All but a few of the inhabitants of Asgard had come to the feast offered by Ægir the Old, the Giant King of the Sea. Frigga, the queenly wife of Odin, was there, and Frey and Freya; Iduna, who guarded the Apples of Youth, and Bragi, her husband; Tyr, the great swordsman, and Niörd, the God of the Sea, Skadi, who married Niörd and whose hatred for Loki was fierce, and Sif, whose golden hair was once shorn off by Loki the mischievous. Thor and Loki were there.
The inhabitants of Asgard, gathered together in the hall of Ægir, waiting for Odin.
Before Odin came Loki amused everyone by the tales that he told mocking Thor. Loki had had his lips freed from the thread that the Dwarf Brock had sewn them with. Thor had forgotten the wrong that he had done to Sif. Loki had been with Thor in his wanderings through Jötunheim, and about these journeys he now told mocking tales.
He told how he had seen Thor in his chariot of brass drawn by two goats go across Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge. None of the Æsir or the Vanir knew on what adventure Thor was headed but Loki followed him and Thor let him accompany him.
As they traveled on in the brass chariot drawn by the two goats, Thor told Loki of the adventure on which he was headed. He would go into Jötunheim, even into Utgard, the Giants’ City, and he would try his strength against the Giants. He was not afraid of anything that might happen, for he carried Miölnir, his hammer, with him.
Their route was through Midgard, the World of Men. Once, as they were traveling on, night came and they were hungry and in need of shelter. They saw a peasant’s hut and they drove the chariot toward it.
Leaving the goats standing beside the chariot, the two, looking ,not like those in Asgard, but like men traveling through the country, knocked at the door of the hut and asked for food and shelter.
They could have shelter, the peasant and his wife told them, but they could not have food. There was little in that place, and what little there had been they had eaten for supper. The peasant showed them the inside the hut. It was poor and bare, and there was nothing there to give anyone. In the morning, the peasant said, he would go down to the river and catch some fish for a meal.
“We can’t wait until morning, we must eat now,” said Thor, “and I think I can provide a good meal for us all.” He went over to where his goats stood in the hollow beside the chariot of brass, and, striking them with his hammer, he left them lifeless on the ground. He skinned the goats then, and picking up the bones very carefully, he left them down on the skins. He lifted up the skins and bones and bringing them into the house he left them in a hole above the peasant’s fireplace. “No one,” said he in a commanding voice “must touch the bones that I leave here.”
Then he brought the meat into the house. Soon it was cooked and laid smoking on the table. The peasant and his wife and his son sat round the board with Thor and Loki. They had not eaten plentifully for many days, and now the man and the woman fed themselves well.
Thialfi was the name of the peasant’s son. He was a growing lad and had an appetite that had not been satisfied for long. While the meat was on the table his father and mother had kept him going here and there, carrying water, putting wood on the fire, and holding a blazing stick so that those at the table might see to eat. There was not much left for him when he was able to sit down, for Thor and Loki had great appetites, and the lad’s father and mother had eaten to make up for the days when they had nothing. So Thialfi got little out of that plentiful feast.
When the meal was finished they lay down on the benches. Thor, because he had made a long journey that day, slept very soundly. Thialfi lay down on a bench, too, but his thoughts were still on the food. When everyone was asleep, he thought, he would take one of the bones that were in the skins above him, and break and gnaw it.
So in the dead of the night the lad stood up on the bench and took down the goatskins that Thor had left so carefully there. He took out a bone, broke it, and gnawed it for the marrow. Loki was awake and saw him do this, but he, enjoying mischief as much as ever, did nothing to stop the lad.
He put the bone he had broken back in the skins and he left the skins back in the hole above the fireplace. Then he went to sleep on the bench.
In the morning, as soon as they were up, the first thing Thor did was to take the skins out of the hole. He carried them carefully out to the hollow where he had left the goats standing. He put each goatskin down with the bones in it. He struck each with his hammer, and the goats sprang up alive, horns and hoofs and all.
But one was not as he had been before. He limped badly. Thor examined the leg and found out that one bone was broken. In terrible anger he turned on the peasant, his wife, and his son. “A bone of this goat has been broken under your roof,” he shouted. “For that I shall destroy your house and leave you all dead under it.” Thialfi wept.
Then he came forward and touched the knees of Thor. “I did not know what harm I did,” he said. “I broke the bone.”
Thor had his hammer lifted up to crush him into the earth. But he could not bring it down on the weeping boy. He let his hammer rest on the ground again. “You will have to do service for me for having hurt my goat,” he said. “Come with me.”
So the lad Thialfi went off with Thor and Loki. Thor took in his powerful hands the the chariot of brass and he dragged it into a lonely mountain hollow where neither men nor Giants came. They left the goats in a great, empty forest to stay resting there until Thor called to them again.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi went across from Midgard into Jötunheim. Because of Miölnir, the great hammer that he carried, Thor felt safe in the Realm of the Giants. Loki, who trusted in his own cunning, felt safe, too. The lad Thialfi trusted in Thor so much that he had no fear. It was a long journey, and while they were traveling Thor and Loki trained Thialfi to be a quick and strong lad.
One day they came out on a moor. All day they crossed it, and at night it still stretched far before them. A great wind was blowing, night was falling, and they saw no shelter near. In the dusk they saw a shape that looked like a mountain and they went toward it, hoping to find some shelter in a cave.
Then Loki saw a lower shape that looked as if it might be a shelter. They walked around it, Loki and Thor and the lad Thialfi. It was a house, but a most oddly shaped house. The entrance was a long, wide hall that had no doorway. When they entered this hall they found five long and narrow rooms running off it. “It is an odd place, but it is the best shelter we can get,” Loki said. “You and I Thor, will take the two longest rooms, and the lad Thialfi can take one of the little rooms.”
They entered their rooms and lay down to sleep. But from the mountain outside there came a noise that was like moaning forests and waterfalls. The room where each one slept was shaken by the noise. Neither Thor nor Loki nor the lad Thialfi slept that night.
In the morning they left the five-roomed house and turned their faces toward the mountain. It was not a mountain at all, but a Giant. He was lying on the ground when they saw him, but just then he rolled over and sat up. “Little men, little men,” he shouted to them, “have you passed by a glove of mine on your way?” He stood up and looked all around him. “Ho, I see my glove now,” he said. Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi stood still as the Giant came toward them. He leaned over and picked up the five-roomed shelter they had slept in. He put it on his hand. It was really his glove!
Thor gripped his hammer, and Loki and the lad Thialfi stood behind him. But the Giant seemed good-humored enough. “Where might you be headed for, little men?” said he.
“To Utgard in Jötunheim,” Thor replied boldly.
“Oh, to that place,” said the Giant. “Come, then, I shall travel with you. You can call me Skyrmir.”
“Can you give us breakfast?” said Thor. He spoke crossly, for he did not want it to appear that there was any reason to be afraid of the Giant.
“I can give you breakfast,” said Skyrmir, “but I don’t want to stop to eat now. We’ll sit down as soon as I have an appetite. Come along now. Here is my bag to carry. It has my provisions in it.”
He gave Thor his bag. Thor put it on his back and put Thialfi sitting on it. On and on the Giant strode and Thor and Loki were barely able to keep up with him. It was midday before he showed any signs of stopping to take breakfast.
They came to an enormous tree. Skyrmir sat down under it. “I’ll sleep before I eat,” he said, “but you can open my bag, my little men, and make your meal out of it.” Saying this, he stretched himself out, and in a few minutes Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi heard the same sounds as kept them awake the night before, sounds that were like forests moaning and waterfalls. It was Skyrmir’s snoring.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi were too hungry now to be disturbed by these tremendous noises. Thor tried to open the bag, but he found it was not easy to undo the knots. Then Loki tried to open it. In spite of all Loki’s cunning he could not undo the knots. Then Thor took the bag from him and tried to break the knots by strength. Not even Thor’s strength could break them. He threw the wallet down in his rage.
The snoring of Skyrmir became louder and louder. Thor stood up in his rage. He grasped Miölnir and flung it at the head of the sleeping Giant.
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