giant
Fárbauti
The giant father of Loki, known only from Snorri and from one line of a tenth-century skaldic poem.
Fárbauti is Loki's father. Snorri calls him simply "Fárbauti the giant" and gives Loki's mother as Laufey or Nál Gylfaginning 33. Nothing is told of his deeds, his home or his fate, and no story explains how a giant came to father one of the Æsir.
His name survives outside Snorri's own prose in a verse by the tenth-century poet Úlfr Uggason, which Snorri quotes: it calls Loki "Fárbauti's sin-sly offspring" as he fights Heimdallr Skáldskaparmál 16. Snorri also lists "Son of Fárbauti and Laufey" first among the poetic ways of naming Loki. The poems of the Poetic Edda never name him; they call Loki by his mother's name instead.
In the sources
Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.
he is named Loki or Loptr, son of Fárbauti the giant
At Singasteinn with Loki, Fárbauti's sin-sly offspring
Where the sources disagree or fall silent
- Some scholars have read the name 'dangerous striker' and the name Laufey ('leafy island') as a lightning bolt striking a tree, which would make Loki a spark of fire; this is a speculative reading.
