I don't have a lot of time to screw
around today either, I have wasted a bunch of time today, so, that's
on me. It's 11:28 right now and I am trying to make a midnight
deadline.
L is for Loki, dude, we really have to
start with a tough one here, eh? Loki is the blood brother of Odin
and the frequent traveling companion of Thor. He's not really one of
the Aesir, but not really a Jötunn either, given his companions.
Almost all of the Norse myths start with Loki either screwing
something up just for the sheer chaotic joy of it, or because he got
forced to do it by some more powerful Jötunn or Odin. He almost
always fixes things, and makes the Aesir come out much further ahead,
right up until the end of the cycle when he sets in motion the events
that lead to Ragnarök. Loki was never worshiped by the Norsemen, but
he is integral to their entire cycle of myths. Some think of him as a
Norse Satan figure, some simply as a Trickster. I fall on the side of
Trickster myself, since the entire Ragnarök end theme may have been
a late addition to the corpus of Norse lore accreted to it by
exposure to Christianity. Loki is interesting though, because he can
change shape and gender, knows a fair bit of magic and is the father
of Jörmungand, Fenrir and Hel, and the mother of Sleipnir, Odin's
eight-legged horse.
L is for Loot, we can't really talk
about Vikings without talking about the loot. That's what the raiding
was, at least initially, for. Loot comes in many forms, but the best
kind is small and valuable, gold, silver, gems and jewelry, the kind
of stuff any D&D player is intimately familiar with, weapons, art
objects, tools, food stuffs, raw materials, livestock and slaves also
rank pretty high on the list.
L is for Law, you'd think with the
outlaw biker image that the Norsemen have that Law wouldn't be
mentioned at all, but it actually ranks pretty high on the list of
Norse things to know and respect. In parts of the Norse world they
had Law Speakers that were expected to memorize the law and recite
it, usually annually. Enforcement of the law was a little trickier,
but the Norse were actually a pretty litigious people, as was alluded
to when I wrote about Forseti.
L is for Ljósálfr or "Light
Elf", the Elves that are ruled over by the God Frey. They are,
more or less, good elves.
L is for Longship, the stereotypical
Viking raiding vessel.
L is for Líf and Lífthrasir, the two
humans that survive Ragnarök.
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