The Witch's Heart

These pages pivot on the violent intersection of motherhood and prophecy, framing maternal protection as a formidable, world-altering power that the patriarchal Aesir perceive as a threat to be neutralized. Angrboda’s identity as a mother becomes the catalyst for the narrative’s central conflict. When Loki and then Sigyn label her children “monsters,” she perceives the insult as an attack on the very essence of her being. By unleashing a prophetic vision upon Sigyn, she essentially weaponizes her deepest power, seid, in a furious defense of her own children, boldly pitting her fierce, protective instincts against the calculated political machinations of the Aesir. Odin’s council reacts to the existence of her children with a cruel strategy born of fear. The abduction of Angrboda’s children is a state-sanctioned act of violence that is ironically executed by the very gods who claim to represent law and order.

In these pivotal scenes, the motif of seid and prophecy evolves from a source of personal insight into a weaponized tool of psychological warfare, for when Angrboda’s wields her seid against Sigyn, she commits this calculated act of cruelty to force the woman to experience the precise burden of knowledge that she herself carries. However, her psychic assault is a critical miscalculation because she does not consider the fact that Sigyn will bear word of her family’s existence to Odin, whose intervention dooms her family to bondage and misery. Ironically, the very magic that she uses to defend her family thus becomes their undoing.

The Complexities of Love and Betrayal are intimately displayed in Loki’s complicity in the Aesir’s plot to kidnap and restrain his children by Angrboda. When he sacrifices his own family to preserve his standing among the Aesir, who have always instinctively despised him, he must finally face the consequences of his long years of currying favor in Asgard. When he unthinkingly calls Angrboda the “mother of monsters” (150), this lapse becomes a moment of self-revelation, exposing his internalization of Aesir prejudices and revealing his own deep-seated shame about the nature of his children. This initial verbal betrayal thus foreshadows his ultimate betrayal when Gerd leads him back to the cave. By creating a façade of reconciliation, he lures Angrboda away from the cave, and he therefore plays a pivotal, deceptive role that makes the gods’ ambush possible.

However, the text makes it clear that his actions arise from a desperate, self-serving weakness, as evidenced by his weak apology and his dubious claim that he “didn’t have a choice” (188). This assertion is immediately refuted by Angrboda’s tart observation that his actions were entirely his choice, and their last bitter exchange crystallizes Loki’s status as a perpetual outsider in every social realm that he enters. In essence, he has chosen the hollow promise of acceptance from his oppressors over the genuine connection that Angrboda and her children have always offered him. For this reason, his participation in the abduction shatters the children’s innocence and severs his bond with Angrboda, and his betrayal of his family accelerates the prophecy’s development.

Through these trials, the narrative also explores the theme of Reclaiming Identity in the Face of Imposed Roles. From the very beginning of the novel, Angrboda’s sense of self has been systematically attacked and deconstructed. Even Loki attempts to confine her identity to the limited roles of wife and mother, willfully erasing her formidable past as a witch and compromising her personal agency. The Aesir reinforce this reduction, viewing her as nothing more than a breeder of monstrous threats. In turn, the Aesir’s abduction of her children negates her hard-earned motherhood, stripping her of the very identity that she has built in Ironwood, and this process of erasure culminates in her death at Thor’s hand, a physical act that is meant to permanently silence her. Yet even in this liminal state, her identity persists and is paradoxically affirmed. Suspended between life and death, her spirit becomes a vessel for Odin’s relentless questioning, and his need for her prophetic knowledge confirms that her intrinsic power transcends any role the gods might attempt to impose upon her.

Throughout this section, the author’s use of symbolism underscores the clash between Angerboda’s primal, feminine power and the Aesir’s systemic, patriarchal injustices. In this context, her former student Freyja’s golden bonds are a manifestation of co-opted magic, as Freyja has arrogantly used her borrowed knowledge to neutralize her teacher’s unique form of seid. Similarly, Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, functions as the ultimate symbol of Aesir authority, and the force of his blow reflects their violent prejudice against all giants. The act brutally suppresses a form of female power that threatens the established order.