The attempt to understand the nature and function of Loki has represented one of the most enduring challenges to scholars of Old Norse mythology. He has been variously identified as a fire-god, a spider-god, a chthonic god of the dead, a hypostasis of Óðinn, and as a version of Lucifer transplanted from the Christian tradition. Recent specialist studies of Loki have sought to reconcile the disparate and often contradictory evidence of medieval literature and later folklore into a unified conception of Loki which recognizes his multifaceted nature. However, there remains a tendency in non-specialist scholarship and in popular culture to represent Loki as a predominantly antagonistic figure, reflecting the influence of his portrayal in the Edda, a thirteenth-century mythographic work by the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, often treated as the locus classicus for Old Norse myth. Scholars of Old Norse mythology recognize that Snorri's text cannot be used straightforwardly as a reliable guide to pre-Christian traditions; what is less certain is the extent to which the negative characterization of Loki is the product of Snorri's own authorial initiative. In what follows, I aim to show that Snorri's selective use of Viking-Age poetic source-material provides clear evidence of his familiarity with a more nuanced conception of Loki, which he consciously suppressed or rejected.