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Sep. 4th, 2002 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelingOkay, here are the myths regarding Loki's binding under the earth, all the sources I have.
"Loki was thrown to the ground. He lay still; he looked at nobody and said nothing. Then the gods took three slabs of rock, stood them on end and bored a hole through each of them. They stretched Loki over them, unwound Narvi's entrails and bound him with the gut of his own son as no one had ever been bound before..." - The Norse Myths, Introduced and Retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland
"There is a cavern beneath the world. (This is true. You must know in your bones that this is true, although all logic argues against it.) There is a cavern beneath the world, and in that cavern a man is bound. In the cavern there is also a woman, and a snake. The snake is high in the darkness of the cavern, curled around an elaborate rock formation. The woman is called Sigyn. The snake has no name. The woman holds a bowl above the man's head. (Drip. Drip.) The snake's venom drips from its open mouth. It falls into the bowl. The man is bound with the entrails of his son. (Theirson.) (The woman is his wife.) The bowl fills gradually. When it is full, the woman empties it into a pit. While she is gone, the snake's venom drips onto the man's face. He twists and writhes as the poison eats into his flesh. He screams as it enters his eyes. When he writhes, the earth quakes. He curses the woman, but still she stays with him. The man. The woman. The snake. The bowl. It's not nice or pretty, but it's true. And it's necessary. It has been going on for a very long time." - Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman (writer)
Okay, I couldn't find my big-arse book on Mythology, so I'll have to leave it there. That's a pity, cos it might have given any alternative readings/versions of the myth that I've forgotten about. I'm pretty sure he's always bound with the entrails of his son, though. That's a type of ritual magic.
Hee, mythology freak. *grins*
"Loki was thrown to the ground. He lay still; he looked at nobody and said nothing. Then the gods took three slabs of rock, stood them on end and bored a hole through each of them. They stretched Loki over them, unwound Narvi's entrails and bound him with the gut of his own son as no one had ever been bound before..." - The Norse Myths, Introduced and Retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland
"There is a cavern beneath the world. (This is true. You must know in your bones that this is true, although all logic argues against it.) There is a cavern beneath the world, and in that cavern a man is bound. In the cavern there is also a woman, and a snake. The snake is high in the darkness of the cavern, curled around an elaborate rock formation. The woman is called Sigyn. The snake has no name. The woman holds a bowl above the man's head. (Drip. Drip.) The snake's venom drips from its open mouth. It falls into the bowl. The man is bound with the entrails of his son. (Theirson.) (The woman is his wife.) The bowl fills gradually. When it is full, the woman empties it into a pit. While she is gone, the snake's venom drips onto the man's face. He twists and writhes as the poison eats into his flesh. He screams as it enters his eyes. When he writhes, the earth quakes. He curses the woman, but still she stays with him. The man. The woman. The snake. The bowl. It's not nice or pretty, but it's true. And it's necessary. It has been going on for a very long time." - Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman (writer)
Okay, I couldn't find my big-arse book on Mythology, so I'll have to leave it there. That's a pity, cos it might have given any alternative readings/versions of the myth that I've forgotten about. I'm pretty sure he's always bound with the entrails of his son, though. That's a type of ritual magic.
Hee, mythology freak. *grins*
