That the names Vale and Ale, which both belong to the same Asa-god and son of Odin who avenged the death of his brother Balder, are both attributed to the other son of Loke. Compare Gylfaginning, ch. 30: Vali eda Ali heitir einn (Assin) sonr Odins ok Rindar.
How shall we explain this? Such an application of these names must necessarily produce the suspicion of some serious mistake; but we cannot assume that it was made wilfully. The cause must be found somewhere.
It has already been demonstrated that, in the mythology, Urd, the dis of fate, was also the dis of death and the ruler of the lower world, and that the functions belonging to her in this capacity were, in Christian times, transferred to Loke's daughter, who, together with her functions, usurped her name Hel. Loke's daughter and Hel became to the Christian mythographers identical.
An inevitable result was that such expressions as nipt Nara, jódis Narfa, nipt Njörva, had to change meaning. The nipt Njörva, whom the aged Egil saw standing near the grave-mound on Digraness, and whose arrival he awaited "with gladness and good-will," was no longer the death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian interpreters the abominable daughter of Loke who came to fetch the old heathen. The nipt Nara, whose horse trampled on the battle-field where Erik Blood-axe defeated the Scots, was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became Loke's daughter, although, even according to the Christian mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battle-field. The jódis Narfa, who chose King Dygve, was confounded with Loka mær, who had him leikinn (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was a maid-servant of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens nipt Nara, nipt Njörva, jódis Narfa, meant "Nare-Mimer's kinswoman Urd." To the mythographers of the thirteenth century it must, for the reason stated, have meant the Loke-daughter as sister of a certain Nare or Narve. It follows that this Nare or Narve ought to be a son of Loke, since his sister was Loke's daughter. It was known that Loke besides Fenrer and the Midgard-serpent, had two other sons, of which the one in the guise of a wolf tore the other into pieces. In Nare, Narve, the name of one or the names of both these Loke-sons were thought to have been found.
The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna. He conceived Nare to be the one brother and Narve the other. The author of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nare and Narve as simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate the same son of Loke. When he wrote chapter 33, he did not know what name to give to the other, and consequently omitted him entirely. But when he got to the 50th chapter, a light had risen for him in regard to the name of the other. And the light doubtless came from the following strophe in Völuspa:
tha kna vala
vigbond snua,
helldi voru hardgior
hoft or thormum.
This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loke) that were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Vale's vigbönd." Vig as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. Vala vig was interpreted as a murder committed by Vale; and Vala vigbönd as the bonds or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vale. It was known that Loke was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vale. And as he was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vale must be the brother of the slain son of Loke. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two sons of Loke were named Vale and Nare or Narve, and that Vale changed to a wolf, tore the brother "Nare or Narve" into pieces.
The next step was taken by Skaldskaparmal, or more probably by one of the transcribers of Skaldskaparmal. As Vale and Ale in the mythology designated the same person (viz., Balder's avenger, the son of Odin), the son of Loke, changed into a wolf, "Vale" received as a gift the name "Ale." It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded Balder's avenger, Vale, and the son of Loke as identical. The oldest manuscript we have of Skaldskaparmal is the Upsala Codex, which is no older than the beginning of the fourteenth century. The mythic traditions were then in the continuation of that rapid decay which had begun in the eleventh century, and not long thereafter the Icelandic saga writings saw Valhal peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters, which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transferred to the places of torture where he drank venom from "the auroch's horn," presented to him by the daughter of Loke.
In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Völuspa, we must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loke, Vale. The Teutonic mythology, like the other Aryan mythologies, applied many names and epithets to the same person, but it seldom gave two or more persons one and the same name, unless the latter was a patronymic or, in other respects, of a general character. There was not more than one Odin, one Thor, one Njord, one Heimdal, one Loke, and there is no reason for assuming that there was more than one Vale, namely, the divine son of this name. Of Balder's brother Vale we know that he was born to avenge the slaying of Balder. His impatience to do that which he was called to perform is expressed in the mythology by the statement, that he liberated himself from the womb of his mother before the usual time (Baldrs brodir var af borinn snemma—Völuspa), and only one night old he went to slay Hödr. The bonds which confine the impatient one in his mother's womb were his vigbönd, the bonds which hindered him from combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word ór thörmum. As Loke's bonds are made of the same material and destined to hinder him from combat with the gods until Ragnarok, and as his prison is in the womb of the earth, as Vale's was in that of the earth-goddess Rind's, then Vala vigbönd as a designation of Loke's chains is both logically and poetically a satisfactory paraphrase, and the more in order as it occurs in connection with the description of the impending Ragnarok, when Loke by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten to the conflict.