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Sigyn

Loki's wife, counted among the goddesses, who stays beside her bound husband holding a bowl to catch the snake venom dripping onto his face.

Loki Bound by Collingwood
Loki Bound by Collingwood, W.G. Collingwood (1908). Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Sigyn is the wife of Loki and the mother of his son Nari or Narfi Gylfaginning 33. She is counted among the goddesses: Snorri lists her with Frigg, Freyja and the others in the high seats at Ægir's feast Skáldskaparmál 1. Beyond her marriage, the sources tell one thing about her, and it is the image she is remembered for.

When the gods bound Loki in a cave, Skaði hung a venomous snake above his face. Sigyn stays by him and holds a basin under the dripping venom. When the basin is full she has to carry it away to empty it, and in that moment the venom falls on Loki's face; his convulsions are what men call earthquakes Gylfaginning 50. The prose at the end of Lokasenna tells the same scene, with a shell in place of the basin Lokasenna, prose 7. See The binding of Loki.

One did I see in the wet woods bound,A lover of ill, and to Loki like;By his side does Sigyn sit, nor is gladTo see her mate: would you know yet more?Völuspá 35

Völuspá's brief line is the oldest witness to the scene. It says only that she sits by him and is not glad, which can be read as grief or as weariness. Skaldic poets knew her too: Snorri quotes a verse that calls Loki "The Arm-Burden then of Sigyn" Skáldskaparmál 22, and he lists "Husband of Sigyn" among the poetic names for Loki Skáldskaparmál 16. That kenning suggests she was well enough known to identify Loki by, though nothing more of her story survives.

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.

His wife was called Sigyn, their son Nari or Narfi.
Gylfaginning 33 Snorri names Sigyn as Loki's wife and the mother of his son Nari or Narfi.
But Sigyn, his wife, stands near him and holds a basin under the venom-drops
Gylfaginning 50 Sigyn's only action in the myths: shielding her bound husband from the venom.
By his side does Sigyn sit, nor is glad To see her mate
Völuspá 35 The seeress sees Sigyn beside the bound Loki.
Sigyn, Loki's wife, sat there and held a shell under the poison
Lokasenna, prose 7 Lokasenna's prose epilogue tells the same scene.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Bellows's Völuspá says Sigyn 'nor is glad / To see her mate' (Völuspá 35); whether this means grief at his suffering or no affection for him is a matter of reading.

In modern culture

Not from the medieval sources.

Sigyn's quiet loyalty has made her a figure of sympathy in modern retellings and neo-pagan devotion, where she is sometimes honoured as a goddess of faithfulness. That role is a modern development; the medieval sources give her one scene.

Myths with Sigyn

The binding of Loki After Baldr's death Loki hides as a salmon in a waterfall. The gods catch him in a net, bind him on three stones with his own son's entrails, and hang a serpent over his face. Sigyn catches the venom in a bowl until Ragnarök.

Related

Loki The giant-born trickster counted among the Æsir: father of Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent and Hel, contriver of Baldr's death, bound until Ragnarök. Skaði A giantess who came to Asgard armed to avenge her father Þjazi, accepted a husband instead, and went back to the mountains to hunt on skis when the marriage to Njörðr failed. Odin Óðinn Chief of the Æsir: a one-eyed god of wisdom, poetry, magic, war and the dead, who gave an eye and hanged himself on a tree for knowledge, and who dies at Ragnarök. Ragnarök The foretold end of the gods' world: wolves swallow sun and moon, Loki and the monsters break loose, the gods fall in battle, Surtr burns the earth, and a new world rises.