Becoming a mother the social value of sh

Transformations – University College London – May 2014 BECOMING A MOTHER The social value of shape-shifting in Snorri Sturluson’s Gylfaginning and Brian Day’s “Loki and Sleipnir” HARRIET JEAN EVANS University of York HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 SNORRI STURLUSON BRIAN DAY Medieval Icelandic lawyer, poet, and politician Canadian poet interested in the interplay between sex and the sacred GYLFAGINNING “LOKI AND SLEIPNIR” Loki seeking to reaffirm his position in the group Loki victimised and exploited by the group HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 GYLFAGINNING • The builder offers to build the wall in exchange for Freyja, the sun and the moon • The gods agree, and allow him to use his horse • This horse is stronger than any man, and the gods are worried they will have to pay up • They tell Loki to solve the problem… he turns himself into a mare • With the horse distracted, the builder can’t finish the wall • Reveals himself as a giant and is destroyed by Thor • Loki gives birth to Sleipnir HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 LOKI & THE ỈSIR ODIN – “leader”, THOR – head giant-basher LOKI – son of a giant and a goddess (I.e not quite in the group) LOKI & ODIN Mantu ỵat, Oinn, er vit í árdaga blendom blóði saman? Do you remember, Ĩðinn, when we two in the old days blended our blood together? Does Loki need Odin for acceptance into the Ỉsir group? HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 LOKI’S CHILDREN - a mythological family - +Angrboða Fenrir Hel +Svilfỉri Jưrmungandr +Sigyn Nari/Narfi Sleipnir Can move between the worlds of the living and the dead! HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 “LOKI AND SLEIPNIR” (2000) • Sticks closely to the original • Sleipnir is Loki’s first child • Loki is the only one who can save the gods • Loki loses his masculine identity bit by bit HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 DARKNESS, DANGER, AND FEMININITY A NATURAL PART OF LIFE? As the late long evening sun was setting They gambolled the crucial last nights to the Loki frisked with her teasing scent to and Svadilfari, stunned with his black nigh the meadow proved useless by day at dragging stone, upwind from the stallion’s hauling of stone was cajoled and whipped but could not reach The scent was the speed and wildness of The nameless worker, irate at his failure summer to gain Freyja’s body and the lights of the sky The workhorse, Svadilfari, tore from his cracked the shell of his mason’s disguise traces, erupted in sudden grotesque contortion, bolted from duty and the weight of the wall and stood fuming, a giant on Asgard’s pl When Odin and the others saw his true shape The sweet burning grasses that they on an instant revoked their oaths smoked in his blood for a pledge with a giant could not be bin obscured the urgent appeals of the They summoned Thor - with his hammer Mjol man who still believed himself his master - who splintered the builder’s skill like glass sent him speeding in arcs behind the mare, and drove him down to the land of Niflhe forever removed from the sun and the m trampling tracks in the green-gold meadow and crashing through the bristled brush of the wood Loki deked and swerved and sweated, releasing her maddening scent to the air, HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 BECOMING “PREGNANT LOKI” But Loki was not relieved of his life The memory of that male and unmale entry churned her mind in interminable nausea; In exhaustion it came without surprise when her foal was dropped with a full eight legs A mouth on eight legs now drank from it festered within her in the long months her teats alone, and she was reduced to the jug of its feeding, and seasoned the flesh that grew slow in her belly Svadilfari entered as a dream half herself, her body the repository of another’s needs forcing his foreign power upon her, The foal once weaned was given to Odin: adding stallion to what she was as mare, Sleipnir, son of Loki, and the best of all horses compounding his sex upon her own HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 WHAT DOES LOKI CONCEIVE? SLEIPNIR? HATE? He’d been delivered of one of his children, The acid hate of a man made a mother but the hate engendered still grew inside him would blaze in Loki and the children he’d father It would shape itself to sharp darts in his arsenal, until it poured out as flame and venom, gutting and scarring and scorching the would be bred in Fenriswolf, Jormungand, world, Hel melting all women and men and horses, the wolf and serpent and putrefying destroying at last the gods who’d woman destroyed him who would lie in wait to assault the gods Are war and destruction the children of the masculine? HARRIET JEAN EVANS Transformations – University College London – May 2014 GYLFAGINNING CONCLUSIONS • medieval narrative “LOKI AND SLEIPNIR” • Icelandic farmer trying to ingratiate himself with his local chieftain? • Loki is victim of society • Loki starts disadvantaged but is able to successfully negotiate an increase in his fortunes by means of gift exchange and social usefulness • also victim of himself? • cost of transformation is high: loses his masculine identity in stages Endings as different as the centuries-wide moments of their conception - between Snorri and Day - between a world where such transformations could benefit society, rather than destroy it HARRIET JEAN EVANS ... scent was the speed and wildness of The nameless worker, irate at his failure summer to gain Freyja’s body and the lights of the sky The workhorse, Svadilfari, tore from his cracked the shell of. .. from the sun and the m trampling tracks in the green-gold meadow and crashing through the bristled brush of the wood Loki deked and swerved and sweated, releasing her maddening scent to the air,... London – May 2014 DARKNESS, DANGER, AND FEMININITY A NATURAL PART OF LIFE? As the late long evening sun was setting They gambolled the crucial last nights to the Loki frisked with her teasing scent