Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas

Teutonic Myth and Legend: Chapter XVI. The Binding of Loke

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"Teutonic Myth and Legend" by Donald A. Mackenzie (1912) is a retelling of Norse mythology in the tradition of Victorian-Edwardian popularizations of Germanic legend, drawing on Eddic sources to narrate episodes from the Aesir cycle in prose narrative form. This excerpt covers the period following Balder's death: Odin's coercive courtship of the winter earth-goddess Rhind to sire Vale (the avenger), Vale's single-night-old quest to kill the blind god Hodur, and the daily martial rituals of Valhalla. It then recounts Odin's riddling contest with the giant Vafthrudner, won by asking a question only Odin could know the answer to — what he whispered in Balder's ear at death — and culminates in Loki gate-crashing Aegir's feast and systematically insulting each god in turn before fleeing. Mackenzie's treatment is notably euhemeristic and nature-allegorical: figures like Rhind and Billing are explicitly glossed as seasonal and twilight personifications, framing the myths as poetic encodings of natural cycles. The style is archaic and bardic ("hath sung," "spake"), aimed at a general educated audience rather than scholars, presenting the mythology as a coherent heroic tradition comparable to Greek or Celtic legend.

Teutonic Myth and Legend: Chapter XVI. The Binding of Loke

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