ONE DAY Thor decided to go and try his strength against an enormous fellow named Utgardsloki. He was the strongest of all the jotuns. He was also known to be the slyest of them all, so Thor asked Loki to come along. Utgardsloki’s realm was far, far away, and they drove the whole day long in Thor’s billy-goat cart. With a great rumble they stopped late at night at a little farm and asked for shelter. The farmer and his family were overcome by this great honor and scrambled about trying to scrape together enough food for Thor.
“Never mind; I have brought my own victuals,” said Thor, and he butchered the goats, skinned them carefully and had the meat cooked. “Eat your fill,” he told the farmer and his family, “but be careful not to crack a single bone. Put them neatly back on the skins when you have gnawed the meat off.”
With that everyone fell to, and nobody noticed that the farmer’s son Tjalfi cracked a shinbone on the sly and sucked the marrow. The next morning Thor swung his hammer over the skins and bones, and the goats jumped up as alive as ever, but one of them had a lame leg.
“Who has dared to crack a bone?” Thor shouted, and he lowered his brows in a scowl so dark that everyone but Loki trembled.
“Please don’t kill us,” the farmer begged. “As payment for the cracked bone, take my son Tjalfi for your servant. He is a hard worker and can run faster than the wind.”
Thor accepted the offer, left his goats so the farmer could heal the injured one, and walked off, with Loki and Tjalfi following. At nightfall they came to a forest in Jotunheim with trees so tall their tops disappeared among the clouds. There wasn’t a house in sight, and they did not like the thought of sleeping out in the open in Jotunheim, so they walked on. At last in the darkness they saw a very strange cabin that had neither smoke hole nor windows, and no front wall. But at least it would be a roof over their heads, so they went in, ate the food which Tjalfi had brought, and lay down to sleep.
In the middle of the night they were awakened by an earsplitting din. They jumped to their feet and groped around in the darkness until they found a little side room. There Loki and Tjalfi hid themselves while Thor sat down outside to keep watch, hammer in hand.
The whole night long there was such a growling and a snarling and a roaring that even Thor felt uneasy. When daylight came, at last, he saw a gigantic fellow lying on the ground fast asleep. From his wide-open mouth came a deafening snore—and that was the din which had kept them awake all night!
What they had taken for a cabin was one of the giant’s mittens, and the little side room was the thumb! So huge was the giant that Thor hesitated to throw his hammer. Just then the enormous fellow woke up, yawned, stretched himself up to the treetops, and looked around.
“Well, well,” he said. “That little runt down there with the hammer must be mighty Thor himself. They call me Skrymir,” he added. Then he sat down, untied his huge bag of food, and began to eat a tremendous breakfast. He did not offer a morsel to Thor, who had to be content with the bit of food Tjalfi carried in his little bag.
When Skrymir had eaten his fill, he got up and proposed that they travel together. Since they seemed to be going the same way, they might as well keep together and share their food, he said.
Thor certainly had nothing against that, so the giant tied Tjalfi’s little bag inside his big one, threw it over his shoulder and set off with mighty strides. Thor and his companions had to trot to keep up, and they were very hungry and tired when evening came. Skrymir threw his bag down and stretched out under a tree.
“There, eat,” he said. “I am still full, so I am going to sleep.” And he began to snore as loudly as he had the night before.
Thor and his companions threw themselves on the food bag. But as much as they tugged and pulled at the string, they could not undo the knot. At last it dawned on Thor that Skrymir was making fun of his famous strength. He shook with anger, grasped his hammer with both hands, stepped forward and gave Skrymir a mighty blow on his head.
Half in sleep, Skrymir mumbled, “Did a leaf fall on my head, or what? I hope you found food to your liking, Thor. But why aren’t you asleep?” Then he snored again.
Well, Thor and his companions had to go to bed on empty stomachs. Tired as they were, though, they could not sleep, for Skrymir’s snoring kept them awake. At last Thor jumped up, swung his hammer again, and brought it down on the giant’s head with still greater force.
Skrymir muttered, “What was that? It must have been an acorn falling on my head. But why aren’t you sleeping, Thor?” And soon he was snoring louder than ever.
Now Thor was boiling with rage. “I swear I will make an end to him,” he said. Swinging his hammer round and round he brought it down on Skrymir’s head with a terrific crash. This time Skrymir really woke up.
“Must have been a branch that hit me,” he said, rubbing his head. “Well, it is time to get up anyway. I turn off here, Thor, but I have enjoyed your company so much that I will give you a friendly warning before I leave you. From your whispering I know you are going to Utgardsloki; take care. You thought I was good-sized, but he is taller than I, and he won’t stand for any swaggering from an urchin like you.” With that he slung his sack over his shoulder and was off, leaving Thor, for once, feeling rather small and weak.
Thor and his companions continued on their way, and at noon they came to a stronghold so big that they had to bend their heads way down their backs to see the tops of its walls. The huge gate was locked, but they managed to squeeze through between the bars and walked across the courtyard to a vast hall. The door stood ajar, and inside they saw many huge jotuns sitting on two long benches facing the fire. The tallest of them sat in the middle and the shortest at the ends. Biggest of them all was Utgardsloki, and he was simply enormous.
Thor remembered Skrymir’s warning, and he and his followers went up to Utgardsloki and greeted him politely. For a while the jotun did not seem to notice them, then he leaned forward and squinted at them.
“If I am not mistaken, that little fellow clutching a hammer must be Thor, the mighty thunderer himself,” he said with a grin. “In this hall there is no room for a man who can’t hold his own in some kind of sport. Now, what games might you be good at, you and your friends?”
Loki stepped forth. “I bet nobody in this hall can eat as fast as I can,” he said.
“A noble sport,” said Utgardsloki, and he told a smallish giant named Logi, to come and try his skill at eating against Loki.
A huge wooden trough piled with meat was brought in. Loki sat down at one side of it, Logi at the other. So fast did the meat disappear into their mouths it looked as if it were being consumed by fire, and it wasn’t long before their faces met, right in the middle. But Logi had eaten not only the meat, but the bones and the trough as well, so it was clear who had won the contest.
Utgardsloki shook his head in mock surprise, turned to Tjalfi, and asked what kind of sport he was good at.
“I can outrun any man in this hall,” said Tjalfi.
“A noble sport,” said Utgardsloki, and he called for a fellow named Hugi and told him to race against Tjalfi.
They all went out into the courtyard to watch the race. Tjalfi ran so fast one could barely see his legs; still he hadn’t even run halfway when Hugi reached the goal.
“You ran fast, but not fast enough,” said Utgardsloki. “And now,” he said, turning to Thor, “we are all eager to see what you can do, for we have heard great tales about you.”
“I will drink with you,” said Thor. He was thirsty and angry, and he was sure that not even Utgardsloki could swallow as much as he.
“Very well,” said Utgardsloki, “but I warn you that my drinking horn is big. My tall men empty it in one swallow, the medium fellows in two, and there isn’t one among the little ones down the hall who cannot empty it in three. Let’s see how well you can do, Thor.”
An enormous horn was put before Thor. It wasn’t so wide, but it was uncommonly long. He lifted it and took one long deep draught. When he could hold his breath no longer, he lifted his head out of the horn and saw to his surprise that it was almost as full as before.
Utgardsloki laughed. “Well drunk,” he said, “but had someone told me that Thor wasn’t good for a bigger draught, I would not have believed him. Drink again; I know you will empty it this time.”
Without saying a word Thor put the horn to his mouth and swallowed and drank until he could hold no more. Again he looked into the horn and saw that the mead had sunk a little, but that was all.
“Well, well,” said Utgardsloki, “you did not put on too good a show. Perhaps you are better at something else? Maybe you would like to try to lift my cat off the floor? It is a good sport for little urchins.”
A gray cat rose lazily from the floor and stretched itself. With a grim scowl Thor put a hand under its belly and started to lift. The cat was bigger than he had thought. It arched its back higher and higher as Thor lifted. When he had stretched up his hand as far as he could, the cat still had only one paw off the floor.
“Just as I thought,” said Utgardsloki. “Our cat is too heavy for Thor.”
“You call me an urchin,” Thor shouted, and now he was really angry. “Let someone step forth and wrestle with me.”
“I don’t see a man here who would find it worth while to wrestle with you,” said Utgardsloki, looking up and down the hall, “but let old Granny Elle come in. She has thrown bigger fellows than you.”
A crooked old crone hobbled into the hall, tackled Thor, and began to wrestle. The harder Thor squeezed her, the firmer she stood her ground. Then she started to use tricks of her own, throwing him this way and that, and it wasn’t long before he was down on one knee. The jotuns roared with laughter., and Utgardsloki shouted, “Enough, Thor, don’t bother to show us any more of your deeds. Sit down with us anyway and and be our guest.”
There was no lack of food and drink, and since Thor was very hungry, he ate a huge meal in spite of the dishonor he had suffered.
He and his companions spent the night in the hall of the jotun, and when morning came, Utgardsloki walked them to the gate.
“Well, Thor, what do you think of your visit to Utgard?” he asked when they were well outside.
“I know you think very little of me, and that is hard to take. All I have earned here is shame,” said Thor.
“Now that you are outside,” said Utgardsloki, “I will tell you that you did better than you thought. When I heard you were coming, I went out to look you over, and Skrymir, the giant you met in the woods, was no one but me. You thought you hit my head with your hammer, but I confused you and pushed a mountain between me and you. The three deep clefts in that faraway mountain are where the hammer came down. You could not untie my food bag, for I had tied it with a troll knot. Not even your clever Loki saw that Logi, against whom he was eating, was really Wild-fire in person. Tjalfi ran fast, but Hugi was nothing but a thought I sent forth, and who can catch up with a thought? When you tried to empty the horn you never saw that its tip reached down into the sea, and in truth you drank so mightily that the ocean itself ebbed away. So hoodwinked have you been you did not see that the cat was the Midgard’s Serpent. You had us all in a fright and the mountains of Midgard were trembling when you stretched yourself so high that the serpent’s head and tail barely touched the ground. And a great wonder was it to see you standing up against Elle, for she is Old Age herself. Never will there be a man whom she doesn’t throw, if he lives long enough.
“This time I have fooled you, but I hope I’ll never meet you again.” In a rage, Thor lifted his hammer, but before he could bring it down Utgardsloki had vanished, and so had his stronghold. Thor and his companions stood alone among mounds and boulders.
Thor was furious and hardly said a word as they trudged the long way back to fetch the billy goats. But Loki wore a malicious smile, looking forward to spreading the news of Thor’s unfortunate venture in the land of Utgardsloki. It did not matter to him that he had also been fooled; Thor’s shame was worth it.
