How Loki was washed away and demonized
The Nordic days of the week were inspired by the Roman model with names from powerful sacred beings - Sun, Moon, Tyr, Odin, Thor, Freya - with the remarkable exception of the seventh day that we call Saturday; in older form laugarday or lögardag. The generally accepted explanation is that it was the very day that our forefathers washed themselves before the Sabbath - yes, that is the day of rest that was introduced by the church. Never mind that medieval people hardly devoted themselves to body wash as often as once a week. It seems odd that six out of the seven days have holy names while the seventh day would be associated with such a mundane thing as body wash.
There is something wrong with this statement, and this led Jan G. Ekermann to try to penetrate the smokescreen and do a thorough investigation of the creation of laugarday, which soon proved to be a feature in a large and comprehensive spiritual complete flip-flop. The investigation resulted in three books which should interest anyone who in any way want to immerse themselves in pre-Christian Nordic spirituality – Hagtornsgåtan (Credendum 2005), Lögardagsgåtan (Credendum 2007) and Snorri Sturluson (Credendum 2014). (These are only available in swedish)
Ekermann’s main thesis is that also the seventh day, "laugurday" had a pagan name, namely Lódursday and that Lodur was a highly respected deity, later better known as Loki. The chain of evidence for this subject in brief is: the Roman seventh day was the name for Saturn, who just like Lodur / Loki was from giants lineage and was a double nature with both creative and destructive aspects. The Teutons had a parallel god to Saturn called Sater or Saetere who got to name the seventh day (something that lives on in the English Saturday). In the Nordic countries saturday was tied to Lodur / Loki, who was the subject of extensive cultic activity during large spring festivals in sacred hawthorn tree groves. Lodur / Loki have, according to Ekermann had the name Hagall which shows his affinity with the hawthorn tree. Loki's mother is Laufey or Nál (needle), which can be interpreted as the hawthorn tree with their sharp thorns / needles. Correlation between Lodur / Loki and Hagall can be found on rune staff calendars where the Hagal rune represents the seventh day. Many place names with the prefix Thorn and Hail is also proof of an extensive Lokicult.
The Christian Church looked with disgust upon the seventh day that had been named after Lodur / Loki which by the clergy, in accordance with the parallels to Saturn was perceived as a variant of Satan. At church meetings in 1152-1153 in Nidaros and Linköping the Julian chronology was introduced in the Nordic region and it was also decided that Lódursday must be renamed. The outcome of these discussions was laugharday which sonically is pretty close to Lódursday, and ideologically it could be linked to Easter Saturday where mass-baptisms of pagans were common. Abracadabra and the “satanic” Lódursday was transformed into laugarday where Christians would undergo a thorough cleaning before the Sabbath, the Lord's day.
As for the demonization of Lodur / Loki, Snorri Sturluson contributed quite a bit in his version of the Edda where he distorted the figure beyond recognition and cleared away Lodur from the creation story. Ekermann sees this partly as an expression of Snorri's attempts to navigate the complicated and dangerous political landscape in the 1200s Iceland with constant feuds between magnate families, the church's growing power and the Norwegian king's attempts to subdue Iceland.
In Valan’s divination in the Poetic Edda (Edvin Thall’s interpretation) Lodur is still present in the stanzas about how the first humans were created:
Ur kretsen trädde trenne asar,
mäktige, hulde, till huset ned;
funno på land föga mäktande
Ask och Embla, ödeslösa.
Ej anda de hade, ej hug de ägde,
ej blod, ej later, ej gudalikhet;
ande och hug gav Oden och Höner,
later gav Lodur och gudalikhet.
In Björn Collinder’s interpretation it says that Lodur gave "blood and blooming complexion" and Åke Ohlmark’s words: "viability and color of life". In any case, Lodur is a being that is intimately linked with the creation of man and man's special qualities, and therefore it is not a far-fetched idea that Lodur / Loki was regarded and treated as a special "people's friend." It is therefore only fair to clear Loki’s name and bring back his exciting and complex character.
(There were final thoughts on some of Ekermann’s theories that I desided to exclude since the readers don’t have access to a translated version of Ekemann’s books.)
This text was originally written by Jörgen I. Eriksson, October 2014. Translation by permission.
