"Until there came three mighty and benevolent Aesir to the world from their assembly. They found on earth, nearly powerless, Ask and Embla, void of destiny.
"Spirit they possessed not, sense they had not, blood nor motive powers, nor goodly colour. Spirit gave Odin, sense gave Hoenir, blood gave Lodur, and goodly colour."(Voluspa 17-18, Benjamin Thorpe)
Carolyne Larrington in her translation uses the terms 'breath' instead of 'spirit', 'spirit' instead of 'sense', 'vital spark' instead 'blood' and 'fresh complexions' instead of 'goodly colour'. The Old Norse terms are Ond (Odin's gift), od (Hoenir's gift) and la and litu goda (Lodurr's gifts)
Ond has since the 19th century taken on rather mystical connotations thanks to the research of Baron Dr Karl von Reichenbach (1788-1869) who published a number of works on his discovery of Odic force. (See The Odic Force: Letters on Od and Magnetism) Ond is the vital life force or energy that Odin gave our Ur-ancestors. I do not wish to dwell on this as I intend to write an article more specific to Ond in the future. The focus here needs to remain on Lodurr and His identity.
According to Rudolf Simek (Dictionary of Northern Mythology) aside from Volupsa Lodurr's name also occurs in the 10th century Haleygjatal (Eyvind) and in the 12th century Islendingadrapa (Haukr Valdisarson) as a kenning for Odin-"Lodurr's friend".
A number of scholars have attempted to identify Lodurr with Loki (Gras, Krogmann, Philippson, Schroeder, Thorgeirsson, de Vries, Dumezil, et al). Simek is not convinced by their arguments. In the Gylfaginning of the Younger Edda Snorri instead has Odin, Vili and Ve in the place of Odin, Hoenir and Lodurr:
"'One day', replied Har, 'as two sons of Bor were walking along the sea-beach they found two stems of wood, out of which they shaped a man and a woman. The first (Odin) infused into them life and spirit; the second (Vili) endowed them with reason and the power of motion; the third (Ve) gave them speech and features, hearing and vision." (Blackwell)
Vili and Ve are said to be the brothers of Odin but it could be argued that they were hypostases of Odin. The concept of a God revealing Himself as a trinity is a very old Indo-European idea, plagiarised by the Christian church. This helps to explain why Vili, Ve, Hoenir and Lodurr only occur infrequently in the Eddas and other Old Norse poetry. In Proto-Norse the names of this triad of Gods alliterates: Wodinaz, Wiljo and Wiha.
If Lodurr was ever considered by the ancient Norse to be a genuine independent deity then it is quite possible that He may have been considered to be a God associated with fertility as Simek points out that Lodurr is related to the Gothic verb liudan which means to grow. The Old Norse lod also means 'fruit' and to 'yield' (Simek) and there could also be a link to the Old Norse ljodr, meaning 'people' and 'community' (Simek).
