The Saga of Vanadís, Völva and Valkyrja

the Æsir, who look upon women and goddesses as their possession or exciting attraction,
and who take their own maleness very seriously. An exception to that is the very
masculine Þór, who on one occasion dresses up as a bride, pretending to be Freyja 100 .
Lokasenna takes place at a feast in the sea god Ægir’s hall, where all the Æsir and
Vanir. In this poem and its prologue, the Vanir are called álfar, something we see quite
often in the myths and sagas. The goð are all gathered to celebrate good fishing or
hunting, except for Þór who is out fighting giants. Ægir has acquired a great cauldron,
with enough ale for all the goð. The hall is lit with gold, and the ale is served freely.
Servants are praised. Loki comes uninvited, causes a scene, and after all the goð have
become drunk, the mockery and insulting debates take place.
Similar feasts or ritual customs are found in other cultures. The Saturnalia was a
yearly festival in ancient Rome. It was characterized by mockery and misrule. It was
named after Saturn, the old earth god who later turned evil and devoured his children.
According to Moslems he is the protector of thieves and swindlers (Jobes, 1962). There
are clear similarities between Saturn and Loki, so the Lokasenna might have been some
kind of yearly ritual or feast, where things were meant to be out of control and insulting.
At the Saturnalia servants and masters changed places, and in Lokasenna the servants of
both Ægir and Freyr are mentioned by names, something we don’t see elsewhere.
Another similar feast was connected to Inanna in Sumer. Her cult feasts were
carnivals of outrageous conduct and characterized by orgiastic behavior and even bloody
castration (Meador, 2000, p.20). We must be careful in assuming that Loki’s accusations
of Freyja’s (and the others) sexual performance in Lokasenna reflects the ideology of the
old custom. Although the Æsir were more moralistic towards sexual matters than the
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