Loki’s punishment.
The gods, having thus secured Loki and forced him to resume his wonted shape, dragged him down into a cavern, where they made him fast, using as bonds the entrails of his son Narve, who had been torn to pieces by his brother Vali, whom the gods had changed into a wolf for this express purpose. One of these fetters was passed under Loki’s shoulders, and one under his loins; when he was securely bound, hand and foot, the gods, fearing lest these fetters might give way, changed them into adamant or iron.
“Thee, on a rock’s point,
With the entrails of thy ice-cold son,
The gods will bind.”
Sæmund’s Edda (Thorpe’s tr.).
Skadi, the giantess, a personification of the cold mountain stream, who had joyfully watched the fettering of her foe (subterranean fire), then fastened a venomous serpent directly over his head, so that the poison would fall, drop by drop, upon his upturned face. But Sigyn, Loki’s faithful wife, hurried with a cup to his side, gathered up the drops as they fell, and never left her post except when her vessel was full and she was obliged to empty it. During her short absence the drops of venom, falling upon Loki’s face, caused such intense pain that he writhed with anguish, shaking all the earth in his efforts to get free, and producing the earthquakes which so frighten mortals.
“Ere they left him in his anguish,
O’er his treacherous brow, ungrateful,
Skadi hung a serpent hateful,