Loki and Angrboda

A few weeks ago, I finished writing a series of scenes for my work-in-progress Ragnarok Dreaming inspired by events described in the Norse Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. These involve the mysterious character of Angrboda, the “Hag of the Ironwood” who dwells in jotunheim, is alluded to as a witch and mother of many werewolves that hunt the ironwood. It is this horned witch, dwelling in the isolated woods that Loki has an adulterous affair and provides the three offspring who play central roles in the final battle of Ragnarok and the collapse of the Nine Worlds. The giantess Angrboda, who is barely mentioned in either the Prose or Poetic Eddas, is the mother the monstrous Wolf Frenrir, the Midgard Serpent Jormungand, and the unusual half-living, half-corpse ruler of Helheim, the indomitable Hel.
In my own re-imagining of this crucial series of scenes, I needed to decide if Loki was a willing participant in Angrboda’s affair, or if she were the powerful witch alluded to in the Prose and Poetic Eddas that was a deceiver with her own motivations. In the end, I decided Loki’s strange affair with Angrboda was the result of her own machinations and revenge against Odin and Loki caught in another’s schemes for a change. I am now moving closer to the final chapters in Part Three in Ragnarok Dreaming and the events immediately proceeding Ragnarok.