Tricking the Trickster
BY ALPER ÖZKAN (MSN/PhD I)
After a tough week of catching up on a few tasks (though those tasks were more along the lines of "finish reading 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure'" or "unlock the extra stages on Diadra Empty" rather than "go through the pile of papers that have accumulated on my desk over the past months," as I should have done) and fighting the bitter cold that has swiftly and decisively replaced the much-beloved warmth of early autumn, it is again time to sit down and find a topic I know well enough to write about. Come to think about it, I've written on Aztec, Egyptian, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, African and Sumerian myths, but as far as I can recall, never about Norse mythology. Time to remedy that.
While the Olympians managed to usurp the Titans' rule, the Amatsukami vanquished their earthly counterparts, the Devas could keep the Asuras mostly in check, and Ra personally bashed in Apep's head every night, the Aesir were beset with potential enemies from all directions. Though the Vanir, another prominent clan of gods, were defeated and their members (notably Freya, Freyr, Njord and Mimir) were taken as hostages, the primary threat to the Norse pantheon came not from rival gods, but from giants - a force just as powerful as the gods, if not more so. While often depicted as hulking brutes with little in the way of intelligence or wits, this is by no means always the case; for even Odin's wife Jord and the trickster Loki count themselves among the giants (the latter was only accepted into the Aesir due to his blood brotherhood with Odin). Incidentally, Loki himself meets his match in another crafty giant who bears the same name, and their story is one worth mentioning.
As the legend goes, Loki and Thor arrive at the majestic castle of the giant king Utgarda-Loki, who behaves cordially but demands that they each demonstrate their skill in feats of their choice, in which ordinary men shouldn't be able to match them. Loki immediately boasts of his ability to eat faster than anyone and is set against a thin, wiry man who will compete with him in an eating contest, so that the former may show his mettle. Vast quantities of meat are brought before both contestants, and true to his claims, Loki devours all the meat at an astonishing pace, only to find that his rival has eaten not only an equal amount of meat, but also the bones -- and even the plate on which the meat was brought. Likewise, a companion of Thor's loses a running contest against a tiny man who reaches the finish line and runs back to greet his sluggish rival, all in a blink. Thor himself is asked to empty a drinking horn, which he fails to do despite all his efforts. Refusing to admit defeat, the stubborn thunder god demands another challenge, and is promptly humiliated further: he is asked to carry a cat and only manages to lift one paw; and is asked to wrestle an old woman and loses after merely bringing her to one knee.
After lodging his guests for the night and sending them safely off the next morning, Utgarda-Loki appears before Thor's group and tells them that he hopes they will never meet again, not out of any ill intent but simply because he is terrified of Thor and his companions. He then reveals that what Loki raced was the personalification of Wildfire itself, which obviously burned away meat, bone and platter alike, though Loki was able to match his speed. What the servant boy raced was not a man but Thought, though the boy almost managed to catch up. Thor displayed the most impressive performance, such that all the giants observing the rigged contests were trembling in fear: his drinking horn was connected to the oceans and he still managed to drink enough to lower the sea level; what he lifted up was not a cat but the world-encompassing serpent, Jormungandr; and the old woman he brought to one knee was none other than Death, against whom all are powerless. Realizing that he had been tricked, Thor tries to slay the giant with his mighty hammer in retaliation, but both Utgarda-Loki and his castle vanish in an instant, never to appear again before the thunder god.
On a side note, I was initially planning to write about how the horns (or helmets) adorning the backs of treehoppers -- a group of insects that apparently evolved for the sole purpose of looking absurd -- actually develop from the very same structures that give rise to wings in other segments. So here you have it: membracid helmets are actually proto-wings that went off in a different evolutionary direction and are now used for defense and hiding instead of flight. They even have those little hinges attaching them to the body proper, just like insect wings do. You can read the relevant article and find some really nice pictures of membracids (and their bizarre helmet shapes) in the journal Nature; the title is "Body plan innovation in treehoppers through the evolution of an extra wing-like appendage." Our university network has free access to it.
P.S. Looks like I've just won the 13th EMBL International PhD Symposium Writing Prize, so by the time you read this, I'll be in a conference brimming with brilliant young scientists (not including myself, as I'm not exactly what you'd call brilliant; "eccentric" would be more appropriate). Anyhow, let's hope I won't fumble my words in front of them.