qualities with the fact that she is a Face of Déa. I offer the following in an attempt to show that Sai Vikhë is an engine of creation despite the fact that she is associated with destruction. I also offer the following to give a bit of a deeper view of what I see the relationship between Sai Vikhë and trickster/chaos deities. (Sai Mati is also a trickster, but I will be covering that in another post.)

On the surface of things, Sai Vikhë is a potentially malefic Face of Déa because her presence brings discord, strife, and general inconvenience. She is associated with the decline of the world from the perfection of the beginning, noted as the Janya who holds sway over the Age of Iron that is the nadir of the greater cycle of Ages where things are at their greatest distance from the perfection of Déa. This makes it pretty easy to see Sai Vikhë as a potential "bad guy" or "dangerous figure" when considering aspects of Déa to approach. This is because discord, strife, and all related topics have a connotation that is generally negative.

I say, however, that we forget the positive connotations of Sai Vikhë and other trickster/chaos figures when we focus in this fashion. Loki is more than a god of mischief. He is also a god of inventiveness and cleverness. Like Sai Vikhë, he is associated with discord, strife, and most of the related topics. Sai Vikhë and Loki, however, are the entropy that prevents the universe from collapsing into utter stillness and oblivion. In Filianic terms, Sai Vikhë is a manifestation of Our Lady's saving Love holding things in existence in the face of oblivion. Sai Vikhë is associated with fire and its heat. Loki is a fire deity (his birth is from lightning striking a pine needle if you read the names of his parents literally). Both are unpredictable.

Both are kindly inclined towards humanity. Where Sai Vikhë will defend Déa's children from the demonic servants and children of the Dark Queen, Loki assists Thor (the defender of Midgard, the realm of humanity) in his efforts in an on going series of battles with other jotnar who would do harm to Midgard. There is a tale, the Loka Tattur, that speaks of Loki saving a farmer's child when other gods are unable to do so through cunning and guile. It is my opinion that there are other such tales lost to history because of the complex political environment of the Christianization of the peoples who believed in the Germanic and Norse gods didn't promote a "good guy" chaos bringer.

If you take a survey of Loki's modern worshipers, you will find that they generally describe him as chaotic-good with a dash of chaotic-neutral in the mix. His worship has been shaped by the information that we have gleaned from the post-Christianization period where the work of preserving the tales was more like Jacob Grimm's efforts to save folk tales and adding his own twist to make them more interesting to readers of his period. Sai Vikhë does not have as rich of a body of literature surrounding her thus taking her measure from the writings of historical documents is challenging.

In my experience, I have found that Sai Vikhë is a bit of a fickle janya. She expresses Déa's love in ways that seem counter-intuitive. She is the one who brings the challenges that we must grow through to become our best selves. She is, at the same time, the one who guides us through these challenges. Sai Vikhë has a sense of humor that seems a bit odd at times and a touch grim because she views all things through the lens of her role within the pantheon. Sai Vikhë, as the janya of strife, is equipped to strike down the demons formed from khear. She may be joyous in her work or solemn. Her attitude is difficult to gauge because she is mercurial in her humor (a similarity she has with Sai Mati in her trickster aspect).

And where Loki is associated with Ragnarok (which I believe is a cyclical process where all things are destroyed to begin anew afterwards), Sai Vikhë is associated with the Age of Iron. I don't believe that either of these things make them 'evil' any more than we are evil for sweeping away a cobweb. Loki is the harbinger of change. Sai Vikhë is as well. They are also the essence of change, which is a chaotic and disruptive experience where we are shaken out of our familiar, cozy setting and set upon a new adventure by the Divine.

Loki's Rules of Engagement

1. Don't fight unless you know you can win.
2. Don't write checks your ass can't cash. If you do, fast talk your way into a lower payment.
3. Always keep receipts and a record, even if its in memory.
4. Don't fight "fair," fight efficiently.
5. Keep your eye on the prize, and one eye on your competition.
6. When running from danger, don't be the slowest one in the pack.
7. If you can't be a tank, set them up to run into the tank. (Thor is the tank.)
8. Always keep your wits about you.
9. Laugh in the face of everything, especially the scary things. Nothing takes the wind out of your foe's sails like laughing at their threats.
10. Don't accept a gift with out giving one in return. Never be indebted.
11. Don't give a gift with the expectation of one in return. Not everyone pays their debts.
12. Don't piss off your traveling companions, they WILL fuck with you back. 
13. Don't start a prank war but always end it gloriously.
14. Always be ready for a fight, be it words or otherwise. Do your best to force the fight to happen on your terms. Refer to rules no. 1, 2, & 4.
15. Don't get mad, get even.

Hel vs Hell (Filianic/Déanic version)

Dear Reader,

As you may have noticed, I'm one weird Filianist. For one thing, I'm a polytheist. For another, I'm a godspouse to two deities from Heathenry. And I'm a witch on top of that. (Not to mention busy with mundane things that come along with a marriage, two kids, and being a disabled SAHM.) I don't fit the typical Filianist profile. And that's ok. Because, honestly, diversity is strength.

Now, preface made, I just want to dive a little bit in to how I approach the topic of Hel vs Hell. Hel, or as I prefer to refer to it Helheim, is the Norse underworld ruled over by the goddess of death, Hel. She is the daughter of Loki and Angrboda. Hel (or Hela as some spell it) is a goddess who welcomes the dead to her hall for a time until they are ready to reincarnate. (Yes, I am one of those heathens. Pour the haterade out in sumbel to Loki, if you're so kind to provide. I'm sure he'll bless you with laughter for it.) Now, Hel's hall is not the only place that the dead go to when they die. But I am not going to get into the various halls the dead may go to when they die. I want to specifically focus on Helheim.

In the scriptures of Filianism, we are told of Anna's journey into Hell. We are told that Irkalla fled Hell when Marya came in search of her Daughter and besieged Hell. After the reunion of the Bright Mother and her Daughter, there is little mention of Hell beyond the fact that Anna leads all souls trapped there out. Also, in the scriptures of Filianism, we are taught that there are many underworlds. This is where things get weird.

The underworld is left abandoned and defenseless by Irkalla's flight. Helheim is one of the realms of the underworld. Prior to Odin sending Hel to Helheim, that realm is unclaimed though the dead go there. Hel descends to Helheim to take possession of a portion of the realms abandoned by Irkalla. There, Hel is a just and fair (albeit somewhat grim) ruler who attends to her people and prepares them for Ragnarok.

When Ragnarok comes, the cycle of ages ends. Hel releases her claim upon Helheim and reincarnates as her child self in the proper time of the next cycle of ages, allowing Irkalla to take hold of that realm and reestablish herself as queen. Thus does the cycle perpetuate itself.

See, I'm one of those strange people who thinks that all gods may die and yet be deathless at the same time. I may, perhaps, reveal some of the secrets that Loki and Frey have shared with me about their relationship with Déa, if they agree to it. Let me say that all mothers have a Mother and allow you to draw your own conclusion.