What Gylfaginning 10 tells of Narvi is that he was of giant birth, and the first one who inhabited Jötunheim (Nörvi eða Narfi hét jötunn, er byggði fyrst Jötunheima - Gylfaginning 10). In Gylfaginning and in the Icelandic sagas, the lower world, including the regions governed by Mimir and by the norns who are of giant descent,. is embraced by the term Jötunheim, and this for mythical reasons. Niflheim is inhabited by Hrim-thurses (Frost-giants) and giants. As the father of Nat (Night), Narvi himself must belong to that group of powers that populated the lower world.. The upper Jotunheim did not exist before it was created simultaneously with Midgard by Odin and his brothers (Gylfaginning) in a later epoch of cosmological development. Thus, the lower world (the first world) was their original home

To judge from certain passages in Christian writings of the thirteenth century, Nat’s father was not alone about the name Narvi (Nari). One or two of Loki's sons are supposed to have had the same name. The statements in this regard demand investigation, and, as I think, this will furnish another instructive contribution to the chapter on the confusion of the mythic traditions, and on the part that the Younger Edda plays in this respect.

The passages are:

The prose conclusion to Lokasenna: "He (Loki) was bound with the entrails of his son Nari, but his son Narfi was turned into a wolf".

Gylfaginning 33:

(1) Most codices: "His (Loki's) wife is named Sigyn; their son is Nari or Narvi."

(2) Codex Hypnonesiensis: "His (Loki's) wife is named Sigyn; his sons are named Nari or Narvi and Vali".

Gylfaginning 50:

(1) Most of the codices: "Then were taken Loki's sons Vali and Nari or Narfi. The Aesir changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Narfi. Then the Aesir took his entrails and therewith bound Loki."

(2) Codex Upsalensis: "Then were taken Loki's sons Vali and Nari. The Aesir changed Vali into a wolf, and the latter tore into pieces his brother Nari."

Skáldskaparmál 23:

(1) "Loki is the father of the wolf Fenrir, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, 'and also of Nari and Ali'."

(2) Codex Wormianus and Codex Hypnonesiensis: "Loki is father of the Fenris-wolf, of the Midgard-serpent, and of Hel, 'and also of Nari and Vali'."

The mythology stated that Loki was bound with chains which were originally entrails, and that he who provided the materials for these chains was his own son, who was torn into pieces by his brother in wolf guise. It is possible that there is something symbolic in this myth — that it originated in the thought that the forces created by evil contend with each other and destroy their own parent. There is no reason to doubt that this account is a genuine myth, that is to say, that it comes from a heathen source and from some heathen poem. But, in regard to the names of Loki's two sons here in question, we have a perfect right to doubt.

We discover contradictions betrayed by the records in regard to them. The discrepancy of the statements can best be shown by the following comparisons. Besides Fenrir, the Midgard-serpent, and Hel, Loki has, according to:

Gylfaginning 33: the son Nari, also called Narfi. No other son is named;

Prose added to Lokasenna: the son Nari, and the son Narfi;

Cod. Hypnon. (Gylfaginning 33): the son Nari, also called Narvi, and the son Vali;

Gylfaginning 50: the son Nari also called Narfi, and the son Vali;

Skáldskaparmál 23: the son Nari, and the son Ali;

Prose conclusion to Lokasenna: Nari is torn into pieces by Narfi;

Gylfaginning: Nari-Narfi is torn into pieces by Vali.

The discrepancy shows that the author of these statements did not have any mythic tradition as the source of all these names of Loki's sons. Below, we will see that the name Narvi did not originally belong to either of them, and that Vali was the name of a son of Odin, mentioned several times in the mythology. Therefore, Loki’s sons must have gone unnamed.

The matter becomes even more apparent when we find—-

That the variations Nari and Narvi, both of which belong to one of the foremost and noblest of mythic beings, namely Nat’s father, 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.

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.

 The author of Gylfaginning, on the other hand, rightly regarded Nari and Narvi as simply variations of the same name, and accordingly let them designate the same son of Loki. 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 half strophe in Völuspá:

  þá kná Vála
  vígbönd snúa,
  heldur voru harðgjör
  höft úr þörmum.

This half strophe says that those were strong chains (for Loki) that were made of entrails, and these fetters were "twisted" from "Váli's vígbönd". Víg as a legal term means a murder, slaughter. Vála víg was interpreted as a murder committed by Vali; and Vála vígbönd as the bonds or fetters obtained by the slaughter committed by Vali. It was known that Loki was chained with the entrails of his son, and here it was thought to appear that this son was slain by a certain Vali. And as he was slain by a brother according to the myth, then Vali must be the brother of the slain son of Loki. Accordingly chapter 50 of Gylfaginning could tell us what chapter 33 did not yet know, namely, that the two sons of Loki were named Vali and Nari or Narvi, and that Vali changed to a wolf, tore the brother "Nari or Narvi" into pieces.

The next step was taken by Skáldskaparmál, or more probably by one of the transcribers of Skáldskaparmál. Originally the names Vali and Ali designated the same person, Odin;’s son who avenges Balder’s death. To distinguish Odin’s son Vali from Loki’s son “Vali” the son of Loki received the name "Ali." It is by no means impossible that the transcriber regarded Balder's avenger, Vali, and the son of Loki as identical. The oldest manuscript we have of Skáldskaparmál 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 after the writers of the Icelandic fornaldarsagas imagined Valhall peopled by giants and all sorts of monsters, which were called einherjes, and Thor himself transformed into a demon.

In the interpretation of the above-cited half strophe of Völuspá, we must therefore leave out the supposed son of Loki, Vali. The Teutonic mythology, like the other Indo-European 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 Heimdall, one Loki, and there is no reason for assuming that there was more than one Vali, namely, the divine son of this name.

Of Baldur's brother Vali we know that he was born to avenge the slaying of Baldur. 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 (Baldurs bróðir var um borinn snemma - Völuspá 32), and was only one night old he went to slay Hodur. The bonds which confined the impatient one in his mother's womb were his vígbönd, the bonds which hindered him from combat, and these bonds were in the most literal sense of the word úr þörmum (made out of intestines). As Loki'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 Vali's was in that of the earth-goddess Rind's, then Vála vígbönd as a designation of Loki'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 Loki by an earthquake is to sever his fetters and hasten to the conflict.

So who did the name Narvi refer to originally?

In a strophe by Egil Skallagrimson (Egil’s Saga ch. 56), poetry, is called niðerfi Narfa, "the inheritance of Narvi’s descendants" (A modern translation by Bernard Scudder reads “drink of the giant’s kin.” Here Narvi is taken as a general name for giant) As is well known, Mimir's fountain is the source of poetry. The expression indicates that the first inhabitant of the lower world, Narvi, also presided over the precious fountain of wisdom and inspiration, and that he died and left it to his descendants as an inheritance.

Finally, we learn that Narvi was a near kinsman to Urd and her sisters. This appears from the following passages:

Helgakviða Hundingsbana I, 4. When Helgi was born norns came in the night to the abode of his parents, twisted the threads of his fate, stretched them from east to west, and fastened them beneath the hall of the moon. One of the threads nipt Nera cast to the north and bade it hold for ever. It is manifest that by Neri's (Narvi's) kinswoman is meant one of the norns present.

Höfuðlausn 10. Egil Skallagrimson celebrates in song a victory won by Erik Blood-axe, and says of the battle-field that there trað nipt Nara náttverð ara ("Nari's kinswoman trampled upon the supper of the eagles," that is to say, upon the dead bodies of the fallen). Thence come valkyries to fetch the elect. Nipt Nara must therefore be a valkyrie, whose horse tramples upon the heaps of dead bodies; and as Egil names only one shield-maid of that kind, he doubtless has had the most representative, the most important one in mind. That one is Skuld, Urd's sister, and thus a nipt Nara like Urd herself.

Thus what our mythic records tell us about Narvi is:

·         He is one of the oldest beings of theogony, older than the upper part of the world constructed by Bur's sons.

·         He is of giant descent.

·         He is father of Nott, father-in-law of Naglfari, Onar, and of Delling, the elf of the rosy dawn; and he is the father of Dag's mother, of Auðr (also Unnr), and of the goddess Jord, who becomes Odin's wife and Thor's mother. Bonds of kinship thus connect him with the Aesir and with gods of other ranks.

·         He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and inspiration, that is to say, Mimir's fountain. He died and left his fountain as a heritage to his descendants.

·         He was Odin's friend and the binder of Odin's foes.

·         He is near akin to the dis of fate and death, Urd and her sisters. The word nipt, with which Urd's relation to him is indicated, may mean sister, daughter, and sister's daughter. It seems to have been applied almost exclusively to mythic persons, and particularly in regard to Urd and her sisters (cp. Njörva nipt, nipt Nara, nipt Nera), so that it almost acquired the meaning of norn. This is evident from Nafnaþulur 26: Nornir heita þær er nauð skapa; Nipt ok Dís nú eru taldar, and from the expression heil Nótt og Nipt in Sigurdrífumál 3-4. The common interpretation of heil Nótt og Nipt is "hail Nat and her daughter," and by her daughter is then meant the goddess Jord. As the father of Nott, Narvi is himself a being of the lower world and the oldest subterranean being: the first one who inhabited Jotunheim.

Narvi is Mimir, "he who thinks" (Mimir) and "he who binds" (Narvi) are the same person. Already the circumstances that Narvi was an ancient being of giant descent, that he dwelt in the lower world and was the possessor of the fountain of wisdom there, that he was Odin's friend, and that he died and left his fountain as an inheritance (cp. Mims synir, Völuspá 45), point definitely to Narvi's and Mimir's identity. Thus the Teutonic theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who through Nat bears Dag to the world. The people of antiquity made their first steps toward a philosophical view of the world in their theogony.

This is a condensed and re-edited version of Viktor Rydberg’s Teutonic Mythology, chapter 87. Elsewhere Rydberg has argued that Hel is another name for Urd, i.e. that the goddess of death is identical to the goddess of fate. In Rydberg’s view, Loki’s daughter is a side-figure of Urd, and a messenger of disease, rather than the death-goddess herself. In his opinion, the name of Loki’s daughter is Leikin, and all poetic passages referring to Hel mean Urd. Loki’s daughter does not appear in the poems of the Elder Edda, and she remains a minor character in the poetic sources. Urd however is mentioned several times.