Chapters 44-95 - Germanic Mythology

The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have any
mythic song or mythic tradition as the source of all these names of Loki's sons.
The matter becomes even more suspicious when we find:
That the variations Nari and Narvi, both of which belong to one of the foremost
and noblest of mythic beings, namely, to Mimir, are here applied in such a manner that
they either are given to two sons of Loki or are attributed to one and the same Loki-son,
while in the latter case it happens,
That the names Vali and Ali, which both belong to the same Asa-god and son of
Odin who avenged the death of his brother Baldur, are both attributed to the other son of
Loki. Compare Gylfaginning 30: Áli eða Váli heitir einn, sonur Óðins og Rindar. 9
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 Loki's daughter, who, together
with her functions, usurped her name Hel. Loki's daughter and Hel became identical to
the Christian mythographers.
An inevitable result was that such expressions as nipt Nara, jódís 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 good-will and
without remorse," was no longer the death-dis Urd, but became to the Christian
interpreters the abominable daughter of Loki who came to fetch the old heathen. The nipt
Nara, whose horse trampled on the battlefield where Erik Blood-axe defeated the Scots,
was no longer Urd's sister, the valkyrie Skuld, but became Loki's daughter, although,
even according to the Christian mythographers, the latter had nothing to do on a battlefield.
The jódís Narfa, who chose King Dyggvi, was confounded with Loka mær, who
had him leikinn (see No. 67), but who, according to the heathen conception, was a maidservant
of fate, without the right of choosing. To the heathens nipt Nara, nipt Njörva,
jódís Narfa, meant "Nari-Mimir's kinswoman Urd." To the mythographers of the
thirteenth century it must, for the reason stated, have meant the Loki-daughter as sister of
a certain Nari or Narvi. It follows that this Nari or Narvi ought to be a son of Loki, since
his sister was Loki's daughter. It was known that Loki, besides Fenrir and the Midgardserpent,
had two other sons, of which the one in the guise of a wolf tore the other into
pieces. In Nari, Narvi, the name of one or the names of both these Loki-sons were
thought to have been found.
The latter assumption was made by the author of the prose in Lokasenna. He
conceived Nari to be the one brother and Narvi the other. The author of Gylfaginning, on
9 "Ali or Vali is the name of one, the son of Odin and Rind."