Night Owl Romance

5 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Loki by Asa Maria Bradley, Author of Loki Ascending

Thank you so much for hosting me on Night Owl Romance today to celebrate the release of LOKI ASCENDING! This is one of my favorite romance communities, not only because Tammie and the reviewers are so amazing, but also because the reader interactions are always fun.

LOKI ASCENDING is the third book of my contemporary paranormal romance series about sexy immortal Vikings and Valkyries. It’s the first book where the villain Loki truly appears on the page. He’s been the puppet master behind all the bad things that happened in the earlier books, but in LOKI ASCENDING he really steps into the big baddie role in person.

My Loki is based on the traditional (half) deity from classic Norse mythology. I grew up in Sweden and have always loved the old Viking tales. Most of the stories comes from the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, which were written by Snorri Sturulson in Iceland during the 13th century, several years after the actual Scandinavian Viking age. The written stories are probably changed from their original oral version, but then again, if a story is carried down through an oral tradition it changes with every retelling.

However, according to the Poetic and Prose Eddas, here are 5 things you probably didn’t know about the original Loki.

1. Most tales describe Loki as a half god, but his actual parentage is a little unclear. Loki’s father, Fárbauti, is described as a giant all through the Eddas, but his mother, Laufey, is not as clearly defined. Sometimes she’s referred to as a giantess, sometimes as a goddess. In the Viking Warriors series, I use the goddess definition so Loki is a half-god, half-giant.
    
2. Loki was married (!) to the goddess Sigyn and with her he fathered a son who is sometimes called Narfi and sometimes Nari.
    
3. Loki is a shapeshifter. There are stories about him being a horse, a salmon, and a fly in the Norse tales. In one story he also takes on the shape of an elderly woman named pökk.
    
4. Loki was not good at staying faithful to his wife and actually became both a father and a mother (!) to children that he had with other partners.
   
   -With the jötunn Angrboða, he fathered three children: Hel: the goddess of the Norse underworld, Jörmungandr: the Midgard Serpent, and Fenrir: a monstrous wolf. (A jötunn is kind of like a troll or a fae in Norse mythology.)
   
   -During one of his shapeshifting episodes, he transformed himself to a mare and slept with the stallion Svaðilfari. This amorous connection resulted in Loki gaving birth to the eight-legged horse Sleipnir.
    
5. Loki once cut off the hair of Thor’s wife Sif, just for fun. The god of thunder figured out Loki was to blame and in order to keep Thor from killing him, Loki promised he’d go to the dark elves’s dwelling and ask them to make a golden crown for Sif. If he would have stopped there, everything would have been fine, but Loki then bragged about how the elves were much better smiths than the dwarves. As you can imagine, this pissed off the dwarves and they insisted on a contest to prove that they could make better jewelry and weapons than the elves. They called on all the gods to judge the contest. To make a long story short, Loki ended up a loser and among other fabulous things, the dwarves made the hammer Mjölnir for Thor.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this short history of some of Loki’s shenanigans. Thanks for visiting Night Owl Romance and if you like Norse mythology, give LOKI ASCENDING and the Viking Warriors a try.

Loki Ascending - Viking Warriors Book 3

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LOKI WANTS TO END THE WORLD

Only they can stop him—but at what cost?

Although Scott Brisbane is human, he's developed an inner warrior—a berserker that wants to claim Irja Vainio as his own.

Irja is an immortal Viking healer, but she hasn't used her true powers for centuries. The last time she did, someone close to her ended up dead. So instead she relies on medicine and science to protect her tribe while denying her feelings for Scott.

But the Viking warriors are falling mysteriously ill, and without magic, Irja's knowledge of healing isn't enough. When the trickster god Loki offers her a cure, it comes with a steep price that could cost Irja everything. She needs Scott's help, the man whose loyalty to the Vikings is unmatched, whose love for Irja cannot be broken—and whose inner fury has yet to be unleashed.

MORE IN THE SERIES

The lucky print book winner is: Tracy Urschler

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Originally a native of Sweden, ASA MARIA BRADLEY came to the United States as a high school exchange student, but decided to stay for the next couple of decades and add a few more degrees. She now lives in the Pacific Northwest. Learn more about the author at asamariabradley.com.