A message from Loki

This message is brought to you through the Universal Divine All-Trickster Exchange (UDATE), which does not exist, yet.

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Have you considered the Norse God Loki as your personal deity of choice? If yes, then jolly well, mead at the usual time and place, and sagas and sodomy and strap-onnery afterwards; otherwise, read on.

Loki has had a bad rap; we know. You no doubt know him as a trickster, a murderer, one that manipulates and leads people and gods alike astray. We don’t deny any of that; we merely ask you to consider this — what is so bad in all that, actually?

Loki is a trickster, a liar, a leader-to-astray; why should this concern you? None are as misguided as those that are certain; none so lost as those who know beyond all doubt and question they have the right. This is why Loki is hated; for those that hate him know by experience that one needs to mislead before one can lead, but after the second comes, the first should really be carefully forgotten. Loki is the reminder, the mocking laughter carried on the winds of change. He is he who rips cloaks aside to reveal bent dwarfs beneath the kingly silk, bearded and one-eyed and lame; he is he who wipes clean the huff-clouded mirrors of a fevered soul, of a warrior-fool of hammering blood; though woe spreads in his wake, he carries none within.

If you have ever laughed in mockery, Loki has you; if you have ever admired a quick wit that lowers the strong arm and deflates the proud snarl, Loki has you.

If you are a sour prune, Loki spits you out; but if a crooked smile ever crept up your face, Loki has you.

Have thee then some Loki for yourself in exchange.

And yet, Loki does not beg for followers. He does not hold a booth open at the Theist Fair; not even at the Dark Theist Fair, which is hardly fair at all. He is the god of corners, the god of hidden rooms; he is the god of forest-whispers, the god met on the twisting path through the wood. He is the god met in disguise; the shape shifter and the sex changer, the liar-in-shapes as he is the liar-in-words; he is the god that came down as all the others stayed up building heavens and hells. (Or million-mile Rainbow Bridges and halls for a million drunken Norsemen; gods just have no eye for the subtle and understated.)

For this reason lesser gods have called Loki a Satan, a devil; an enemy of the people; this is a most hurtful truth. Though the bent little monks that gave the name did not know this, the word ha-Satan means nothing but “the Accuser” — and to any would-be tyrant all accusers and nonconformists are Satans in the later sense of the word. As the Norse gods had reacted to Loki with spittle and shaken hammers, so the Christian God of self-flagellating Constantinople and Rome called him evil for standing outside his crown-system of good and evil. And yet Loki has no hooves, no horns; no, he is a god in golden and green finery, glorious and beautiful, and his horns are merely those golden spikes that adorn his helm. Though he accuses, he does not judge; though he accepts worship, he does not demand it; though he tackles, he does not kick the one that is down — in this all he differs from Odin the All-Tedious, “Big Hammer” Thor, “Sonny” Jesus and all the later tyrants and would-be lords.

Follow Loki, dear reader, for this is his promise: “I will not be your light, nor your darkness. I will not save you, nor condemn you. One day I will be behind you; I will laugh with you, and I will laugh at you. I will make and destroy; I will be your eye, and the object of your seeing; all sights but blindness I will give to you before the end. And when on the beach of life that other set of tracks goes away, I will be gone to get some mead for you. I am Loki, Farbauti’s son, wildfire son of lightning-bolt, god and giant, liar murderer and thief, and the most honest god you will ever meet.”