Angraboda tells her story
Published: Mon, 11/30/20
I was young and happy once, I was considered beautiful too, especially by Loki. He was strikingly hansom too in those days, until that dwarf wrecked his fine mouth so I hear. He came traveling once in Jotenheim and we met by a river. Some may say it was a an accident. I would say that the threads of Orlog connected us just as was meant to happen. I had a name then, which no one remembers and it does not seem to belong to who I am now. So, you will just know me as Angraboda, or ‘bringer of anguish’. Well, yes indeed, I know anguish and others will know it too.
As soon as we had met Loki followed me back to my cave and stayed. We became a family with three children. Strange children others might have thought them, the wolf cub, the girl who is half in darkness and half in the light, and the wyrm. But they were ours and we doted on them and, in their own ways, they loved us back. We were happy in that cave on the side of a great mountain. Loki comes from Jotun stock and he was free to be himself. No one to take advantage of his cunning and then despise him for his deceptions. He could simply be himself and be loved by me and his true sons and daughter. Yes, I knew he had a wife Sigyn and a son back in Aesgard but he seemed to have forgotten them, along with the soft and ordered life that great city offered. How could my Loki not be happier in the rugged mountains and among his own kind here in Jotenheim?
Then one day Odin arrives on that eight legged horse, which calls Loki mother, but I am certainly not one to judge. Odin also has companions who will not hear of Loki remaining here. They want him returned to Aesgard, perhaps they needed his cunning to get them out of yet another difficulty of their own making? They promised him everything he could ever want. They told him how his wife wept herself to sleep for him every night. They told how his son was growing up without his father’s guidance. They hinted at a high seat in the hall of counsel, only a hint of course, not a promise they would ever actually fulfill.
So, Loki turned away from me and returned to Aesgard without even looking back. Then Odin took my children. Fenrir, the wolf they led back to Aesgard with his father. He thought it would be a great adventure but now he is chained to a rock on a lonely island where he howls in pain and fury. The wyrm was thrown into the sea where he has grown so huge he circles the world and can bite on his own tail. My daugher Hel is now the queen of the dead and cannot leave that dreary realm until that very special day comes.
Of course things did not go well for Loki once in Aesgard. Oh yes, his cunning and devious thinking is amusing and often useful, until stupidity such as Frigg trying to make her son invulnerable to harm just became too much for Loki to bear. Of course he had to show that the Orlog cannot be mocked and Baldur died. So they bound my beloved to a rock and drip poison in his eyes. I hear that Sigyn is by his side and catches as much of the poison as she can, well good for her. If I had been there would they have bound and tortured my beloved? They would have had to kill me first and it is not easy to kill a Jotun woman when she fights for what she loves. But Loki made his choice and I live with that.
So, now I sit at the mouth of my cave and I watch and listen. I know what is to come. I will see the signs that the day of Ragnarok is near. The seemingly endless winter, the fighting between kinsmen, I will hear the three cocks crowing, and the howls of the great dog Garm. I will know it is time and I will head for the battlefield. Loki and Fenrir will break free from their bonds. My daughter Hel will sail from Helheim with her army of the dead. The mighty wyrm will rise from the ocean depths spitting poison. I will be reunited with my family, briefly, horribly, and gloriously. We will be bringing this age to its close, the world will be destroyed, but we will be together onces again, scores will be fully settled, and yes, there will be anguish and I will have brought it to those who deserve it most.
PS This post concludes my reflections on Loki's children, and their mother. Sigyn's story might be interesting too, but maybe another time. Thank you for reading anyway and there will be a new theme for December.