Loki, Logi and Utgard-Loki-Three Aspect of the Same God?

The Eddas know three different versions of the God Loki: Loki, Logi and Utgard-Loki. Whilst these are portrayed as three different personalities all three do overlap to a significant extent and demonstrate characteristics which may be derived from a single common source.

Frequently we find written that Wagner "incorrectly" portrayed Loki as a God of fire. Rudolf Simek in his Dictionary of Northern Mythology states:

"(Loge). A half-god created by R. Wagner in his opera Das Rheingold (tenor) who is the lord of fire. Loge probably is the result of Wagner`s confusion of the god Loki with the great Logi. In Snorri Logi is the personification of fire whereas the god Loki of Germanic mythology has nothing to do with fire."

I don`t accept that Wagner was "confused" about anything. He researched Germanic mythology thoroughly as part of his necessary preparation for his four part Der Ring des Nibelungen. It is clear that Wagner did conflate similar characters together-I do not deny this. After all this is a necessary device which film makers use when converting a novel to a screen play. However there is more to this than simple conflation.
I believe that Wagner realised that there was a link between Loki and Logi and he deliberately exploited this link to reunite a character or personality that had become split off into two separate individuals.

"Logi. (ON, `flame, fire`). A giant who is the impersonation of fire."

Logi appears in Gylfaginning in the tale of Utgard-Loki and the great magical contest waged by him against Thor, Loki and Thjalfi. He beats Loki in an eating contest because he is the personification of fire. However Loki doesn`t do a bad job of consuming the meal either!

Some scholars such as Wilhelm Waegner do see a link between Loki and the element of fire:

"At first Loki was held in high honour as the giver of warmth and god of the domestic hearth, and was looked upon as the brother of Odin and Honir, for the elements air, water and fire are intimately connected.

"The name Loki has been derived from the old word `liuhan`, to enlighten. It therefore has the same origin as the Latin lux, light. Thus he was also related to Lucifer (light-bringer), a title of honour which was given to the Prince of Darkness. In like manner as the northern tempter was chained to a sharp rock, Lucifer was believed in the middle ages to be chained down in hell. Saxo Grammaticus describes Utgarthlocus (Utgard-Loki) as laden with chains in Helheim, which proves that the myth of Loki and his punishment was believed long after the Christian era." [Asgard and the Gods].

This demonstrates a clear link not only between Loki and Loge but also between Loki and Utgard-Loki. The fact that Snorri portrays them as three separate entities does not disprove that originally they may very well have been one and the same person which over the process of time has split into three. This is not unheard of in mythology. 

In the commentary to Saxo Grammaticus` The History of the Danes Books I-IX  Dr Hilda Ellis Davidson states:

"In Snorri`s tale, Utgartha-Loki, whose name means the Loki of the Outer Regions (perhaps of foreign lands, or of the Other World) is represented by an enormous giant whom Thor and his comrades meet in the forest; he calls himself Skrymir, and it is some time before they realise that he is really Utgartha-Loki himself. 

Saxo refers to a character called Gorm who sacrifices to Utgartha-Loki, indicating that He is indeed a God:

"Gorm solicited Utgartha-Loki with combined vows and propitiations and thus obtained the beneficial spell of weather they desired."

As mentioned above Utgard-Loki meets a similar fate to Loki:

"From here the visitors could see a murky, repulsive chamber, inside which they descried Utgartha-Loki, his hands and feet laden with a huge weight of fetters."

 Further on in Saxo Utgard-Loki is specifically referred to as being a "god":

"He was unable to bear hearing this ugly and invidious report of Utgartha-Loki and was so grief-stricken about the god`s vile state that he gave up the ghost at the unendurable words , even while Thorkil was in the middle of his tale."

Loki and Utgard-Loki are both described as being Gods and both[like the other Gods] have giant heritage. The giants of Germanic mythology were, like the Titans of Classical mythology an earlier race of divine beings generically connected to the divine race that replaced them.

I contend therefore that if we are to learn more about Loki who is the Prometheus and Lucifer of the Teutonic world then we do need to research the characters of Logi and Utgard-Loki. Loki has quite rightly been compared to Prometheus and both meet the same punishment for betraying the other Gods. Prometheus is known for His gift of fire to men and Lucifer of course is a deity of light. The connections with Loki suggest an original common Aryan inheritance which would be of merit to explore further.

George W. Cox in The Mythology of the Aryans Nations, Volume II states:

 "The name Loki, like that of the Latin Vulcanus, denotes the light or blaze of fire, and in such phrases as Locke dricker vand, Loki drinks water, described the phenomena of the sun drinking when its light streams in shafts from the cloud rifts to the earth or the waters beneath. The word thus carries us to the old verb liuhan, the Latin lucere, to shine, and to Logi as its earlier form, the modern German lohe, glow; but as the Greek tradition referred the name Oidipous......., to know and to swell, so a supposed connexion with the verb lukan, to shut or lock, substituted the name Loki for Logi, and modified his character accordingly."

In closing I feel that I have demonstrated quite clearly that Loki was indeed a deity of fire/light but I accept that at the same time like the other deities He is a multifaceted God.

A New Perspective on Loki as a Left-Hand Path Germanic God

This is a copy of an article published as A New Perspective on Loki from my Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen blog on 30/9/12. I am publishing it on here to give it a wider audience as the article has significant implications in terms of how we view our Aryan deities.

Loki, is He a God or a giant? The scholars argue that the Eddas appear to be ambiguous about this. My argument is that His status is no less ambiguous than many of the other major Germanic deities. We know that his father was Farbauti[ON `dangerous hitter`], a giant. The etymology of Farbauti`s name is associated with lightening or the storm[See Rudolf Simek`s Dictionary of Northern Mythology]. His mother was Laufey[ON `leaf island`-a rather incredulous interpretation]. Her alternative or additional name was Nal[ON `needle`] because she was so slender and nimble. Simek suggests that Laufey may have been a tree Goddess. She is generally considered to be a Goddess and listed as such in the Eddas and we have no reason therefore to doubt that She was one.

The Eddas are replete with stories of matings between Gods or Goddesses with giants and the giants should be considered as an earlier race of Gods which the Aesir and Vanir displaced. Wodan Himself was of giant parentage via His mother Bestla, a frost giantess. Thus we may conclude that Loki had as much Aesir blood flowing through His veins as Wodan, the chief of the Gods Himself. However Loki`s attitude towards the Gods is ambivalent. Early on in the mythology He is portrayed as a positive member of the Aesir, often coming to their aid in times of crisis. It is only with the beginning of Ragnarok and the events that precede it that we see a markedly different side to Loki. Causing the death of Baldur and preventing His early release from Hel and His slandering of the Gods in the Lokasenna He hastens on Ragnarok and shows Himself as an apparent enemy of the Gods. That is how people superficially see Loki`s role. However like life He is more complex than that and in my opinion He should be viewed as being the Shadow of Wodan.

Loki and Wodan are blood brothers and often journeyed together in Midgard. There is some suspicion that He is in fact the God Lodur who along with Wodan and Hoenir gave life to man. Both Wodan and Loki are half giant in extraction but Loki as Wodan`s Shadow has his giant inheritance from His mother`s and not His father`s side. Usually it was the Gods who mated with giantesses and not the other way around. My inkling is that Laufey may have been raped by Farbauti and hence the apparent shame and lack of identification with the father. This may account for why some are tempted to see him more in the light of being a giant than a God. Curiously He is named after His mother, not His father for in the Eddas He is referred to as Loki Laufeyjarson. Perhaps He was anxious to bury his giant heritage, maybe even ashamed of it for the reason stated above?

Scholars point out that there is no evidence for any cults of Loki in the pre-christian past. However this betrays their lack of understanding of His role. If Loki is Wodan`s Shadow then it is unlikely that we would expect to see any such evidence for the common people were highly unlikely to worship such an apparently negative deity. Additionally as Wodan`s Shadow He in effect IS Wodan, His darker and seemingly more destructive side. However it is the Loki side of Wodan`s personality which grants the All Father such naked intelligence, cunning and at times seeming duplicity. Loki is a catalyst, an agent of change and transformation. Whilst He is responsible for hastening on Ragnarok He was not responsible for the loss of the Golden Age. In His seeming `evil` deeds He is in fact providing a solution to the Wolf Age in which we find ourselves in. Through His actions the new Golden Age will arise after Ragnarok.

He is the ultimate problem solver but His motives are not always clear. Loki represents the ultimate Left-Hand Path Germanic God. He stands alone. He is independent. He cares not for worship, adulation or approval. There is no consensus over the etymology of Loki`s name and this does not surprise me for there is no consensus at all about Loki who is the ultimate enigmatic God. My interpretation of His name is one that suggests `light`. I am reminded of Lucifer[an Aryan not a Semitic name] who shares a similar personality and name. It is likely that Loki derives from the PIE word *leuk. George William Cox in his The Mythology of the Aryan Nations volume II states:

"The name Loki, like that of the Latin Vulcanus, denotes the light or blaze of fire, and in such phrases as Locke dricker vand, Loki drinks water, described the phenomena of the sun drinking when its light streams in shafts from the cloud rifts to the earth or the waters beneath. The word thus carries us to the old verb liuhan, the Latin lucere, to shine, and to Logi as its earlier form, the modern German lohe, glow; but as the Greek tradition referred the name Oidipous......., to know and to swell, so a supposed connexion with the verb lukan, to shut or lock, substituted the name Loki for Logi, and modified his character accordingly."

 The Eddas know of an Utgard-Loki and a Logi, a fire giant. Wagner in his Das Rheingold conflates the two characters of Loki and Logi together in the form of Loge and it would appear that there may be good grounds for doing so. It is interesting to note that the Old Norse equivalent of Saturday is Laugardagr, the Swedish logerdag and the Danish loverdag. Clearly originally before the pernicious influence of christianity Loki had a much more revered role in the Germanic pantheon but like many of the Gods He was demonised and this demonisation continues amongst many modern day `Asatru`. We need to view Him as the Germanic Prometheus who has brought the light of intelligence to man rather than the christian imposed idea of being a `devil`.

Adolf Hitler, the Wotan Avatar as Prophecied in the Year of His Birth

Many of my readers will I am sure already be familiar with Carl Gustav Jung`s 1936 essay titled Wotan in which he describes how the ancient God of the Germans, Wotan has awoken from His slumber and is now on the march through Germany. He does not in this essay specifically refer to Hitler as being an incarnation of the Wotan archetype but his observations amount to the same thing. It is no wonder that Miguel Serrano sought to communicate with and befriend Dr Jung and his recollections are contained in Serrano`s only book to remain continually in print: C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse: A Record of Two Friendships[1965].
This is a fascinating work and the first of his books that I obtained and read. Much is revealed in this work without being too overt which is why it has probably remained in print for so long. Its alternative title is translated from the original Spanish as The Hermetic Circle-I much prefer this title.

"Wotan`s reawakening is a stepping back into the past; the stream was dammed up and has broken into its old channel. But the obstruction will not last for ever; it is rather a reculer pour mieux sauter, and the water will overleap the obstacle."[Wotan, Jung]

Dr Jung was effectively the first one to recognise that Wotan had awoken and resided not only in Hitler but the German people as a whole. This reawakening started not with Hitler. The groundwork had begun in the 19th century and the most obvious example of Wotan moving in the German Collective Unconscious was reflected in the music of Wilhelm Richard Wagner and in particular in his Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle of music dramas. Savitri Devi and Miguel Serrano took this conclusion one step further and referred to Hitler as being an avatar. This is clearly reflected in Savitri`s The Lightning and the Sun[1958].

The 12 years of the Third Reich may be likened to the 12 nights of Yule which is dominated by the Wild Hunt, headed by Wotan Himself. Curiously one of Adolf Hitler`s favourite paintings according to various scholars such as the author of The Psycopathic God , Robert G.L. Waite[1977] was Die Wilde Jagd[The Wild Hunt by Franz Ritter von Stuck. The painting significantly dates back to 1889, the year of Hitler`s birth. Waite states:

"The Wild Chase by Franz von Stuck depicts the god Wotan as a berserker. Hitler was said to have copied his mustache, hair style, and oratorical style from the painting."[Waite]

I am not clear about how an "oratorical style" can be copied from a  painting but I think I get the general gist of what he is implying. It is significant that the face of Wotan in the picture directly resembles Hitler. One could conjecture that von Stuck was trying to convey something which had been revealed to him from the Collective Unconscious. What Dr Jung revealed contemporaneously in the 1930s von Stuck revealed in 1889, the year of Hitler`s birth. One could call this a prophecy.

The Fusion of the Aryan Battle Ax and Northern Megalithic Peoples

It is my contention that the megaliths of northern Europe were constructed by the forefathers of the Germanic peoples who are themselves a fusion of the Northern European Megalithic culture and the Corded Ware/Single Burial/Battle Ax Culture.

The controversy of where to locate the historic Urheimat of the Aryan peoples may never be conclusively decided. Using different scientific disciplines such as comparative linguistics, archaeology, comparative mythology and more recently DNA studies we can at least throw some light upon the subject.
One thing is more or less certain and that the Out of Asia theory is no longer popular and indeed even in the 19th century was not universally accepted. My personal view is that the undivided Aryan people, what scholars would call the Proto-Indo-Europeans originally lived as one people somewhere in Northern Europe. Apart from my own biased sentiments this location best fits the known available evidence. There will be many people who will read this and fervently disagree with me but they are welcome to do so.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans-I shall now instead use the shorter and more convenient term of Aryans are associated with three material cultures which are usually closely linked by scholars: the Corded Ware, Single Grave Burial and Battle Ax cultures. For convenience sake and out of personal preference I will use the term `Battle Ax people` as a collective noun.

We must be careful and not make the simple equation that language = race. Sometimes it does but more often than not it is not a reliable indicator of ethnic and racial origins. Prior to the arrival of the Battle Axe people there already dwellt a Nordic population in northern Europe.

"The arrival in the North of people of the Corded Ware-Single Grave culture made very little change in the physical characteristics of the inhabitants, since the bearers of this culture were Nordic, as were those of the Megalithic culture in the North. Chemical analysis of the preserved hair of the Bronze Age tree-trunk burials show depigmented, that is, blond hair." [The Germanic People. Their Origin Expansion & Culture, Francis Owen, 1960]. 

What therefore changed were not the racial characteristics of Northern Europe but their physical cultures.
Not only were the speakers of Germanic Nordic but so were the bearers of Proto-Indo-European.

"The original speakers of Indo-European must have been Nordic."[Owen]

 "At the same time the fact that the first Aryans were Nordics was not without importance. The physical qualities of that stock did enable them by the bare fact of superior strength to conquer even more advanced peoples and so to impose their language on areas from which the bodily type has almost completely vanished. This is the truth underlying the panegyrics of the Germanists: the Nordics` superiority in physique fitted them to be the vehicles of a superior language."[The Aryans, V. Gordon Childe,

The dominant physical type in Europe has always been Nordic and even today scholars are not in disagreement with this fact. The only physical culture that can be associated  with the Aryans in Northern Europe has its location in Saxony and Thuringia.

"This leaves only the Corded Ware culture of Upper Saxony and Thuringia to be associated with the original Indo-Europeans."[Owen]

 "On the basis of the archaeological and anthropological evidence the conclusion must be that the people of the Single Grave-Corded Ware-Battle Ax culture were the original Indo-Europeans."[Owen]

The bearers of this original Aryan culture expanded from the area of Saxony further north and towards the east into Russia. Many today speculate that the Aryan homeland is to be located in Russia but I contend that this is where the Aryans expanded into on their way to India, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan etc. The direction of movement was always to the east-Der Drang nach Osten!

"It is difficult to see how the bearers of this culture could have originated in Southern Russia. It is true that the kurgans in that region were Single Graves and certain examples of the Corded Ware pottery, but many of them belong to the Bronze and even to the Iron Age. The older graves would be the result of the expansion of the Single Grave-Corded Ware people into Southern Russia from the West as part of the general expansion described above."[Owen]

Professor Owen points out that in the Central Asiatic steppes "There is no evidence of the use of such a device as the Corded Ware technique, nor is there any indication of the presence of anything like the Single Grave, the facetted battle-ax or the boat-ax. This explanation is a survival of the traditional belief ex oriente lux."

The dogma of ex oriente lux or light comes from the east survives to the present day and there is a prejudice amongst many scholars against any idea of civilisation coming from the north or the west. Thankfully these blind book worms are being proved wrong every day as new evidence continues to emerge of the northern origins of civilisation-an Aryan civilisation at that!

This Aryan culture of Single Grave burial can be traced right back to the Mesollithic and even the Upper Paleolithic and may have influenced the development of the Northern Megalithic culture.

"That the people of the Single Grave-Corded Ware culture in their original home in Upper Saxony and Thuringia were physically of the Nordic type can scarcely be disputed, and this is equally true of all the areas into which these colonizers carried this culture, either by peaceful expansion or military conquest."[Owen]

The Aryan Nordic Battle Ax people emerging from the Saxon heartlands merged with the Nordic Northern Megalithic people to create what we now know today as the Germanic or Teutonic peoples. This actual prehistoric event is reflected in Germanic mythology in the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, the Aesir being the Battle Ax people who worshipped the Sky God whose symbol is the ax, later to become the hammer of Thunor, and the earth deities of the Vanir of which Nerthus is an early example.

"The amalgamation of the peoples and cultures of the Northern Megalithic and the Single Grave-Corded Ware-Battle Ax cultures which resulted in the formation of the Germanic people, was followed by a relatively long period of internal development before the first phase of Germanic expansion began."[Owen]

"The religion of the Sky God was introduced into Northern Europe by the Indo-European bearers of the Corded Ware culture."[Owens]

The union of the Aesir and Vanir reflects the intermarrying that took place between these two Nordic peoples to create the Germanic peoples.

"Thus Othin[Woden], who in the early developments of Teutonic religion probably was a Sky-god, was the husband of Jord, the Earth-goddess and mother of Thor, the thunder-god."[The Rites of Old Europe 12,000-3,500 BC, E.O. James]   

Founding wars between two opposing pantheons of Gods may of course be found amongst other Indo-European peoples of course, reflecting similar prehistorical events but it is in the Eddas that we gain valuable literary primary evidence for the origins of the Germanic peoples which is supported by archaeology and other disciplines. The supreme meeting between the Battle Ax and Northern Megalithic cultures is best represented in England`s Stonehenge with its numerous Bronze Age axe carvings in the sarcens. Thus these two symbols: the ax and the megalith are sacred to the Aryan Germanic peoples today just as they were thousands of years ago.

"The new Temple of the God of the Sky stands where the festivals of the Great Goddess used to be held before the warriors with their battle-axes came across the sea from the east with their new god whom we could see was more to be feared."[Stonehenge of the Kings, Patrick Crampton, 1967]

 "And these battle-axe users seem to have played a powerful role in the fusion of cultures which led to the extraordinary upsurge at the time of the final building of Stonehenge."[Crampton]

The Ar Rune is the Sign of the Aryan

The Arya is the aspiring Sun Initiate, a Son of the Sun. His Rune is the Ar Rune:

"The `ar`, the urfyr[primal fire, god], the `sun`, the `light` will destroy spiritual as well as physical darkness, doubt, and uncertainty. In the sign of the Ar the Aryans-the sons of the sun-founded their law[Rita], the primal law of the Aryans, of which the earn, or eagle[Aar], is the hieroglyph."[Secret of the Runes, Guido von List].

This Rune deserves special attention by the Sonnenmensch for it provides significant clues to his or her identity, origin and life task in the current incarnation on Midgarth. The eagle of course is associated with the supreme sky God in Indo-European mythology.

"The Eagle is the symbol of royalty, power, authority, victory. Among the Greeks it symbolised supreme spiritual energy. Zeus is attended by an eagle."[Ancient Pagan Symbols, Elisabeth Goldsmith]

The Eagle, the Aryan of the birds of prey has a long association with the Aryan peoples and in particular with the Germanic peoples. The symbol of the eagle along with the Swastika was everywhere to be seen in the Third Reich-and for good reason. The National Socialists realised that one symbol is of greater value than 1,000 written or spoken words.

"Our Order is a Germanic Order, loyalty is also Germanic. Our God is Walvater, his rune is the Ar rune. An the trinity: Wotan, Wili, We is the unity of the trinity. The Ar-rune signifies Aryan, primal fire, the sun and the eagle. And the eagle is the symbol of the Aryans."[Rudolf von Sebottendorff].

Guido von List likened the eagle to the legendary phoenix which had the ability to sacrifice itself in order to renew itself. Please reread and meditate on that which I have just written for it holds the key to our renewal collectively as a race and our fulfillment of the mission that Walvater Woden has allotted to us.

"It sacrifices itself, as it consecrates itself in a flaming death, in order to be reborn. For this reason it was called the `fanisk` and later `phoenix`. Therefore it is read as a symbolic hieroglyph when an eagle is laid on the funeral pyre of a celebrated hero to indicate that the dead hero rejuvenatingly prepares himself in death for rebirth in order to strive for a still more glorious future life in human form in spite of all the restrictions of the powers of darkness-all of which crumble before the `ar:` `Respect the primal fire!"[Secret of the Runes]

"In order to depict the eagle`s capacity for self-immolation by fire, it is coloured red. From today on our symbol is the red eagle, which warns us that we must die in order to live."[Rudolf von Sebottendorff]  

The Ar Rune must become the symbol of the awakened and militant Aryan man or woman. It should become a sign, almost a secret one which is known only to ourselves and those we have sworn sacred oaths of brotherhood with. At the same time, magically charged it will become as a weapon to be used against those who oppose us.