Title: Lokasenna

Tags: Insult contest

Description:

Lokasenna ("Loki's Quarrel," "Loki's Senna") is one of the poems in the Poetic Edda or Elder Edda. It follows Hymiskviða and comes before Þrymsvkviða (LINK), and is the eighth poem in the compilation. The content of the poem is one big senna, a type of insult contest, carried out by a Loki against all the Æsir (LINK) and the Ásynjur (LINK), the gods and goddesses, except for Þórr (LINK) who is away in the east (in jötunheimar) and only arrives at the end. Loki has been excluded from a feast in the hall of Ægir, a jötunn who is made to brew ale for the Æsir and host feasts for them, as described in the previous poem, Hymiskviða. He crashes the party, demands a seat at the table, and proceeds to defame everyone there, following the rough structure of the senna, with two-turn 'rounds' where Loki gives insults, is rebuked or defended against, another deity speaks up in defense of the previous victim, and Loki then turns his venom on them. The insults Loki flings include misdeeds and attributes that are attested in some other sources, meaning there is some truth behind his accusations and so the poem is used as a source for descriptions of some of these qualities of the gods.

Synopsis​

Lokasenna has a brief prose introduction explaining the context before the poem begins. It picks up after the previous poem, Hymiskviða, when Þórr has successfully obtained a cauldron big enough for the jötunn Ægir to brew beer and hold a feast for all the Æsir. At said feast, Loki apparently cannot bear to hear how much the other gods are praising Ægir's servants, Eldir and Fimafeng, so Loki kills Fimafeng and is promptly ejected from the feast by the enraged gods for his breach of peace. Then, Loki returns and meets the other servant, Eldir, outside the hall, and the poem begins.

Loki storms back into the hall, and all the other gods see him and stop talking. Loki addresses them and asks for a seat at the mead benches, and invokes his blood-brotherhood with Óðinn (a detail which is not otherwise known from any other sources), who relents and gives Loki a seat and has him served a drink. Seemingly placated, Loki toasts to all the gods and goddesses, but leaves the god Bragi (LINK) out of the toast in an obvious provocation, because he first tried to deny him a seat before Loki called on Óðinn. Bragi first tries to calm the fiery Loki with offers of fine gifts, a horse, a sword, and an arm-ring, but Loki retorts with an insult, accusing Bragi of cowardice. Bragi retorts, rising to Loki's challenging insult, and thus the senna begins properly.

Loki proceeds to insult every god and goddess assembled, with accusations of cowardice, perversion, sexual depravity, or cuckoldry. Despite their attempts to retort, returning accusations of Loki's many evil deeds and his own perversions (particularly his bearing of children), Loki always responds by telling them to shut up and rains down more verbal abuse. After a while, Þórr arrives at last to Ægir's hall, and proceeds to turn Loki's refrain of "shut up" against him with the addition of the threat of using Mjöllnir to forever deprive him of words. After four such turns, Loki finally relents and leaves the hall after wishing that it would burn down.

The poem ends here but is followed by a short prose epilogue, which describes how Loki hid himself in a waterfall in the shape of a salmon. The Æsir find and catch him, and he is bound with the guts of one of his sons, Nari, just as the goddess Skaði (LINK) had threatened earlier in the poem. Skaði then fixes a poisonous snake above Loki so that its poison drips down onto his face. Sigyn, Loki's wife, sits by him with a bowl to catch the poison, but when it is full and she goes to empty it, poison reaches Loki's face and he flinches away from it and thrashes so hard that the earth shakes. This is the origin of earthquakes.¹ 

1. This prose epilogue is told in a longer version in the Prose Edda, in the section called Gylfaginning. Instead of punishing Loki for his verbal insults at the feast of Ægir, this exact punishment is meted out to him for his orchestration of the death of Baldr (LINK), and his further influence that he is not able to be brought back from Hel (LINK).