''Loka Táttur'' or ''Lokka Táttur'' (tale, or ''

þáttr The ''þættir'' (Old Norse singular ''þáttr'', literally meaning a "strand" of rope or yarn)O'Donoghue (2004:226). are short stories written mostly in Iceland during the 13th and 14th centuries. The majority of ''þættir'' occur in two compen ...

'' of

Loki Loki is a Æsir, god in Norse mythology. He is the son of Fárbauti (a jötunn) and Laufey (mythology), Laufey (a goddess), and the brother of Helblindi and Býleistr. Loki is married to the goddess Sigyn and they have two sons, Narfi (son of Lo ...

) is a Faroese ballad (

Corpus Carminum Færoensium ''Føroya kvæði: Corpus Carminum Færoensium'' (CCF) is a scholarly edition collecting traditional Faroese ballads, or ''kvæði''. The songs were collected by Svend Grundtvig and Jørgen Bloch, and published by Napoleon Djurhuus and Chris ...

13D) which is an example of the occurrence of

Norse gods Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a Medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nors ...

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

. The ballad probably dates back to the late

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The Danish botanist and clergyman Hans Christian Lyngbye published the first edition of it and other Faroese ballads in 1822, in phonetically spelt Faroese with a facing-page translation into Danish (with the assistance of Jens Christian Svabo). A prose Danish translation was published by V.U. Hammershaimb in 1851 in ''Færöiske Kvæder''. The story is a fairytale, but features the same trio of gods, Odin, Hœnir and Loki, as in the story of

Þjazi In Norse mythology, Þjazi (Old Norse: ; anglicized as Thiazi, Thiazzi, Thjazi, Tjasse or Thiassi) was a jötunn. He was a son of the jötunn Ölvaldi, brother of Iði and Gangr, and the father of Skaði. His most notable misdeed was the kid ...

in the ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' () or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often considered to have been to some exten ...

'', the prose introduction to the Eddic poem Reginsmál, and also the late Icelandic '' Huldar saga'', which has contributed to the argument that Loki is the same as

Lóðurr Lóðurr (Old Norse: ; also Lodurr) is a áss, god in Norse mythology. In the poem , he is assigned a role in animating the first humans, but apart from that he is hardly ever mentioned, and remains obscure. Scholars have variously identified hi ...

, who appears elsewhere with Odin and Hœnir. It is also notable that Loki is a benevolent god in this story, although his slyness is in evidence as usual. Some scholars, including Hammershaimb, have pointed to the division of spheres between the three gods: Odin governing the skies and the crops they fertilise, Hœnir the seabirds and Loki the fishes, as reflecting the bases of Faroese life. Lyngbye preceded Loka Táttur with Skrímsla (Corpus Carminum Færoensium 90C), which appears to tell the earlier part of the story. It calls the monster "skrímsli" and specifies that the bet was on a chess game.

Story

In the ballad, a farmer loses a bet with a

giant In folklore, giants (from Ancient Greek: ''wiktionary:gigas, gigas'', cognate wiktionary:giga-, giga-) are beings of humanoid appearance, but are at times prodigious in size and strength or bear an otherwise notable appearance. The word ''gia ...

, called Skrymir in some verses, who demands his son. The farmer asks first

Odin Odin (; from ) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe. This includes the Roman Em ...

, then

Hœnir In Norse mythology, Hœnir (also Hǿnir; modern Icelandic , modern Swedish ) is one of the Æsir. He is mentioned in Vǫluspá as one of the three gods (along with Odin and Lóðurr) that created the first humans. Attestations In ''Völuspá'', ...

, and finally

for assistance. Odin has a field of grain grow up overnight and conceals the boy as one grain on an axe in the middle of the field. The boy is afraid because the giant's hand is brushing against the particular grain, but Odin calls him to him and returns him to his parents, telling them he has fulfilled the task. Hœnir causes seven swans to fly over the sound; the boy is a feather in the middle of a swan's head. But the giant grabs one swan and wrenches its head from its body, and the boy is afraid because the particular feather is protruding from the giant's mouth. Hœnir calls him to him and brings him back, and his work is over. Loki instructs the farmer to build a boathouse with a wide opening and to affix an iron stake to it. Then he goes to the beach, where a boat is riding at anchor, rows out to sea, casts a weighted hook to the bottom, and catches a

flounder Flounders are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish, found at the bottom of oceans around the world; some species will also enter estuary, estuaries. Taxonomy The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related speci ...

. He has the boy be a grain in the middle of the fish's

roe Roe, ( ) or hard roe, is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries, or the released external egg masses, of fish and certain marine animals such as shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, roe is used both as a cooking, c ...

. The giant is waiting on the beach for Loki, asking him where he has been all night. He tells him he has had little rest, rowing all about the sea, and they go out together to fish. The giant casts his line and catches three flounders; the third is black, and Loki asks him to give him that fish. The giant refuses, and begins to count the roe, thinking to find the boy in one grain. The boy is afraid, because the particular grain is squeezing out of the giant's hand. Loki calls him to him and tells him to sit behind him and not let the giant see him and when they reach shore, to jump onto the beach so lightly that he does not make a mark in the sand. As the giant is pulling the boat onto the land, the boy jumps out and is standing before him; the giant pursues him but sinks in the sand up to his knees. The boy runs as fast as he can into his father's boathouse; the giant, in hot pursuit, sticks fast in the opening; the iron stake goes into his head. Loki cuts off one of his legs, but the wound grows together at once; he cuts off the other, this time throwing sticks and stones into the gap, and the wound does not grow together. Loki takes the boy home to his parents and says that he has done the job asked of him; the giant is dead.Summary from the Danish prose of Hammershaimb. See also the French retelling with some Faroese quotations in Léon Pineau, ''Les vieux chants populaires scandinaves (gamle nordiske folkeviser)'', Paris: Bouillon, 1901
pp. 46–50

References

External links

* Hans Christian Lyngbye,
Færøiske Qvæder om Sigurd Fofnersbane og hans Æt
', Copenhagen: Randers, 1822, online at GoogleBooks: "Lokka Thaattur/Lokes Sang" pp. 500–19.
"Lokes Sang"
in V.U. Hammershaimb, ''Færöiske Kvæder'' Volume 1, Det Nordiske Literatur-Samfund, Nordiske Oldskrifter 12, Copenhagen: Berlings, 1851, pp. 210–12, online at GoogleBooks

in modern Faroese orthography with parallel English translation at Boudicca's Bard (verse 1 omitted).
Lokka táttur
direct and stylised English translations plus additional material at Mimisbrunnr.info. {{DEFAULTSORT:Loka tattur Faroese literature Loki Þættir