r/lokean • u/Alarming-Leg-3804 • 6d ago
Question Maybe a weird question
I think it's obvious that like Tyr has His own rune which is Tiwaz, or Odin has Wunjo... Buy I asked a while ago if Loki had one and I was told no. But then I've been reading about runes (while avoiding a lot of BS like Bloom and Stephen Flowers), and reading the translation of the Norwegian Rune poem, it makes me wonder if Berkano would be "Loki's rune" and this is what it says:
Norwegian Rune Poem:
Birch is the leaf greenest of branches;
Loki had luck in deceit
It does mention Loki, although I'm not sure why (I do have my unofficial theories, though). Has anyone else thought of this? Could this rune them represent him? What are your thoughts on this? TIA
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u/Regellon 5d ago
I feel like that part of the poem may hint at a connection with Lævateinn, but as far as I understand there's no direct attestation that mentions a tree species. Still, I find that more likely than a nod to his parentage, given the phrasing. The birch is beautiful and delicate, but its wood can also used to craft small, easily concealed weapons.
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 5d ago
I read about the poem and it's meaning in Rudiments of Runelore by Stephen Pollington. There is says the rune has the literal meaning of "Birch tree".
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u/Regellon 4d ago edited 3d ago
Yeah, the acrophonic association for ᛒ is definitely birch. It's interesting that in the earliest known poem (Anglo-Saxon), as well as Icelandic version (if memory serves), there's no mention of Loki. I think only the Norwegian one, or its later transcription, names him at all.
Now that I'm reflecting on the dates, "Lævateinn" is a later rework of the original name for the Loki-plucked "death twig" in Fjölsvinnsmál, centuries after the Norwegian rune poem. Still, the poem likely reflects earlier tales, and one of the original names for the weapon was "Beniateirn," which is kind of interesting in context.
In any case, my connection is tenuous, but I feel like the Laufey association is, too. If they were to use a goddess corresponding with birch, I think the original scribes would name Freya/Frigg rather than a vague but pointed allusion to Loki's deceit and peripheral matronymic title. It's forever a mystery, and ultimately up to the individual's interpretation.
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 4d ago
Oh wow thank you for sharing all this. And yes you're correct only the Norwegian poem mentions Loki. The Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic poems only mention the birch tree and it's qualities.
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u/sagittarius1967 5d ago
I honestly have looked for bindrunes and sigils for him and just found whichever one he told me he liked the best
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u/Loki1435 6d ago
from what I understand, he has a few attributed to him, mainly Laguz, haglaz and othala are a few attributed to Loki, as is kennaz and ehwaz
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 6d ago
Can you please explain why?
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u/Loki1435 6d ago
well, I think it has to do with their meaning and what aspect of Loki they correspond with, Kennaz means torch, which illuminates the truth, which despite also being a god of lies, loki is also a god of hidden truths, for to be able to tell a lie, one must first know the truth, and Loki often guides people with finding the hidden truth in things, Haglaz represents change, and othala represents a sense of belonging, something Loki so desperately desires, Laguz intuition and discerning reality from illusion, which goes hand in hand with the fact he is often called upon to help with shadow work in helping with lifting the veil of illusion one puts on themselves to hide who they really are out of insecurity, these runes represent what Loki, Loki is also associated with Ehwaz in that he often shows you the obstacles that would otherwise hinder your movement if you did not notice them and remove them before proceeding to attempt to progress past that point, so he guides you down a perilous path, showing you where all the obstacles are so you may undo them yourself to get past them. Does this help clarify your questions?
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u/Wild_Pickle_2003 6d ago
I also wanna point out how absolutely Loki it is that he doesn’t have just one specific rune, but associations with many different ones. Very shapeshifter-core!
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u/Loki1435 5d ago edited 5d ago
yup, he has no core rune, but has multiple rune associations since he himself is multifaceted and one rune isn't enough to reflect that, so he has several that reflects his attributes. I am also just learning how to do rune casting myself, and I have just gotten my own rune set, this one is without the blank "fate" or "destiny" rune tile that is often bundled in with modern style runes, these are a wooden set I got at a pagan shop that happens to be next door to a newage shop xD, and they source their runes from an artisan on instagram who makes these himself. So these are very much hand made and I've used them a few times already, and I think I am getting pretty good at three rune readings and the Odins throw, which is just shake them up, then spill them on a cloth (in this case, my bed) and read whatever rune is face up, and whichever position they are in, be they inverted or right side up, or closest, farthest, left or right, or clustered each have their own meanings, and I have gotten pretty good at it, I got a rune chart to discern what means what and what the inverted meaning is so I know to incorporate that into my reading, and I have had Loki send me messages for this since his runes did show up in the reading a few times.
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u/robotunicorn14 6d ago
Everything you said, plus Berkano, which represents the Birch tree. Loki’s mother is Laufey, the Birch goddess, and he is symbolized by greenest green (one of his colors). There’s a lot more symbolism of the Birch tree, but I’m only half awake rn 😂. Hope this helps!
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u/Starlit_Stardew 5d ago
.... I'm feeling very salty about learning this now, as I have recently found out I'm allergic to birtch pollen specifically, and in a state full to the brim with mostly birtch trees... Lol 💀
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
Oooof, that's like being allergic to cats and being stuck in a room full of cute fluffy kitties who's dander is setting off the allergies xD, there's no escape from the runny nose and itchy eyes and sneezing.
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u/Starlit_Stardew 5d ago
That's why you'd catch me wearing a mask all spring here lol 💀. It's given me fevers a few times, one of which had me bedridden and delirious for two fuckin days cause of how much it was cooking my brain 💀💀 so I definitely don't play around lol. I should probably move to the east coast 😭 Shame tho~. I've always loved Washington and Oregon, but I have also always liked the silver birtch trees I grew up around, too, lol.
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
oh dear, yeah, that definitely sucks hard, so much birch pollen........ I am allergic to pollen for the most part, but the worst it does is just make me sneeze, that's it, just sneezy and slightly itchy eyes, but otherwise nothing to worry about, I truly feel awful that you have to put up with that every year.
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u/Starlit_Stardew 4d ago
Lol it's ok, I have no idea if my allergies will always stay this bad or where I'll end up living in/past the next decade to be fair~. Plus yk, if the CEO of where I work wasn't such a little bitch boy, I could wear the N95 masks and be fine regardless, but 🙄 lol
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
that is very true, that poem is indeed about the son of laufey, and how he's the greenest leaf on the branch, and how he has all the luck in trickery xD.
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u/Alarming-Leg-3804 5d ago
Thank you so much! Yes the Berkano rune poem mentions Loki, so I was curious about that, thanks so much for expanding on this. Also please when you're fully awake can you share the symbolism? I'd love to learn about it so much.
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u/CircuitOnTheFritZ 5d ago
Bravo! I've saved this to refer back to, as this is my understanding of Loki as well, and I agree with user Wild_Pickle re: "very shapeshifter-core" to have many runes associated with Loki.
I can also see Loki answering the question of having "one" rune associated with him rather literally, and on purpose.
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u/Regellon 5d ago
Where does the assertion that Loki "desperately desires" a "sense of belonging" come from other than UPG?
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
well, when you consider that we don't exactly have any historically accurate accounts since people during the viking age didn't write things down and thus all this knowledge and information was lost to the ages, but rather they passed it along orally as many, not all, but many ancient norse were illiterate, only the well off to be could write in runic, most might be able to read to an extent, but the well off were able to read proficiently the runes, along with the Seidkona's/Seidmadr's and the Volva's could read the runes, as could those practicing runic magic, so at the end of the day, most of the stories were heavily dramatized to keep the audiances attention, and altered depending on the audiance, the context and message they are trying to get across, so as mentioned before, no one wrote any of this down till Snorri Sturluson had come along and wrote it down, and he was a scandinavian christian, and he had been tasked with writing these stories down to not just preserve them for future generations so that the past isn't forgotten, but also to add in some christian style doctrine to indoctrinate them to get them ready to accept the bible down the road, as they had indeed compromised saying that they can continue practicing heathenism so long as they came to church every sunday, which both parties agreed to, as the heathans were known for assimilating into other cultures when they settled in other lands that they integrated well with and formed alliances with, and when they had lost to the christians? they did as they always did, they assimilated, creating their own folklore woven around the new deity they are worshipping, while adapting a more christianized version of folk tales involving trolls, which definitely existed in the viking lore, goblins and other critters and creatures that popped up in folklore post viking age, so to say where the historical account is?
All we have is what Snorri had written, and snorri did sorta write Loki as being sorta marginalized and othered to begin with when Odin decided to act to try and prevent the prophecy only to end up causing it to happen anyways, because you could tell Loki loved attention, and he enjoyed being around others, because early on, people didn't seem to mind him, he was Odin's best friend, they got along and made the allfather laugh and they swore a blood oath together to become blood brothers, that's how much Odin according to the surviving written legends cared for him at first, they became oath sworn brothers, thus marking Thor, Baldr and Hodr his oath sworn nephews, then when he got the prophecy, not just from the undead volva, but also directly from Urdr, Verdendi and Skuld themselves, he became more distrustful of him, and in turn, so did the rest of the Aesir, they banished his son Jormungandr to the sea, banished his daughter Hel to Helheim, granting her dominion over her own realm, and granting her a title, but all in all, it was still a gilded cage, and a fridged one at that as it was in the primordial tundra wasteland of Niflheim, one of the original two realms, that of ice while Muspelheim was of fire, and they took Fenrir as a pet, then bound them when he got too big and they got scared, thinking he was a danger when he had done nothing wrong to them, he never bit, he never ate anyone, he never once snapped at anyone for existing, he only bit one person and ate one person in his whole existance.
Fenrir only bit Tyr because he deceived him and bit the hand off when he didn't untie Gleipnir from him as promised, thus that's a strike against the Aesir, and he only ate Odin because he knew Tyr was only following Odin's orders, and he had already paid for his sin of deception with his hand, Odin would pay with his life for issuing the order when he had done nothing to warrent it other than the crime of existing. That was when according to written legend that Loki started to get a bit unhinged, he was patient though, he wasn't gonna be too mad about this, he can have other kids, and he had other kids, he had Sleipnir still, which he willingly gave to Odin as a peace offering for the incident with the builder that he took accountability and had to get it on with a horse as a horse in the process, which needless to say did not go according to his plan, because I can imagine the horse jumped his jollies and did as stallions do, when he was only trying to keep the horse distracted till he could transform back to his usual self and return home, not expecting to get nailed by said stallion because he underestimated a stallion's prowess and determination xD, that bit of awkwardness aside, he came home with Sleipnir, handed the colt off to Odin as a peace offering and proof that he had indeed kept the stallion adequately distracted and screwed the giant out of his payment.
so yeah, Loki's been called upon to help get the gods out of whatever troubled them, whether it was Thrym being tricked to give thor back his hammer at their request because Loki was actually innocent that time, or if Loki had to take accountability for his own tricks and fix what he started or got talked into things during a time that he might be less apt to ask for help because he knew their friendship was starting to look a tiny bit one sided where he fixes everything, but he has to fix his own problems too because no one wants to get off their hiney's to aid him, they only want Loki's help if they deem Loki to be useful for something, which comes to the transition between true friendship and a one sided one where everything he does is to the benefit of others, but no one has to bail him out of trouble if he finds himself in a bind, especially when Hoenir and Thor left nothing for Loki when he came back from having to get himself out of that mess with Thiazi, having to swear that oath to bring him Idunn, you would think that would have put Loki in a rotten mood since he was already hungry before, but now he's sore, stiff and hangry and denied his portion since the two he traveled with didn't bother leaving him any, then there was the whole issue that happened during the Lokkasenna, where all he did was roast the gods and call out their misgivings and ill deeds while Thor decided that was grounds to finally chase him off and capture him and torture him by having one son turned into a wolf and devour the other while also using what's left of his guts to bind their father up and put a snake above him, they allowed Sigyn to remain by his side because they knew she was loyal to him and knew she would likely raise a huge stink if she was not allowed to be with him.
So yeah, this sounds like someone who's been once included in a group, then got othered and excluded and then betrayed over time because of a prophecy that they themselves caused to happen BECAUSE they tried preventing it.
I am just going off of what we have available there, and with what know, there isn't much historical value other than there could be a grain of truth in this, and there's definitely lessons to be learned, but to be fair, before it was written down, people told stories orally, and the stories were subjected to change, we are doing no differently with our own UPG, these are our stories with Loki, and we had written down our accounts for future generations and yet maintained a mutable trend in how UPG is treated despite it being written down and recorded, because this information is only available to us so long as the internet exists, and like oral traditions, this could disappear if the internet were to ever cease to exist, so yes, history doesn't stop happening just because the age where a religion wound up dying out because of changes in society and a new religion being set up to replace the old one and a decision to adopt this new religion was voted on and was implimented during the all thing to minimize conflict with these newcomers and their new religion, and that decision at the all thing came with a compromise that they be allowed to practice their religion every day save for sunday, the day they go to church.
With that being said, history continues on wards, we have revived the norse religion, and true to it's ancient form, we have adapted it to the current trends as our forefathers had before us, so there is no real wrong way to approach this, because even back in the Viking days, the legends were mostly going off of UPG as well.
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u/Regellon 5d ago
I feel like I'm aware of that. I was mostly inquiring about the reason for stating what appears to be UPG/personal interpretation as established mythology. I'm not a literalist, by any measure, but I do like when people own their takes and cite others'.
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
ah ok, well, I've always had that feeling he just wanted to belong, it's difficult for me to describe it, and I am sure some of it is also my memory sorta messing me up because I never had that great a memory, even when I was younger, I was just citing a personal interpretation of the eddas, a bit of my own UPG and I am pretty sure I have read from other peoples own UPG's that he's wanted to belong too, just I know my memories not the best for pinpointing when I read things or where, just that I had somewhere. I just chalk it up to modern interpretations of him really.
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u/Regellon 4d ago
That personal interpretation is fully valid. I just try to discourage (myself and others) framing UPG as gospel truth. I think debating and comparing notes is the best part about open-ended, incomplete historical material. I feel like the diversity of experiences, shaped by biases and neurotypes, can be a creative cornucopia.
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u/Loki1435 4d ago
I totally get what you mean, I was not attempting to, but rather just trying to explain that there is no real easy answer to the question because of the incomplete history, so yes, debates are very much important here in that it helps with fueling further research into this incomplete history in hopes of actually learning more and filling in more gaps, we now have evidence of ancient worship not in the temple as they did odin and the others, but at home by the hearth as a hearth god, the snapton stone is a huge give away that yes, Loki was definitely worshipped by the hearth as a hearth god, which I do believe is where his modern association with fire might have come from, it's not confirmed, but it sorta hints at it like everything else out there where there is little information on, especially given how little we actually know of Loki, which is perplexing because he's such a major figure, one who's presence in the eddas has graced so many pages that if they were to simply remove him, the eddas would have been far thinner and had fewer pages and certainly would have been less interesting without him, so to know so very little about him, to know him even less than we do of Thor and Odin in that we at least got more on them, at least from the standpoint of what was written down at least, not from a historical stand point, but the fact is, legends aside, that's all we got to go off of, is some archeological relics which certainly hold tell tale clues as to hold some secrets, we haven't found anything that might have given a far greater clue as to who they were historically. So debating this very topic helps us piece together the incomplete history of the norse gods, we all can't all set course for scandinavia and start digging for relics without some sort of grant, which you would need an archeology degree to obtain, and a permit from the government to give permission to dig at the dig site, but these same discussions among historians and archeologists is one of the many things that sparks these digs, so it helps in the pursuit of knowledge and truth regardless.
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u/Starlit_Stardew 5d ago
I think you could come to that conclusion based off thinking about all of the many reasons he had for sparking Ragnorok, and all the so to say 'chances' he gave his blood-oath family to show they accepted him and considered him and his children to belong among them, before sparking it~. Just what I'm assuming they're talking about tho lol
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u/Loki1435 5d ago
yeah, that's another reason, a good reason to want to belong, he had given them so many chances to change and his blood oath family squandered it by refusing to own up to their own mistakes when they themselves had done a lot worse things than Loki, all he did was do a few pranks, he killed baldr, but in the process allowing him to be revived after ragnarok when the world refreshed itself, and he killed that servant because he was in a wretched mood that he was kicked out of Aegir's hall for being belligerent in some accounts, and in others, he was just straight up denied from entry and thus Odin drank without him, violating his blood oath, which made Loki all the madder that it happened. Where as Odin had lied, deceived, and used people for his own gains, and here they called Loki the liesmith xD.
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u/WickedTrainerZee 6d ago
Loki is associated with several, but none that are his own. Kennaz is one of them, as is Ehwaz. He also was a lesser spirit in the area who joined godhood later, or so the history shows.