Thor and Loki in the giant's city (2)

The hammer struck him on the head. But Skyrmir only stirred in his sleep. “Did a leaf fall on my head?” he said.
He rolled over and went to sleep again. The hammer came back to Thor’s hand. As soon as Skyrmir snored he flung it again, aiming at the Giant’s forehead. It struck there. The Giant opened his eyes. “Has an acorn fallen on my forehead?” he said.
Again he went to sleep. But now Thor, terribly roused, stood over his head with the hammer held in his hands. He struck him on the forehead. It was the greatest blow that Thor had ever dealt.
“A bird is pecking at my forehead. There is no chance to sleep here,” said Skyrmir, sitting up. “And you, little men, did you have breakfast yet? Toss over my bag to me and I shall give you some food.” The lad Thialfi brought him the bag. Skyrmir opened it, took out his provisions, and gave a share to Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi. Thor would not take food from him, but Loki and the lad Thialfi took it and ate. When the meal was finished Skyrmir rose up and said, “Time for us to be going toward Utgard.”
As they went on their way Skyrmir talked to Loki. “I always feel very small when I go into Utgard,” he said. “You see, I’m such a small and a weak fellow and the folk who live there are so big and powerful. But you and your friends will be welcomed in Utgard. They will be sure to make little pets of you.”
And then he left them and they went into Utgard, the City of the Giants. Giants were going up and down in the streets. They were not so huge as Skyrmir said, Loki noticed.
Utgard was the Asgard of the Giants. But in its buildings there was none of the beauty that there was in the palaces of the Gods, Gladsheim and Breidablik or Fensalir. Huge but shapeless the buildings arose, like mountains or icebergs. Oh beautiful Asgard with the dome above it of the deepest blue! Asgard with the clouds around it heaped up like mountains of diamonds! Asgard with its Rainbow Bridge and its glittering gates! Oh beautiful Asgard, could it be indeed that these Giants would one day destroy you?
Thor and Loki with the lad Thialfi went to the palace of the King. The hammer that Thor gripped would, they knew, make them safe even there. They passed between rows of Giant guards and came to the King’s seat. “We know you, Thor and Loki,” said the Giant King, “and we know that Thor has come to Utgard to try his strength against the Giants. We shall have a contest tomorrow. Today there are sports for our boys. If your young servant should like to try his swiftness against our youths, let him enter the race today.”
Now Thialfi was the best runner in Midgard and all the time he had been with them Loki and Thor had trained him in speed so Thialfi was not afraid of racing against the Giants’ youths.
The King called on one named Hugi and placed him against Thialfi. The pair started together. Thialfi sped off. Loki and Thor watched the race anxiously, for they thought it would be good for them if they had a triumph over the giants in Utgard in the first contest. But they saw Hugi leave Thialfi behind. They saw the Giant youth reach the winning post, circle round it, and come back to the starting place before Thialfi had reached the end of the course.
Thialfi, who did not know how it was that he had been beaten, asked that he be let run the race with Hugi again. The pair started off once more, and this time it did not seem to Thor and Loki that Hugi had left the starting place at all for he was back there almost as soon as the race had started.
They came back from the racing ground to the palace. The Giant King and his friends with Thor and Loki sat down to the supper table. “Tomorrow,” said the King, “we shall have our great contest when Thor will show us his power. Have you ever heard of anyone who would enter a contest in eating? We might have a contest in eating at this supper board if we could get one who would match himself with Logi here. He can eat more than anyone in Jötunheim.”
“And I,” said Loki, “can eat more than any two in Jötunheim. I will match myself against your Logi.”
“Good!” said the Giant King. And all the Giants present said, “Good! This will be a sight worth seeing.”
Then they put scores of plates along one side of the table, each plate filled with meat. Loki began at one end and Logi began at the other. They started to eat, moving toward each other as each cleared a plate.
Plate after plate was emptied, and Thor standing by with the Giants was amazed to see how much Loki ate. But Logi on the other side was leaving plate after plate emptied. At last the two stood together with scores of plates on each side of them. “He has not defeated me,” cried Loki. “I have cleared as many plates as your champion, Oh King of the Giants.”
“But you have not cleared them so well,” said the King. “Loki has eaten all the meat that was upon them,” said Thor.
“But Logi has eaten the bones with the meat,” said the Giant King. “Look and see if it is not so.”
Thor went to the plates. Where Loki had eaten, the bones were left on the plates. Where Logi had eaten, nothing was left: bones as well as meat were consumed, and all the plates were left bare.
“We are beaten,” said Thor to Loki.
“Tomorrow, Thor,” said Loki, “you must show all your strength or the Giants will cease to fear the might of the inhabitants of Asgard.”
“Do not be afraid,” said Thor. “No one in Jötunheim will triumph over me.”
The next day Thor and Loki came into the great hall of Utgard. The Giant King was there with a group of his friends. Thor marched into the hall with Miölnir, his great hammer, in his hands. “Our young men have been drinking out of this horn,” said the King, “and they want to know if you, Thor, would drink out of it. But I must tell you that they think that none of the Æsir could empty the horn at one drink.”
“Give it to me,” said Thor. “There is no horn you can hand me that I cannot empty .
A great horn, brimming and flowing, was brought over to him. Handing Miölnir to Loki and telling him to stand so that he could  keep the hammer in sight, Thor raised the horn to his mouth. He drank and drank. He felt sure there was not a drop left in the horn as he laid it on the ground. “There,” he gasped, “your Giant horn is drained.”
The Giants looked inside the horn and laughed. “Drained, Thor!” said the Giant King. “Look into the horn again. You have hardly drunk below the brim.”
Thor looked into it and saw that the horn was not half emptied. In a mighty rage he lifted it to his lips again. He drank and drank and drank. Then, satisfied that he had emptied it to the bottom, he left the horn on the ground and walked over to the other side of the hall.
“Thor thinks he has drained the horn,” said one of the Giants, lifting it up. “But see, friends, what remains in it.”
Thor strode back and looked again into the horn. It was still half filled. He turned round to see that all the Giants were laughing at him.
” Thor, Thor,” said the Giant King, “we do not know how you are going to deal with us in the next test, but you certainly are not able to drink against the Giants.”
Thor said, “I can lift up and set down anyone in your hall.”
As he said this a great iron-colored cat bounded into the hall and stood before Thor, her back arched and her fur bristling.
“Then lift the cat off the ground,” said the Giant King.
Thor strode to the cat, determined to lift her up and throw her amongst the mocking Giants. He put his hands to the cat, but he could not raise her. Up, up went Thor’s arms, up, up, as high as they could go. The cat’s arched back went up to the roof, but her feet were never taken off the ground. And as he heaved and heaved with all his might he heard the laughter of the Giants all round him.
He turned away, his eyes flaming with anger. “I am not going to try to lift cats,” he said. “Bring me someone to wrestle with, and I swear  you shall see me defeat him.”
“Here is someone for you to wrestle with, Thor,” said the King. Thor looked round and saw an old woman hobbling toward him. She was bleary eyed and toothless. “This is Ellie, my ancient nurse,” said the Giant King. “She is the one we want you to wrestle with.”
“Thor does not wrestle with old women. I wrestle against your tallest Giants instead.”
“Ellie has come where you are,” said the Giant King. “Now it is she who will throw you.”
The old woman hobbled toward Thor, her eyes gleaming under her falling fringes of gray hair. Thor stood, unable to move as the hag came toward him. She grabbed his arms. Her feet began to trip his. He tried to push her from him. Then he found that her feet and her hands were as strong against his as bands and stakes of iron.
Then a wrestling match began in earnest between Thor and the ancient crone Ellie. Round and round the hall they wrestled, and Thor was not able to bend the old woman backward nor sideways. Instead he became weaker under her terrible grasp. She forced him down, and at last he could only save himself from being left lying on the ground by throwing himself down on one knee and holding the hag by the shoulders. She tried to force him down on the ground, but she could not do that. Then she broke from him, hobbled to the door and went out of the hall.
Thor rose up and took the hammer from Loki’s hands. Without a word he went out of the hall and toward the gate of the Giants’ City. He spoke no word to Loki or to the lad Thialfi who went with him for the seven weeks that they journeyed through Jötunheim.