Laufey- Norse GiantGiant
Also known as: Nál
Description
Loki bears his mother's name. In a tradition where sons carried their fathers' names, the Eddas call him Loki Laufeyjarson, never Loki Fárbautason. Why she displaced her husband in her son's identity, the surviving sources do not say.
Mythology & Lore
Lightning, Leaves, and Fire
Laufey's name comes from Old Norse lauf, "leaf." She is also called Nál, "Needle," for her slender form. Her husband Fárbauti's name means "Cruel Striker" and has long been read as lightning. Their son is Loki. The names tell a story on their own: lightning strikes dry leaves, and fire is born.
Snorri names Laufey alongside Fárbauti as Loki's parents in Gylfaginning. Beyond that genealogical notice, she has no deeds, no speeches, no scenes in the surviving record.
The Mother's Name
Norse sons carried their fathers' names. Thorsson, Magnússon. Loki does not. Across both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, he is Laufeyjarson, son of Laufey. A patronymic based on Fárbauti appears nowhere in the tradition.
What this means, no surviving source explains. That earlier audiences knew why Laufey's name mattered more than her husband's is clear from how consistently they used it. What they knew about her has not come down to us.