The Offspring
The gods had children, and most of the children were roughly what you would expect. Thor, Odin's eldest by Jörð, had arms like oak planks and a temper like a thunderstorm. Already as a small child he lifted things no one should lift, and when he got angry the ground shook. He married Sif, she of the golden hair, and they had the daughter Þrúðr and the son Móði, and Thor also had the son Magni with the giantess Járnsaxa. Thor was simple in that way: hungry, strong, loyal, and with a solution to all problems that involved Mjolnir. But it worked.
Loki cut Sif's hair while she slept. There is no deeper explanation, no motive worth discussing. He crept in at night with a knife and shaved her head bare, leaving the golden hair in a pile on the floor like a dog leaving a carcass on the doorstep. Why? Because he was Loki, and Loki destroyed beautiful things for the same reason children break toys: because he could, and because his fingers itched.
Sif woke and screamed. Thor woke from the scream, saw his wife with her hands over her bare scalp, saw the hair on the floor, and understood. He said nothing. He walked out through the door so hard the frame cracked, found Loki by Bragi's hall, took him by the throat with one hand and lifted him off the ground like a cat from a fish barrel. "What the fuck have you done?" he said. Loki kicked in the air and tried to answer but Thor's grip crushed the words in his throat. "What the fuck have you done to my wife's hair, you pathetic little faggot?" He threw Loki to the ground, put his foot on his chest, and leaned down. "Fix it. Fix it or I will break every bone in your body. Top to bottom." Loki coughed blood and nodded.
Loki fixed it. He went down to the sons of Ívaldi, dwarfs beneath the mountains who forged in darkness and could make things no one else could. They were skilled and insanely arrogant about their skill, and they forged three things: golden hair for Sif that grew from her scalp like real hair, the spear Gungnir that never missed its mark regardless of who threw it or from where, and the ship Skíðblaðnir that always had fair wind and could be folded up like a cloth and put in a pocket.
But Loki could never stop while he was ahead. He sought out the dwarf Brokkr and sat down by his forge as though he owned the place. "Your brother Eitri," said Loki, "cannot forge three things better than what I have from the sons of Ívaldi. My head against being right." Brokkr looked at him with the gaze dwarfs give those who have talked themselves into their own grave. "Your head," said Brokkr. "Cut off." "If Eitri wins, yes." Loki smiled that smile. He already had a plan, and the plan was always dirty, and this time the plan was sabotage.
Eitri laid a pigskin in the forge. "Do not stop pumping," he told Brokkr. "No matter what happens. If you stop, you ruin everything." Loki turned himself into a fly and stung Brokkr on the hand. Brokkr pumped. From the forge came a boar with bristles of gold: Gullinbursti, which ran faster than any horse and lit up the darkness wherever it went. Eitri laid gold in the forge. "Pump." The fly stung Brokkr on the neck. Brokkr pumped. From the forge came a ring: Draupnir, which dripped eight new gold rings of equal weight every ninth night. Eitri laid iron in the forge. "This is the important one. Do not stop." The fly stung Brokkr on the eyelid so the blood ran down and blinded his eye, and Brokkr wiped his face with the back of his hand, just one second, one single bloody second. Eitri pulled out what lay in the forge. "You stopped pumping," he said. "One second." "That was enough." The hammer was perfect in everything but one thing. The handle was too short.
The hammer always hit its mark and always returned to the hand that threw it. It could shatter mountains. But the handle was too short, and that was the fly, and the fly was Loki, and the short handle was all that separated Mjolnir from perfection. The gods judged: Gungnir to Odin, Skíðblaðnir and Gullinbursti to Freyr, the golden hair to Sif, Draupnir to Odin. Mjolnir to Thor. And the gods agreed: Mjolnir was the mightiest weapon ever forged in the history of the world, for it was the only thing that could stop the giants. Brokkr won the wager.
Loki ran. Of course Loki ran. But Thor caught him, because Thor was always faster over short distances when angry, and he was always angry. "We had a wager," said Brokkr. "My head, yes," said Loki, with the sort of logic that only works if you lack all shame. "But not my neck. You cannot take the head without cutting the neck, and the neck was not part of the bet." Brokkr stared at him. The gods stared at him. Thor looked as though he wanted to crush them both. "You miserable little wretch," said Brokkr. He took out an awl and leather thread. "I may not be able to take your head. But I can shut your mouth." He sewed Loki's lips shut, stitch by stitch, and Loki screamed at every stitch but a wager was a wager. The stitches held for about an hour before Loki tore them free with bloody fingers, but it was the quietest hour in Asgard's history, and no one complained.
Baldr, the second son, glowed. There is no better word. He walked through Asgard like sunlight through water, and everything and everyone became more beautiful in his presence. His hair was white as blooming flax and his judgments were so wise no one could appeal them. He was married to Nanna and they had the son Forseti, and everything about him was good, and that should have been a warning.
Tyr was the one who kept order. One-armed since the day with the wolf, but that comes later. Tyr was the god of battle, the one soldiers called to before they ran at shields they knew they would not survive, and he was justice and law and the kind of courage that does not make a fuss. His father was either Odin or the giant Hymir, depending on which source you listen to, and Tyr himself did not seem to care about the difference.
Heimdallr was the watchman at Bifröst, and his origin was bizarre even by the standards of gods. He had nine mothers. Nine sisters, all giantesses, had given birth to him together, and how that worked no one has managed to explain without it getting awkward. He could hear the grass grow and the wool sprout on sheep, and he needed less sleep than a bird, and his teeth were made of gold. He stood at the bridge day and night on watch, and at his side hung the Gjallarhorn that he would blow once, and that once was the last.
Bragi was the poet, married to Iðunn. He sat by the mead-horns and composed and sang, and everyone praised his quick tongue, but it was a tongue that worked best in peace. In battle Bragi was the one who was not seen, and everyone knew it, and no one said it aloud until Loki said it.
And then Freyr and Freyja, the Vanir's children who had come to Asgard with the peace settlement. Freyr was the god of fertility, and everything grew better in his presence: harvests, livestock, people's moods. Freyja was the goddess of love and war, and she chose half the slain for her hall Fólkvangr before Odin even got to look. She owned the necklace Brísingamen, and some say she got it from four dwarves in exchange for lying with each of them for one night, and it was a transaction everyone knew about and no one discussed openly.
Loki also had children. But Loki's children were unlike the others, and that had to do with who their mother was. Angrboða, the giantess of Járnviðr, she who offers grief, she with eyes that swallow light and a lap where nothing living found rest. Loki sought her out in secret, night after night, because this was not something you boasted about over the mead-horns in Asgard. You do not talk about what you do with a giantess in Járnviðr, and what they did in that forest no one whispered about, not even after the third horn of mead.
The first child was a wolf. Fenrir. He had eyes like glowing coals and an appetite that never ended, and already as a pup he was larger than an ordinary wolf. He never stopped growing. Every morning he was bigger than the evening before, and his growling made the tabletops vibrate in Gladsheim.
The second was a serpent. Jörmungandr. Long already as a youngster, and it never stopped stretching. It coiled and crawled and grew until there was no room for it in any of the chambers of Asgard, and its eyes were cold and wet and watched everything with a patience that was worse than hate.
The third was a girl. Half alive, half dead. One side of her face was beautiful, with skin like milk and eyes like dark wells. The other side was a rotting piece of corpse, with exposed sinews and an eye socket staring out of the void. Hel. She smelled of earth and cold and the sweetish smell of flesh that is no longer alive. She seldom spoke, and when she spoke you wished she had not.
When rumours of these children reached Asgard the gods were called to assembly. Odin, who had drunk from Mímir's well and hung on his tree and seen the future with his remaining eye, said the children had to go. Every prophecy, every sign, every völva's song said the same thing: from these three the destruction of the world of the gods would come. Not perhaps. Not probably. Without question.
He took Jörmungandr first. Odin seized the serpent with both hands and flung it into the sea, and the serpent sank to the bottom of all the oceans and grew until it encircled all of Midgard and bit its own tail. That sounded like a solution, but it was not. You do not solve a problem by throwing it into the sea. You make it the sea's problem.
He sent Hel to Niflheim and gave her a realm: the realm of the dead, where all go who do not die in battle. The sick, the old, those who die in bed, those who drown, those who starve. All end up with Hel. That sounded like an exile, but Hel treated it like a promotion. She sat on her throne Sjúkbedd with the table Hungr before her and the knife Sultr beside it, and she ruled her realm with a cold that needed no threats.
Fenrir they kept in Asgard. That decision ranks among the dumber ones in the history of the gods. They thought they could control him, that it was better to have the wolf where they could see him. Like keeping a fire in the bedroom and believing you can decide when it should go out.
None of the gods wanted to feed him. Approaching Fenrir was like approaching a fire that grew larger every day, and his growl was so deep it felt like vibrations in the chest rather than sound in the ears. But Tyr went. Every morning, with raw meat in his hand, Tyr walked alone to the wolf and fed him. The wolf ate and looked at him with those eyes that were older than his body, and Tyr looked back, and something arose between them that resembled respect, or at least the sort of understanding that exists between the one who is to be eaten and the one who knows it.
Loki had another wife as well. Sigyn, faithful Sigyn, faithful in a way no one understood and no one asked about. With her he had the sons Narfi and Váli, ordinary sons, sons who played and laughed and did not have eyes like glowing coals. They would come to pay for their father's debts, as sons always do.
Fenrir grew. He grew every day. His paws left craters in the ground and his breath smelled of blood and burned iron. Soon no one could pretend any longer that the situation was under control.