Below text from âLOKI, THE VĂTTE, AND THE ASH LAD: A STUDY COMBINING OLD SCANDINAVIAN AND LATE MATERIALâ by Eldar Heide (Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 7 (2011) pages 63-106)
âIt seems that there were two Lokis. One was a vätte 'domestic spirit' living under or by the fireplace, helping farmers with the farm work and attracting wealth to the farm. The other, the mythical character, was very different but still derived from the vätte, and many Loki myths allude to the vätte. The vätte Loki is most easily seen in late traditions, but there are strong reasons to believe that he existed in medieval traditions, too. Factors within the late corpus and its relation to other late material indicate ancientness, and essential parts of it can be anchored to medieval material.â P.63
âIn many parts of Sweden and Norway people attributed the crackling or whistling of a fire, or the sudden flare of a fire from the embers, or the blowing of ash, to the Vätten â he was blowing on the ashes or the fire, or spanking his children, causing them to scream (= the crackling/whistling). In Telemark, Norway, some of these phenomena were attributed to Loke (âŚ) The example of Setesdal, next to Telemark, in which small 'sacrifices' of food were made to the Vätten in the fire (vetti, feminine definite); and in Telemark itself, the recipient of this was Loke (Celander 1911, 47, 49; Skar 1903-16, III, 27).â P.66
âSacrifices to Loki in the fireplace do not necessarily mean that Loki is the fire, just that he (and his people) live under or by the fireplace. This understanding is supported by the richer evidence of the Vätten: sacrifices may be deposited in the corners of the fireplace, not necessarily in the fire, and when the Vätten is blowing on the embers and the fire flares up again, the Vätten clearly is not the fire, even if he is closely connected to it (Celander 1911, 52; 1914, 76).â P.  67
