The Trickster, Bane of the Gods
Loki, son of the giant Farbauti and of Laufey, entered the company of the Aesir as Odin's sworn blood brother. Handsome, restless, and impossible to read, he is a master of shapeshifting who has worn the forms of a salmon, a mare, a fly, and an old woman. With the giantess Angrboda he fathered three monsters: the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Jormungandr, and Hel, queen of the dead. In the shape of a mare he himself gave birth to Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse.
Many of the gods' treasures exist because of his mischief and his repairs: after shearing off Sif's golden hair he was forced to bargain with the dwarfs, and returned with new hair, the spear Gungnir, and the hammer Mjolnir. His last crime could not be undone. Learning that the mistletoe alone had sworn no oath to spare Baldr, he guided the blind god Hod's hand and killed the shining god. The Lokasenna shows him crashing the gods' feast to insult them one by one; afterwards they bound him on three stones with the entrails of his own son, hung a serpent above his face, and left his wife Sigyn to catch the dripping venom in a bowl. When she turns to empty it, his convulsions shake the earth.
At Ragnarok he breaks free, pilots the ship of the dead against the gods, and falls in mutual slaughter with his old enemy Heimdall.
