Who is Glut?
What we know from myth, history, and inspiration
Glut
is the first wife of Loki, marrying him in his youth, and later leaving him so
that he could marry the giantess Angrboda. Her name means “Glow” and her
daughters, Einmyria and Eisa, are “Ashes” and “Embers”. She is a child of Muspellheim, a fire-etin
maiden who loves to dance.
The confusion surrounding these three giantesses occurs largely because they are sometimes listed as being the wife and daughters of Logi, and sometimes as Loki's. What seems to have been the case - and this was received as a UPG message from a chuckling Logi - is that there were two of each of them. Glut (Glow) was the original (now deceased) fire-etin wife of Logi, the daughter of a giant named Grim, and she named her two daughters Einmyria (Ashes) and Eisa (Embers). They were said to be the fairest giantesses in Muspellheim, and were both abducted by young giant-louts trying to make their fortune. Later, this story was reset vaguely in Norway, with mortal protagonists by the same name.
Those names were common among fire-giantesses, and many generations later another Glut came out of Muspellheim as a young giantess. She settled in the Iron Wood and was adopted as a younger sister by Angrboda. The wolf-chieftess and Loki were in love with each other at the time, but the two of them were playing a game of each pretending to not care for the other. Knowing that Loki had spent his childhood in Muspellheim among the fire-etins, Angrboda offered Glut to him as a bride, and convinced him to marry her, against his better judgment. She bore him twin daughters, and sentimentally named them Einmyria and Eisa after the children of her long-dead ancestress. When Loki lost interest in her after about a year, she left him and returned to live with Angrboda with her baby girls.
Artwork by Eliza Stein from the Giants' Tarot.