Loki

1.

a, m. [perh. akin to lokka], the evil giant-god of the Northern mythol., see Edda passim, Vsp. 39. Loka-senna, u, f. the banter of Loki, the name of an old poem: as a nickname, Landn. The name of Loki is preserved in a few words, Loka-sjóðr, m., botan. rhinanthus crista galli, Loki’s purse, the name for cockscomb or yellow rattle; and Loka-sjóðs-bróðir, m. bartsia alpina, Maurer’s Volks. 1: Loka-brenna, u, f. fire, the ‘blazing’ of Loki = Sirius, according to a statement of Finn Magnusson: Loka-ráð and Loka-heilræði, n. pl. Loki’s advice, i. e. ironical, misanthropic advice, see Snot 192; cp. the Ditmarscher-lügen in Grimm’s Märchen: Loka-lykt, f. a close smell, as from an evil spirit haunting the room, Ísl. Þjóðs. ii. 556.

II. as an appellative, a loop on a thread, Dan. ‘kurre paa traaden;’ opt er loki á nálþræði, Hallgr.

2.

the name of the terrible fire-demon, half god, half giant, the friend and companion of the gods, and yet their most fearful foe. We have a new suggestion to make as to the origin of this name. The old Northern Loki and the old Italic Volcanus are, we believe, identical; as thus,—the old Teutonic form of Loki, we suppose, was Wloka, whence, by dropping the w before l, according to the rules of the Scandinavian tongue, Loki. A complete analogy is presented in Lat. voltus, vultus, A. S. wlits, but Icel. lit (in and -lit, a face); and, in point of the character of the two demons, the resemblance is no less striking, as we have on the one hand Vulcanus with Etna for his workshop (cp. the mod. volcano), and on the other hand the Northern legends of the fettered fire-giant, Loki, by whose struggles the earthquakes are caused. Of all the personages of the Northern heathen religion, the three, Oðinn, Þórr, and Loki, were by far the most prominent; but not even the name of Loki is preserved in the records of any other Teutonic people. Can the words of Caesar B.G. vi, x. xi, Solem ‘Vulcanum’ et Lunam. refer to our Loki? probably not, although in Caesar’s time the form would have been Wlokan in acc., a form which a Roman ear might well have identified with their own Vulcanus. The old derivation from loka, to shut, is inadmissible in the present state of philological science: a Wôdan from vaða, or Loki from loka, is no better than a ‘Juno a juvando,’ or a ‘Neptunus a nando.’ May not Loki (Wloka) be a relation to the Sansk. vrika, Slav. vluku, Lith. vilkas, Icel. vargr, álfr, meaning a destroyer, a wolf? it is very significant that in the Norse mythology Loki is the father of the world-destroying monsters,—the wolf Fenrir, the World-serpent, and the ogress Hel; and, if the etymology suggested be true, he was himself originally represented as a wolf.