Study › Runes & Norse › The Binding of Loki
After Baldr's death and his insults to the gods, Loki was caught and bound in a cave under a serpent that drips venom. His wife Sigyn holds a bowl to catch it, and when she empties it, his writhing shakes the earth.
Loki flees
After he had contrived the death of Baldr and then, at a feast in the poem Lokasenna, mocked and slandered each of the gods to their faces, Loki's welcome among them was finally at an end. He fled into the mountains to a house with four doors, and by day took the shape of a salmon in the waterfall of Franang.
The net and the salmon
There the gods hunted him. Loki himself had invented the fishing-net, and from the ashes of one he had burned the gods worked out its pattern and wove their own. They dragged the river, and as the salmon leapt the net Thor caught him in mid-air by the tail — which is why the salmon tapers to this day.
The binding
They bore him to a cave and bound him across three sharp stones with the entrails of his own son Nari, which the gods turned to iron; his other son was changed into a wolf and tore Nari apart. Then the giantess Skadi fastened a venomous serpent above his face, to drip poison upon him.
Sigyn and the earthquakes
His faithful wife Sigyn stands beside him, holding a bowl to catch the venom; but each time she turns aside to empty it, the drops fall on Loki's face, and his agonised writhing shakes the whole earth — and that is what men call earthquakes. There he lies bound until he breaks free at Ragnarok to take his revenge. The binding is told in Snorri's Gylfaginning.
Read about Loki, Lokasenna and the death of Baldr.
Questions
How was Loki punished?
He was bound across three stones under a serpent that drips venom on his face.
Who is Sigyn?
Loki's faithful wife, who holds a bowl to catch the venom.