About this work
At the centre of this illustration stands one of Norse mythology's most quietly devastating images: Sigyn, faithful wife of the trickster god Loki, holding a bowl aloft to catch the venom dripping from a serpent fastened above her husband's bound and prostrate form. The serpent drips venom from above him that Sigyn collects into a bowl; however, she must empty the bowl when it is full, and the venom that drips in the meantime causes Loki to writhe in pain, thereby causing earthquakes. Rackham renders this moment of endless, intimate torment with the full weight of his pen-and-ink technique — sinuous line work defining the cave's cold rock, the coiled threat of the serpent above, and Sigyn's taut, determined posture as she intercepts suffering drop by drop. The palette is characteristically restrained: earthy ochres and grey-greens, relieved by the pale luminosity of Sigyn's robes, drawing the eye inexorably to her act of devotion within the gloom.
The original watercolour and ink on board — measuring 15 by 10.5 inches — was created in 1901 and appeared on page 142 of *The Land of Enchantment*, published by Cassell and Company in 1907.
The stories in the book had previously appeared in *Little Folks* magazine between 1896 and 1902 — placing this work in Rackham's industrious early period, just before the breakthrough *Rip Van Winkle* plates of 1905 brought him to nationwide fame. That timing matters: this is Rackham before celebrity, working with the focused ambition of an illustrator still proving what the medium could do. The Norse subject also signals his affinity for northern European myth and folklore, a seam he would mine throughout his career, finding in its blend of the heroic and the uncanny the perfect match for his darkly lyrical sensibility. The scene of Sigyn and Loki had been depicted by Scandinavian painters including Nils Blommér (1850) and Mårten Eskil Winge (1863) , but Rackham brings to it the intimate, page-close drama of the illustrated book — a scale that makes the suffering feel personal rather than operatic.
This is a print for rooms that earn their atmosphere — a book-lined study, a dark-walled sitting room, a space where myth and quiet intensity feel at home. It rewards the viewer who lingers: the closer you look, the more Rackham's layered line work gives back. Nineteenth-century artistic tradition often portrays Sigyn as a sorrowful yet determined figure, emphasizing emotional resilience rather than physical traits — in many depictions, her posture and expression convey compassion, patience, and quiet strength. Rackham's version belongs to that tradition while surpassing it. The image speaks to anyone drawn to the psychological complexity of mythology — where punishment and devotion coexist, and love is measured not in grand gestures but in an upraised bowl, held steady, indefinitely.
