Tyra
Member
Phelice: Sometimes it's good to read stuff for yourself so you get a feeling for your own viewpoints, before you read how other people have interpreted the same text, though. And besides, it is a f:ing looooong thread!
Bates: How very Oden of you!
Celtic: I basically agree, but wanted to add two things: First, Loki was better than OK - he was Odin's sworn blood brother. Second, Loki insulting the gods at Ägir's feast, I think, should be seen in a socio-cultural light. During the Viking Age, one man was assigned to be the thule at another's hall. In Beowulf it was Unferth that was Hrothgar's thule. It was the thule's job to "interrrogate" the warriors publicly during the feast. This was in order to make sure that the warrior, who was expected to make a more or less obligatory beot and gielp (boast) as part of the ceremony during the feast where he pledged his allegience/took his oath to his lord, actually was physically, mentally and financially able to uphold the boasts he swore to. It meant that the thule "unbound war-runes" towards the guest who was to pass muster, i.e., he'd hear what the guest swore to, and then he'd challenge the statement, often in a very abrasive manner. You may remember that I pulled a similar stunt on this forum a while back, when I felt that someone made a statement that I thought they could not stand up to, in the name of my brother’s thule. The thule still represented the lord. The lord did not wish to insult the guest, so the thule would do the lord's bidding and say all the nasty things that needed to be pointed out. In Beowulf, Unferth pointed out that Beowulf, who'd said he was such a great warrior that he'd swear to slay Grendel, had made a fool of himself by loosing a swimming competition against Brekka. Then Beowulf would have a chance to defend himself, and so this battle of words, kappmaeli, would go back and forth until the lady of the house offered soothing words and a cold cup of aged mead to make peace in the hall.
The whole idea was that if someone took an oath to do something, it was taken before and to those gathered (as a difference to a Christian oath, that is made to God). If the oath was broken, those witnesses would loose as much "main" (kind of similar to luck) as the oath had been worth. Big oath, big main, little oath, little main. So it was important for all the people in the hall that Beowulf could keep his promise to slay Grendel, and it was Unferth’s job to make sure that nobody lost any main by interrogating the promise-maker before the oath was actually taken.
The trouble, as EzR pointed out, is that Snorri didn’t necessarily have this in the context when he wrote the orally retold saga down. It may well be that Loki was the thule at Ägir’s feast. Then he was supposed to have acted exactly as he did! He was supposed to call names and relate all the scuttlebutt about the guests to make sure that his lord’s reputation was held intact.
