As Sif gently yawned and stretched she glanced at the cat asleep on the floor, basking in the pool of early morning sunshine. But then she looked again. There was something wrong. It wasn't a cat. It was a pile of hair! As she swung her feet out of bed, her hand reached upwards, her fingers already braced for the feel of her bare, shorn scalp. "But how?" she murmured, "Why? Who?" The word had hardly passed her lips when the explanations crashed into place, "Loki!"
Purposefully Sif threw her cloak over her night-wear and, reaching up to its resting place, high on the wall of Bilskirnir, she took down her sheathed sword. With grim purpose in her every movement, she strode across the square, unsheathing the bastard blade, pleased by the glint of sunshine that showed she had kept it well oiled and ready sharpened, just as her mother had taught her.
Reaching the hall she spotted her foe. "Loki!" she said, quietly, her anger clear without the need to raise her voice, "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"It was just a joke." the Trickster replied, stepping back from the menace of the sword, "Just a joke."
"Well, I'm not laughing." Sif replied as the Shape Changer's back touched the hall wall. "What are you going to do about it?" she continued, resting the sharp blade gently across his face.
"Why should I do anything?" the Sly One asked, "It's not my fault you can't see the funny side, is it?" The blade pressed more firmly against his skin. A red bead of blood appearing at the tip.
Never taking her eyes from his, Sif spoke quietly, calmly, but with an edge of controlled anger, "I said, 'What are you going to do about it?'"
Loki tried to sidle sideways, slipped. The bastard blade cut his cheek. "I'll replace it!" Loki yelled, "I'll visit the dwarfs! I promise I'll replace it!" Fear causing his well planned speech, his cheerful boyish boasts, to turn into a babble of promises which, as he headed for the rainbow bridge, he was unsure how to keep.
By the time he reached the dark, damp caves, the dwellings of the dwarfs, Loki's normal, impish, good-spirits had returned to him so that, as he entered the home of the Ivaldi sons, he could tell them the great tale of Sif's shorn hair without once mentioning his own part in its cutting. The two dwarfs knew they could spin new hair for Sif, "But," they asked, "Why should we? What's in it for us?" Fleetingly Loki again saw the glimmer of anger in Sif's eye and knew he had to strike a deal with these odious dwarfs. "You'll have the thanks of Sif; and of Thor; and me; and I'll repay you; when you need help call on me and I'll repay you in full measure." The Trickster quickly regained his composure, but not so fast that the dwarfs missed his discomfort - the Sky Traveller would not want this story told round the fireside!
Realising that they would be left holding an impressive bargaining chip that would cost them but a small measure of gold, the dwarfs agreed to help Loki, and piled wood onto the furnace in the corner of their cave. Then, while one dwarf worked the bellows, the other hammered and spun the gold. Together the sons of Ivaldi made a fine, shimmering, sheen of golden strands and, all the time they worked, they chanted wise incantations, and murmured powerful spells. When they had finished the gold hung across Loki's arm like a single sheet, but it rippled and gleamed, changing colour and catching the light like a field of ripe corn in the Autumn sunlight. For the first time since he had entered this dismal place, Loki smiled.
Hurriedly the Sly One left the sons of Ivaldi and raced back across Bifrost to find Sif, no longer alone. He glanced up at the angry face of Sif's husband and, turning to her, stammered, "I've brought a replacement! I said I would! See? It's here!" He stretched out his arm so that the sheen of golden hair glistened in the sunlight. Sif took it from the Shape Changer and, gingerly, placed it on her head. Instantly the magic of the dwarfs caused the gold to grow from Sif's skin. As she gracefully shook her head from side to side, pleased with the shimmer of her new hair, Thor growled at Loki, "I should kill you for what you have down to my wife." and he started to unbuckle Mjollnir.
"No." Sif smiled at her husband, "He has repaid the debt. Let him be - for now..."
Retold by Izzy Lane, April 1996
Bibliography
Crossley-Holland, Kevin, "The Norse Myths, Gods of the Vikings",Penguin Books, London, 1982 Sturluson, Snorri, "Edda", Translated by Anthony Faulkes, Everyman's Library, London, 1987 (Reissued 1992)