Lokka Táttur

 1. Introduction

Joseph S. Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info, November 2021. Special thanks to Denise Vast for providing several of the resources discussed below.

Lokka Táttur, Loka Táttur, or Loka Thaattur—meaning ‘Tale of Loki’ or, more specifically, ‘táttur of Loki’—is a traditional Faroese ballad first textualized in 1822 by Danish botanist and priest Hans Christian Lyngbye (d. 1837). The táttur focuses on a trio of North Germanic deities, specifically the wise Odin, the mysterious Hœnir, and, as the poem’s name implies, the wily Loki. While the poem is first recorded in the early 19th century, its contents ultimately stem from much earlier material, and it is primarily for this reason that it has elicited commentary here and there from a variety of scholars over the years. While to date quite obscure to the general public, the song has seen at least one contemporary adaptation, namely that of the Faroese metal band Týr (“Lokka Táttur”, Land, 2008, Napalm Records).

In Lokka Táttur, a farmer loses a wager with a risi (an ambiguous and often not particularly large being translated in this edition as “giant”) and demands his prize: If the farmer cannot hide his son, the risi will take him. To defend his family, the farmer consults two unnamed male figures who call upon three successive deities, each of whom protects the farmer’s son. The song closely follows this threefold structure until its resolution (the ancient Germanic record frequently indicates a strong fixation on the numbers three and multiples of three, especially nine).

Readers familiar with the Old Norse corpus’s material of what we today call “Norse mythology” will recognize echoes from the Old Norse corpus in aspects of the song. For example, the trio of Odin, Loki, and Hœnir appear together at various points in the Old Norse corpus (see illustration), and readers will notice echoes of Loki’s ancient association with motifs such as the fishing net and fish more broadly (for example, in Gylfaginning 50, Loki escapes his pursuers by transforming into a salmon before being caught with a fishing net, a device he is there said to have invented).

Interestingly, Lokka Táttur also associates the god Hœnir with birds (specifically swans), a particular connection which may or may not be hinted at in skaldic poetry (some of our earliest sources of what we today call Norse Mythology, for further discussion, see this article). In the past Hœnir may have been thought of as a bird in form.

Although fairly straightforward to translate and of broad interest to scholars and enthusiasts, the poem has quite rarely been translated into English. It is for this reason that Mimisbrunnr.info makes the present edition available for readers—enthusiasts and specialists alike—for their own purposes. We hope you find it useful.

Resources

To listen to historic field recordings of recitations of the táttur, see the online archives of the University of the Faroe Islands, select Bond, type your search phrase (Lokka Táttur), and then find recordings of the song by clicking the numbered archive entries that appear under Nummer. (Last accessed November 30, 2021)

For recent in-depth English-language discussion on Faroese ballads, see the following PhD thesis from scholar Annika Christensen:

• Christensen, Annika. 2020. ‘Kvæði í Føroyskari Samtíð’: Exploring Ballads as Popular Culture and Heritage in Contemporary Faroese Culture. University of Leeds. Viewable online. Last accessed November 17, 2021.

For a little contemporary English language discussion of Lokka Táttur specifically, and its connection to broader bodies of folklore more generally—both ancient and in the modern—see the following paper from scholar Eldar Heide:

• Heide, Eldar. 2011. “Loki, the Vätte, and the Ash Lad: A Study Combining Old Scandinavian and Late Material”. Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7, p. 63–106. Viewable online at Academia.edu. Last accessed November 17, 2021.