In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Loki plays a complicated role as a villain turned hero.
But in Norse mythology, Loki plays an even more complex role as a hero turned villain who eventually leads the final assault on Asgard and the Aesir gods at Ragnarök.
In addition to his leading role as the bad guy, he is also the father of three of the worst monsters in Norse mythology who will cause the deaths of the two greatest Norse gods, Odin and Thor, and the overall destruction of the cosmos.
But as you would expect from any well-written character, the story of Loki and his children invokes sympathy.
This article covers the role of Loki and his children in Norse mythology, from the beginning of time to the end of days.
To learn more about the Norse mythology timeline check out Norse Gods, Monsters, and Myths.
Odin and Loki: Blood Baths and Brothers
According to the Norse creation myth, the first beings to emerge from the primordial waters were the giant Ymir and the god Buri.
Ymir gave birth asexually to innumerable giants, while Buri gave birth the old-fashioned way with giantess women, having a son called Borr, who had three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve.
Odin and his brothers were concerned that they were significantly outnumbered by the giants, so they decided to kill Ymir, flooding the cosmos with his blood and killing most of his giant offspring.
Odin and his brothers then used the body of Ymir to create the world. For themselves, the gods created the realm of Asgard, and for the giants, the land of Jotunheim.
They also made Midgard, creating mankind to populate the new realm.
They deliberately separated Jotunheim from Midgard and Asgard, ensuring it was difficult for the giants to travel to these two worlds.
They also trapped a group of giants, known as the fire giants, in the fiery realm of Muspelheim.
This organization of the universe set the scene for the ongoing conflict between the gods and giants.
Thor, the strongest of the Aesir gods, was even specifically charged with protecting Asgard and Midgard from the threat presented by the giants.
That is not to say there was no interaction between gods and giants.
The gods often took giant women as wives and adopted them into the Aesir clan.
It doesn’t seem to have worked the same way with male giants. Loki is the only male giant known to have been allowed to live in Asgard.
Loki, the son of two otherwise unknown giants Laufey and Farbauti, made a blood brotherhood pact with Odin that the two would always drink together.
As a result, he was allowed to stay in Asgard.
Troublemaker and Problem Solver
While living among the Aesir gods, Loki played the dual role of both troublemaker and problem solver.
He usually creates problems for the gods and then helps them solve them.
The Walls of Asgard and the Birth of Sleipnir
For example, when a traveling builder offers to build the walls of Asgard, in payment he wants the sun and the moon and the hand of the goddess Freyja in marriage.
The gods are unwilling to pay the price, but Loki convinces them that they can trick the builder and get most of their walls built for nothing.
He suggests that they agree to the price but make the terms impossible, by insisting that he complete the walls without help and within a single season.
The builder agrees, as long as he can use his horse Svadilfari.
The gods agree.
It soon becomes apparent that the builder would be able to complete the project thanks to the help of his horse.
The angry gods turn on Loki, blaming him for the situation and demanding that he resolve it.
Loki solves the problem by shapeshifting into a mare and distracting the horse with his feminine charms.
The builder fails to complete the walls, and the gods discover he is a giant and kill him.
Loki returns sometime later having given birth to an eight-legged horse called Sleipnir, who he gives to Odin to be his steed.
Sif’s Hair and Thor’s Hammer
In another story, Loki decides to play a joke by removing the hair of Thor’s wife Sif in such a way that it will never grow back.
When the prank is discovered, Thor demands that Loki replace the hair with something equally fine or pay the consequences.
Loki descends to Svartalfheim, the realm of the dwarves, the master craftsmen of the Norse cosmos.
There he convinces a pair of dwarves called the Ivaldi brothers to make an enchanted golden headpiece for Sif.
They also agree to make an enchanted spear for Odin called Gungnir that is perfectly balanced and a ship for Freyr called Skidbladnir that always gets a good wind and can be folded up like a piece of paper and carried in your pocket.
While waiting, Loki makes mischief and goads another pair of dwarven brothers – Brokkr and Sindri – convincing them to make three treasures for the gods in competition with the Ivaldi.
If they lose the competition, the gods keep their treasures for free, but if they win, they can cut off Loki’s head.
Loki monitors their work and tries to sabotage them as they make the magical reproducing golden ring Draupnir, an enchanted golden boar called Gullinbursti, and Thor’s hammer Mjolnir.
Despite all of Loki’s best efforts, when the treasures are presented to the gods, they choose Mjolnir as the finest treasure they have ever seen, despite having a shorter-than-expected handle due to Loki’s interference.
When the brothers go to take Loki’s head, he says they cannot have it because he did not agree to give them his neck, and they cannot have one without the other.
They settle for sewing Loki’s mouth shut, though this seems to have been temporary.
Stealing Idun’s Apples
On another occasion, Loki is traveling with Odin and Hoenir when they encounter the giant Thjazi disguised as an eagle.
Loki agrees to share his food with the eagle, only to try and beat the bird when it descends.
The eagle takes Loki in his talons and flies away with him.
Revealing himself, he says he will only let Loki down if Loki agrees to help him kidnap Idun, the goddess who tends to the orchards where the enchanted apples of youth grow.
Loki tricks Idun into leaving the protective wall of Asgard by telling her that he found a tree with fruits even more amazing than her apples.
When she follows him to investigate, she is snatched up by Thjazi.
Eventually, when the gods start to age, they notice that Idun is gone.
Loki volunteers to investigate and then lets the gods know that she has been kidnapped by Thjazi.
Loki also volunteers to retrieve Idun, borrowing Freyja’s falcon feather cloak to fly to Jotunheim.
He finds Idun and turns her into an acorn so that he can carry her back to Asgard. Thjazi pursues them in eagle form, but right after Loki flies over the walls with Idun, the gods ignite a fire that kills Thjazi as he crosses the wall.
Later, his daughter Skadi goes to Asgard to demand the wergild price for her father. In the end, she marries the god Njord and lives among the Aesir gods.
Loki the Traveling Companion
Just like in the story of Thjazi, Loki is often the traveling companion of both Odin and Thor.
For example, Loki was traveling with Odin when they encountered the ring Andvaranaut.
It was Loki’s theft of the ring from its creator Andvari that caused the ring to become cursed, and he was the one who gave the ring to the dwarven king Hreidmar, leading to his death, his son transforming into the dragon Fanir, and the hero Sigurd killing him and taking the cursed ring, resulting in tragedy for him and his family.
But Loki is more famous as a traveling companion of Thor.
Thor the Cross Dresser
When the giant Thrym stole Thor’s hammer, he said that he would only return it in exchange for the hand of Freyja in marriage.
When the goddess refuses to participate in any ruse, the god Heimdall suggests that Thor dress up as Freyja, borrowing her signature necklace Brisingamen, and retrieve the hammer himself.
Thor initially refuses as it would be an insult to his manhood, but Loki convinces him and accompanies him, shapeshifting into a handmaid. He ran interference for Thor.
When Thrym comments on the appetite of his bride-to-be, Loki suggests that she has not eaten for a week in anticipation of the nuptials.
Similarly, when Thrym catches a peak of Thor’s burning eyes, Loki says that she has not slept for a week due to excitement for the wedding.
When Thrym calls forth the hammer to hallow the marriage, Thor seizes it back and uses it to kill everyone present.
Encountering Utgard-Loki
In one of the most famous stories from Norse mythology, Thor travels to Jotunheim with Loki.
On the way, they pick up a pair of human servants named Thjalfi and Roskva.
Upon arriving in Jotunheim, the group encountered an enormous giant called Skrymir, so big that they spent one night sleeping inside his enormous glove.
When they finally make it to the stronghold of Utgard-Loki, they each agree to participate in a challenge.
Loki is the first, participating in an eating competition with an opponent called Logi.
A bench is laid out with food, and they eat their way into the middle.
While they both arrive at the same time, while Loki only ate the food on the table, Logi at the bones and the table itself.
This is because Logi is fire and consumes all.
They all lose their competitions, with Thor himself losing three times. Loki later leaves with Thor.
Loki’s Children with Angrboda Imprisoned
While Loki lived among the Asgard gods, he took a giant wife called Angrboda.
The pair had three children, a mighty wolf called Fenrir, a vicious serpent called Jormungandr, and a half-living half-dead giant called Hel.
When the gods learned about these children, they had them brought to Asgard because they decided that they were too dangerous to be left unchecked.
The gods found the gruesome Hel terrible to look upon, so Odin sent her to Niflheim to be the leader of the underworld there, which became known as Helheim in her honor.
While she was the ruler of this realm and her power there was absolute, she was still banished.
Jormungandr they threw into the waters surrounding Midgard after it spit venom at Thor.
There, the serpent grew to such an enormous size that it encircles the whole world and holds its tail in its mouth.
They decided that Fenrir needed to be imprisoned, but the wolf was too strong to be overpowered, therefore they would have to trick the wolf.
The gods made a set of chains and challenged Fenrir to put on the chains and break them as a show of his strength. The wolf did this twice with ease.
The gods knew that they needed something stronger, so they went to the dwarves.
They made a chain called Gleipnir that was as thin as a ribbon but made from impossible elements, and therefore unbreakable.
When Fenrir saw the new chain, he was understandably suspicious.
He said that he would only agree to the challenge again if one of the gods would put their hand in his mouth as an assurance that they would free him if he could not free himself.
Of course, none of the gods wanted to do this as they knew the plan, but Tyr agreed. When Fenrir realized that he had been trapped, he bit off Tyr’s hand.
Fenrir began howling in anger, so the gods wedged a sword in Tyr’s mouth to silence him.
The resulting drool caused a river called expectation, referring to the prediction of what Loki and his children will do at Ragnarök.
Loki vs the Gods
It seems to be not long after this that the relationship between Loki and the gods broke down.
This creates the prerequisite situation for Ragnarök, the prophesied end of the world.
Death of Balder
It starts with the death of Balder, the beloved son of Odin and Frigg.
Frigg was concerned about the safety of her son, so she secured promises from everything in existence never to hurt her son.
This made Balder invincible, and the gods entertained themselves by throwing things at Balder and watching them bounce off harmlessly.
Loki was determined to learn if Balder had any weaknesses, so he disguised himself as an old woman and made her way into Frigg’s inner circle.
When Frigg revealed that she may have forgotten to secure the promise from the young and innocent mistletoe plant, Loki fashioned a mistletoe dart.
Attending one of the gatherings of the gods, he tricked Balder’s blind brother Hodr into throwing the dart, killing Balder.
Because Balder did not die in battle, he found himself and Helheim, and Hermodr was sent to negotiate with Hel to return the beloved son.
She said she would release him if the god could prove that he was universally beloved by having all things in existence weep for him.
The gods went around the cosmos requesting that all weep.
The only one to refuse was a witch named Thokkr, assumed to be Loki in disguise, so Balder remained in Helheim.
The Lokasenna
It seems that Loki’s role in the death of Balder may not have been immediately apparent as he was allowed to continue in Asgard, but the gods slowly turned against him.
Things came to a head at a dinner to which Loki was not invited.
Loki showed up anyway, but when Bragi tried to turn Loki away, he reminded Odin that they had agreed always to feast together, and he was allowed to stay.
Loki then started to insult all the gods.
He accuses most of the female goddesses of being lustful and adulterous. He accuses Odin of being unmanly for the practice of Seidr magic, criticizes Njord for incest, and reminds Tyr that it was his on Fenrir that took his hand.
In his tirade, Loki also admits that he was behind the death of Balder.
Not long after this, Thor arrives full of threats, but Loki reminds him of the time that the two cowered in the glove of a giant in fear for their lives. Nevertheless, with the mood decidedly against him, Loki decides to leave.
But the gods have had enough and pursue him with the intention of punishing him for his crimes.
They pursued Loki to a house by a waterfall with doors on all four sides so that he could see his pursuers approaching.
When the gods found him, Loki transformed into a salmon and hid in the waterfall, but the gods caught Loki in a net.
Punishment of Loki
For punishment, the gods took Loki to a cave.
There they summoned two more sons that Loki had with an Aesir wife, Sigyn.
They are Nari and Narfi.
The gods turned Narfi into a wolf, causing him to lose his mind and slay his brother Nari.
They then used Nari’s entrails to tie Loki to a rock.
They placed a venomous snake above his head to drip venom onto his body, causing extreme pain.
The convulsions of his body cause earthquakes throughout the cosmos.
Sigyn chooses to stay by her husband’s side, catching the venom in a bowl to spare him the pain, but she must sometimes leave to empty the bowl.
Ragnarök, Loki, and his Children
The imprisonment of Loki is the final prerequisite needed for the world to be ready for Ragnarök.
This is a prophecy about how the world will end told to Odin by a powerful seeress.
It seems likely that the Vikings believed that Ragnarök had not yet happened, though some later Christian authors imply that it has happened and that it is the new Christian world that emerged after the disaster.
In the lead-up to Ragnarök, the world is shaken by earthquakes, though it is unclear whether Loki is the cause of these earthquakes.
The story certainly indicates some kind of natural disaster as it records three winters without summer leading to chaos and war in the world of men with son turning against father and brother against brother in the fight for resources.
The wolves Skoll and Hati catch and devour the sun and moon, plunging the world into darkness.
The earthquakes allow Loki to break his chains. He travels to the underworld and meets up with his daughter Hel.
Together they gather an army of the evil undead and set sail to Asgard in a ship called Naglfar, made from the fingernails and toenails of the dead.
The earthquakes also allow Fenrir to break his chains, and rampage through the world with his mouth still wedged open by a sword, devouring all before him. Jormungandr also emerges from his waters, causing major tidal waves and spewing his poisonous venom into the air.
Even the fire giants stuck in Muspelheim are able to break out of their prison.
All of these enemies of the gods descend on Asgard.
In the great conflict that follows, many fight to the death. Odin is devoured by Fenrir, who is then killed by Odin’s son Vidar.
Thor and Jormungandr fight to the death, with Thor killing the serpent with his hammer, but then dying from the amount of venom spewed on him.
Tyr and Garm, Hel’s guard dog, fight to the death.
Loki fights to death with Heimdall, the watchman of Asgard.
The fire giant Surtr sets much of the world on fire with his flaming sword and fights to the death with Freyr.
This great battle causes so much destruction that the whole universe is consumed by venom and flames and sinks back into the waters of chaos.
Many early versions of the prophecy end there, but later versions suggest that some of the gods survive and rebuild the world.
It seems highly likely that this is a later Christian addition to the original tale in order to bring in it line with Christian beliefs.
Loki: Hero-Turned-Villain
Thus, early in the timeline of Norse mythology, Loki is an ally of the gods.
While he is far from a good and noble figure, none of the gods are.
Thor and Odin are often described as acting for selfish reasons.
But it is the transformation of Loki from ally to enemy of the gods that creates the conditions necessary for Ragnarök to happen.
While it is never explicitly stated in the sources, it seems that Loki’s actions in killing Balder are motivated by how the gods treated his three children with Angrboda.
It seems to be an act of revenge.
