Retold by S.K. AKin
Falcon-Loki
by Tudor Humphries
An illustration for "The Doom of the Gods"
by Michael Harrison
source
I did not
know how to respond to his horrible yarns. Could he really be the
divine
charlatan that I had been frightened by stories of when I was a child?
Certainly, he was not of the natural world.
“Do you have any food?” the giant asked me.
I had none and I shook my head, afraid to deny him but more afraid to
lie.
“I have not eaten in ages. I would do anything for a meat pie,” he
grumbled.
“In fact, I almost lost my life once just to bring a stew to a boil.
I was on a long jaunt with the king of the gods, Odin and Hœner. Even with our enmity we still very
much enjoyed each other’s
company. He would never admit it but he was the only deity that
appreciated my
sense of humor.
We were walking up the rocky coast and into the misted mountains. We
crossed streams,
rivers, forests and valleys on our walk. We walked so far that even the
gods
began to feel the pangs of hunger. As we continued their hunger grew
until at
last we came upon some oxen.
We killed an ox and set it to cook in a huge pot. To our dismay, the
pot
refused to boil. Each time we checked the water was as motionless as
ever.
Odin was beginning to get very angry at the predicament and his hunger
was
overwhelming him when a voice was heard above us.
There in a tree was a curious eagle who made a proposition,
‘Give me all the meat I can eat and I will cook the meat,’ the bird
said in a
rather haughty voice.
Odin, king of gods, had let his hunger get the best of him and
forsaking his
integrity he made the bargain.
No sooner than the eagle had cooked the meat had the bird taken a most
unfair
amount.
I grabbed a branch and beat the arrogant fowl for its disrespect. The
eagle
eventually seized the end of the branch in his talon and took to flight
with me
holding the other end.
That bird dragged me all over the countryside, dashing me on rocky
cliffs and
dragging me across desert sands. He nearly drowned me in a lake and I
began to
beg for my life.
The eagle turned out to be a mighty giant in his own right. It was
Thjasse in
his eagle guise.
He answered my pleas with yet another bargain. I had to promise him a
gift of
Idun’s apples in exchange for my life. Having no choice, I naturally
conceded
to his deal.
Now, Idun was a god herself and she cultivated a very special apple. In
fact,
it was her fantastic fruit that imbued the gods with their immortality.
It was
her apples that kept the gods young and vigorous. Her apples were the
source of
all that as radiant and new in Asgard.
Being a giant of my word, I reentered Asgard and boasted to Idun about
having
seen some fruit on my journeys that matched the beauty of her apples.
She was
bewildered and begged me to show her. I led her out of the gates. As
she
stepped outside with her apples in hand to compare to my invented
fruit,
Thjasse, again in his eagle guise, seized her with his talons and bore
her far
off.
Now you can imagine the gods’ despair as they found their lovely Idun
missing
and more importantly their coveted apples. They were aging and panicked
without
their narcotic youth to drown themselves in.
As is often the case, I came to the rescue and borrowing a falcon-guise
of my
own I flew to rescue the god.
I snatched Idun as the giant was out of his lair but he caught sight of
me as I
winged away. He quickly donned his own wings and, being a more
accomplished
flyer, he made up the lead I enjoyed.
By the time I was nearing the walls of mighty Asgard, he was right on
my tail
feathers. The gods, in a rare moment of thoughtfulness, had built a
great tower
of kindling and as I narrowly passed over it they quickly set it
ablaze. The
giant was burned and when his broken form crashed to the ground he was
met with
many strikes from the fists of the angry gods.
And that is how I saved the gods their youth.
Author's note:
To tell the story I certainly had to downplay Loke’s temper that set the whole thing in motion. And because it was told from his perspective, I limited the treachery he displayed, both in his dealings with the gods and his dealing with the giant. Basically, it is another shining example of Loke making a horrible misjudgment and then making things worse by his trying to set things right. Often he is forced or coerced into this kind of penitence. Often it is his destructive behavior that ends up setting into motion things that actually benefits the gods. This story is different because no real good comes from mischief. At least things are set right again. Because of this I added a little more ego at the conclusion as Loke takes credit for saving the youth of the gods.
Retold from:
Norse Stories Retold from the Eddas. by Hamilton Wright Mabie (1923)
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