The children of Loki and Sigyn are Narvi, also called Nari or Narfi, and Vali, who shares a name with a son of Odin. Vali Lokisson and Vali Odinsson will have a shared entry in the Novel Gnosis series later. The Nar- root word means corpse.
The sweet children of Loki and Sigyn were caught in the web of fate. The gods exist outside of linear time, so they knew what was coming from the beginning. They chose to give life and to love and be happy for the time they had, even though they knew it would not last forever.
Nanna is Baldur's wife. As I mentioned in my prior post on Hodur, in the Fireverse Nanna was the old moon goddess before the moon power passed to the moon god Mani. I believe this insight works in the actual mythology too. That's the reason I'm posting my novel gnosis: I think that some of what flowed out of my fingers when I was writing Some Say Fire was actual religious truth. I believe that much of my novel was directly inspired by Loki and Odin and other gods. So, here is the gnosis I've gleaned from the chapter focusing on Nanna.
In the Fireverse, when Baldur and Hodur were both wooing Nanna, Baldur invited Nanna to a ball he held in his mother’s underwater ballroom in Fensalir. Usually Fensalir only admits women and children, but there was an exception for the ballroom. The ballroom is round and one can look out of the curving walls at the underwater portions of a lake. The ballroom chapter being told from the perspective of Loki, like the rest of the novel, the story focused on Loki’s attempt to help out Hodur, which did not go well from Loki’s perspective. There were shenanigans involving a snow making machine. In the end, Nanna chose Baldur, just as she was always meant to, even though that’s not what Loki was trying to achieve.
In the Fireverse, Honir and Lodhur were generated out of Odin to shape Midgard from Ymir’s body, reabsorbed, generated out of Odin again to shape humanity out of driftwood, reabsorbed, and finally Odin generated them a third time, and placed Lodhur in the jotun who was born vaette-Loki but who had the potential to become a god. Then Loki and Lodhur were the same being, “and then it had always been that way.” At that point, Honir was also permanently in existence outside of Odin, but he did not have a permanent physical form, so he only manifested when Odin and Loki were together. So Lodhur is both the same being as Loki and not the same. He is an aspect of Loki and is also older than Loki.
Just to set the record straight for those who may have read the Marvel version: Laufey is Loki's mother, not his father. That is Lore. What follows is my novel gnosis, that is, my insights gained via writing fiction.
Laufey lives on the Leafy Isle, which is an island in the middle of Jotunheim's major river. The island is located in a part of the river where the water is no longer really hot, but it doesn’t freeze over in the winter. Her island is full of birch trees and one of her main economic activities is to make birch oil for sale as a painkiller. Fireverse-Laufey gets into selling darker magics during Loki’s childhood to buy him forbidden books in defiance of Jotunheim’s king’s law because she intends Loki to take the throne of Jotunheim. Her older 2 sons are not sons of the king and that causes some family tension.
Sif is the grain goddess in heathen mythology. She is married to Thor. Continuing my Novel Gnosis series, in which I present religious insights gained through writing fiction, today I'm talking about Sif and also Kvasir, the being made from brew. In Russian the word Kvas means a beer-like beverage.
In the Fireverse, Sif looks young with her shining gold hair, but her son Ullr looks old. Thor notices this when he marries Sif but he dismisses the thought because the appearance of age and actual age are not always related when it comes to gods and goddesses. Sif enjoys baking bread, and also enjoys eating it and other grain based foods. Sif’s representative color is gold. The cutting and regrowing of Sif's hair is an obvious agricultural metaphor, a snapshot of the wheat harvest.
Continuing the Novel Gnosis series, in which I tell you about my religious insights gained via writing a novel, we come to Jotunheim. That means the home of the Jotuns / Jotnar, aka giants.
Jotunheim is flat, but the only time in the story human characters were aware of its flatness was when Freya crossed dimensions with Ottar to bring him to see a wisewoman. Most of the time, humans journeying in Jotunheim experience it as if it were a three dimensional universe. (Most of the time, humans experience Asgard that way too, and other worlds.) When Thor and Loki visit Jotunheim, they usually arrive in an empty snowy field near their destination. Jotunheim also has forest and riparian habitat, and even city. It is always winter in Jotunheim. Some Jotnar manage to grow things anyway, variously by creating sheltered spaces, by staying close to the river, by using magic, or by choosing to grow evergreens and other permafrost adapted things.
Jord, pronounced Yord, rhymes with horde, is the mother of Thor. Her name means earth.
Jord goes by her alternate name in the Fireverse and is part of the twin pair Fjorgyn and Fjorgynn.The name Fjorgynn is linguistically related to the names of thunder gods in other Indo-European cultures.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
