Loki kills Ótr, an otter who is secretly Hreidmar’s son, forcing the gods to pay ransom with a stolen hoard. Andvari warns that the gold and ring will cause death and conflict, and the curse soon turns Hreidmar’s sons against their father and each other.
Loki and the Otter’s Ransom
Loki struck an otter on the head with a stone and killed it as it sat on a riverbank, eating a salmon with its eyes closed. Odin, Hoenir and Loki carried the otter and salmon with them. They reached a byre and asked its owner, Hreidmar, for lodging for the night. Hreidmar was powerful and skilled in the black arts. When he saw the catch, he seized the three Æsir and demanded payment for the otter, who was his son Ótr. They had to fill the otterskin with gold and cover its outside with red gold.
Loki borrowed Ran’s net and went to Andvara-falls. He cast the net in front of a pike, then jumped into it. The fish said that he was Andvari and that Oin had been his father. Loki demanded treasure as the price of his life. Andvari led him to the rock where he kept his gold and handed over the entire hoard. He had hidden one small ring in his hand. Loki saw it and demanded that as well. Andvari begged to keep it because it would let him increase his wealth again, but Loki took it.
Andvari declared that the ring and the gold would bring death to two brothers and strife between eight princes. He said the treasure would be the bane of everyone who possessed it. Loki welcomed this and promised to ensure that the curse reached the person who received the hoard. He returned to Hreidmar and gave him the gold as ransom for Ótr. Hreidmar accepted it, and the curse became attached to the treasure.
Hreidmar’s sons, Fafner and Regin, demanded their shares as payment for their brother. Hreidmar refused. The brothers agreed to kill their father for the gold. After Hreidmar’s death, Regin demanded half the hoard from Fafner. Fafner refused. He said that he had killed their father to obtain it, then ordered Regin to leave or suffer the same fate. The gold had brought death within the family, as Andvari had foretold.
Loki Steals Brísingamen
Loki entered Freyja’s locked room while she slept in Sessrumnir. The door was closed at the top and bottom, and its keyhole was too narrow for him to use. He searched the walls and found a tiny opening beneath the roof, at the highest point of a gable. He changed into a fly and slipped through it.
Freyja lay on her back, with the clasp of Brísingamen beneath her neck. Loki could not reach it. He changed into a flea and bit her cheek. Freyja groaned and turned on her side. Loki resumed his own form, opened the clasp and took the necklace. He left through the door because he no longer needed to conceal himself. When Freyja awoke, her hand found no necklace at her throat.
Heimdall pursued Loki, who had changed into a seal. The necklace lay on a rock in the sea called Vágasker, or Singasteinn. Loki’s disguise caused no suspicion because a seal might seek a resting place there. Heimdall took the same form and fought him on the rock. Loki had to withdraw, and Heimdall recovered Brísingamen.
One account connects the theft with the necklace’s earlier history. Four dwarfs, Alfrig, Dvalin, Berling and Grer, made the ornament. Freyja saw it in their smithy and obtained it under conditions that conflicted with the fidelity she owed Odin. Loki learned what had happened and told Odin, who ordered him to take the necklace. Another account gives no such motive. In that version, Loki entered Freyja’s room by using his transformations.
Loki Escapes as a Salmon
After Baldr’s death, Loki fled from the gods and hid in the form of a salmon at the waterfall of Franangr. He built a house with four doors so that he could watch for anyone approaching. He spent his days in the waterfall, moving through the spray and fearing discovery.
While he brooded, Loki made a fishing net. He considered how a salmon might escape such a trap. It could swim beneath the net, pass between stones or leap over it. When he saw the gods coming up the mountainside, he threw the net onto the fire. The Æsir found its ashes and wondered why Loki had made and destroyed a net just as they arrived. Kvasir reasoned that Loki had burned it so they could not use it to catch him. Thor understood that Loki must be hiding as a fish in the deep pool below the waterfall.
The gods made a net like Loki’s and dragged it through the pool. Loki swam beneath it and slipped between two flat stones. The net passed over him. Thor had felt something push against it, so Kvasir ordered the gods to try again. This time they tied heavy stones to the lower edge, preventing anything from swimming underneath. Loki could not change into another form, and the weighted net left him fewer ways to escape.
The Æsir dragged the net upstream towards the waterfall while Loki swam ahead of it towards the sea. He feared the deep water and turned back. He leaped over the net and returned upstream. The gods began again, with two groups holding the ends and Thor wading in the centre. Loki swam towards the sea once more, then turned and leaped over the net. Thor caught him in mid-air and held him fast.
