“Loki's Mythological Function in the Tripartite System” [Lokasenna]

In this second essay relating to Lokasenna, Jerold Frakes discusses the poem in an attempt to delineate the nature of Loki as a god. He responds in particular to the structuralist mythological approach of Georges Dumézil, who argued on a comparative basis with other Indo-European mythologies for a tripartite division of divine functions. In Old Norse, these theoretical functions of sovereignty, warfare and fertility were fulfilled mainly by Óðinn, Þόrr and Freyr, with other gods and goddesses variously aligned. Loki, however, clearly did not have a ‘functional’ role and Dumézil’s treatment of him, Frakes argues, is inadequate. Frakes goes on to suggest Loki plays an anti-functional role, accusing the gods in Lokasenna of failing to fulfill their functional duties and often embodying the very opposite of those functions himself. Frakes’ approach and conception, providing Norse evidence for specific, individualized godly functions, does not in the end rely on the validity of Dumézil’s theoretical framework.