In the misty time when the gods walked about the earth, Thor, the strongest of them all, set out one day for Giantland. In his hand he carried his hammer which could batter down mountains; and around his waist he wore his magic belt which made him twice as strong as before. For he was going to humble the giants.

In spite of his wonderful strength, Thor was but little larger than a man; and the giants, by their very size, annoyed him. When he hurled his hammer through the clouds, the sky rocked, the sea shook, but the giants did not tremble. And when his chariot-wheels struck out swift streaks of fire across the sky, they only smiled in their big way as if it were some game of fireflies. Now he was bound to show them that however big the giants might be, Thor was stronger, and that a little trembling now and then might not be out of place.

With Thor went the hungry god Loki, and the swift runner Thialfi. All day long they walked together through sunny mists across the bare, green uplands, and just at nightfall they came to a wide moor. As far as they could see, there was not a house, nor a shed, nor any kind of shelter. Not even a tree broke the soft horizon. Thialfi ran ahead; and Loki, who was ravenous, walked furiously. Only Thor did not notice. He was planning how he would put the giants in their place.

It grew darker and darker. The mist which had played about them all day in gentle clouds, rose in a damp, gray fog. It filled their throats and their eyes. They lost sight of Thialfi altogether. Loki stepped back, groping to make sure that Thor was there behind him; and plunged on again, sullen and dripping.

Somewhere through the fog there came a shout. It was Thialfi far ahead. “Halloo!” he cried. “Halloo-oo-oo! Shelter!”

Thor and Loki answered, walking faster. Thialfi’s voice was louder now, and plainer. “Here!” he cried. “Here! Here!”

It seemed as if they must be close upon him. But the fog ahead grew no brighter. “Where is the house?” shouted Loki. “Hasn’t it a light?”

But even as he spoke, they stumbled across a wide threshold. Above them through the thick grayness they could make out a low ceiling. They put out their hands, groping for the door-arch, and met only empty air. There seemed to be no doorway at all; or rather, there was nothing but doorway,—a great entrance, like the mouth of a cave, as wide as the building itself.

Thor struck his hammer on the floor. “Who’s here?” he thundered. But there was no reply,—only soft echoes, “Here—here—here!”

Thialfi found them. “There is no one here,” he said. “I’ve shouted before. It’s a ruined palace, I think, with all one side gone. This part is a great hall; and beyond, there are five narrow wings. Come, I’ll show you.”

But Thor and Loki yawned, tired out with their day’s journey. And throwing themselves down on the floor, they all three fell fast asleep.

About midnight Thor started up. The floor trembled, and the whole palace quaked. The wide roof above them shook till it seemed ready to fall. Thor roused the others. “Run into one of the wings,” he cried. And picking up his hammer, he himself went to sit in the great doorway to guard the house.

All night long the strange rumblings continued. There would be a great heaving sound, a silence, and then another sound louder than before. Thor clutched his hammer and waited.

At dawn the noises suddenly ceased. The fog thinned, and Thor looked out across the country. In the distance he could make out a bright hill, and amid the shrubbery on the side, two lakes gleaming through the morning mists. He started to walk toward them when all at once the whole hill stirred.

Thor stopped, motionless with surprise. For a moment he could hardly realize that what he had taken for a hill was a giant’s head, and that the lakes fringed with shrubbery were his eyes gleaming beneath his bushy brows. Even the rumblings were explained, for they were the giant’s snores.

When the giant spied Thor, he laughed. “Well, well, my little fellow, you’re an early riser!” he cried. “And perhaps you’ve seen something of my glove. I had it yesterday, and I must have dropped it about here last night. Oho! There it is now!” And with that, he stooped and picked up the palace.

“Take care!” cried Thor, gasping. “Take care! People inside!”

He was just in time. Very gently, the giant took the glove by the fingers and shook Loki and Thialfi out into his tremendous hand.

When the giant heard how they had mistaken his glove for a ruined palace, and the finger places for wings, he roared till the ground rocked, and Thor had to skip about to keep his balance.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” gasped the giant, wiping his eyes. “This is a rare meeting indeed. And now what do you say to some breakfast with the giant Skrymir?”

Setting Loki and Thialfi carefully on the ground, he untied a huge wallet which he had slung over his shoulder, and laid out small hills of bread and cheese in a wide semi-circle about him. The gods sat down opposite and opened their lunch-bag. A very merry breakfast they had of it. For between his tremendous mouthfuls, Skrymir told the biggest jokes in the world.

Finally he got up, and shaking out of his lap three or four crumbs, the size of an ordinary loaf, said that he was ready to start along. “And where are you bound?” he asked.

Thor told him a little sheepishly.

“That’s my direction too,” said Skrymir good-naturedly. “Come along with me; I’ll show you the road and carry your bag.”

And picking up their wallet with his thumb and forefinger he tucked it into a corner of his big one, which he tied up securely and slung again over his shoulder.

So they set off, Skrymir walking as slowly as he could, and the gods running like terriers at his great heels in a desperate effort to keep up with him.

At nightfall they stopped under a towering oak-tree, and Skrymir seeming suddenly tired out, stretched himself full length upon the ground. But Loki, who since breakfast had thought of nothing but supper, cried out to him that he had their bag.

Sleepily, he took his big wallet from his back and laid it on the ground beside them. “Take anything from it you wish,” said he; and, with that, fell fast asleep.

In a minute Loki had climbed to the top of the sack and begun to tug at the huge ropes that bound it. Thialfi sprang after him. But the harder they pulled, and the redder and hotter they grew, the more firmly the knots seemed to stay in place. Then Thor, tightening his magic belt, leaped up and pulled too. But the knots remained as securely tied as before.

“Skrymir! Skrymir!” shouted Loki.

A huge snore that nearly shook them off the sack was the only answer. By that time the gods were desperate with hunger, and Thor, who had never before failed in a trial of strength, was bursting with rage. Dashing down off the wallet, he took up his hammer and hurled it with terrific force at the giant’s forehead.

Skrymir turned a little in his sleep. “Did a leaf fall?” he murmured drowsily. “I thought I felt something on my head.” In another minute he was snoring again more loudly than ever.

Thor shrank back, astounded. Never before had his hammer failed to kill. Trembling and exhausted, he lay down beside Loki and Thialfi on the ground. But it was no more possible to sleep than it had been to get something to eat. The oak-tree rocked as in a wild hurricane; the leaves dashed together, and the ground quaked with the giant’s snores. It sounded as if a hundred vast trumpets were blaring at once.

By midnight Thor could stand it no longer. He sprang up, determined to put an end to Skrymir once and for all. Tightening his magic belt three times, he swung his hammer about his head and dashed it straight and sure into the giant’s temple.

Skrymir’s eyelashes flickered. “How troublesome!” he grumbled, raising his head. “These acorns dropping on my face!”

Thor held his breath. Minute after minute passed, and Skrymir did not begin again to snore. Would he never go to sleep? Thor clenched his fist till his fingernails bit deep into his hand. Somehow he must get one more chance with his hammer. It was maddening, unbelievable, that there was a giant who could withstand it.

Finally, just at dawn, Skrymir’s wide bosom began to move up and down, up and down, like the high waves at sea. At the first snore Thor was ready. He gripped his hammer with both his mighty hands, and hurled it with a force to kill a hundred men. With a thundering crash it sank deep into the giant’s forehead.

Thor ran exultingly to drag it out. But Skrymir, brushing his hand drowsily across his brow, swept it gently to the ground.

“Just as I got to sleep!” he growled. “To have a twig drop on me! There must be birds building a nest in the branches above here. Are you awake, my little gods? Well, Thor, you are up early! What do you say to starting on?”

And with that, Skrymir stretched his great arms and sprang up as if nothing had happened. As for his forehead, it was as sound and firm as ever.

Thor leaned back weakly against the oak. “Yes,” he gasped, “let us be going.”

So Skrymir shouldered his great wallet again, and set off whistling across the field, with the gods following limply after. At the meadow’s edge Skrymir stopped and waited. Beyond a line of trees stretched a hard, bright road, gleaming like a sea of white marble in the sun.

Skrymir pointed along it. “This road,” said he kindly, “takes you to the palace of the giant king. My way lies over the hills so I must be saying good-by. Many thanks for your pleasant company, my little friends. You will be well received in Giantland. Only remember your size, and don’t get to boasting, my tiny gods. Here’s your wallet now; and good luck go with you.”

As he spoke, Skrymir took his great sack from his back and plucked it open with one pull at the huge knot. Picking out the wallet of the gods, he laid it on the ground; and flourishing his enormous cap about his head, by way of good-by, he went leaping off toward the hills. The gods watched him, speechless, till he was out of sight. One moment his huge form rose clear against the blue sky as he jumped over a mountain range; the next, it was lost to view on the other side.

Loki turned trembling to the other gods. “Let us turn back,” he cried. “I am not going on to be laughed at in Giantland.” Then his eye caught the wallet. Diving for it, he tore it open, and the starving gods fell to. There was only a mouthful apiece, but it gave them new courage.

Thor brandished his hammer. “Go back? Never!” he cried. “On we travel to Giantland. They shall yet learn to know the great god Thor!”

Thialfi sprinted ahead along the marvelous white road, and Loki, more ravenous than ever, pelted after.

Suddenly, the road turned sharply upward. The gods climbed, panting. There in the distance, beyond the hill-top, gleamed a tremendous palace, all of ice. Immense icicles made its pillars, and its frosty pinnacles glittered above the clouds. In the sunlight it shone with a thousand rainbows.

Thialfi stopped. Straight before him flashed the palace gate, each great icicle-bar blazing back the sun. For a moment he paused, dazzled. Then he saw that wide as the huge bars were, wider still were the spaces between them. He walked through, arms outstretched, without touching on either side. Thor and Loki followed along the glittering ice-roadway to the palace.

Up and down in front paced two giant sentinels, their heads erect and their great eyes peering out through the upper air. The tiny gods slipped unnoticed by their very feet, and into the great hall of the giant king.

Around the sides sat giant nobles on benches as high as hills, and at the end the king himself on his towering throne. Blinding light flashed from the floor, the ceiling, the walls. But the gods did not quail. Proud and straight, they passed unremarked down the center of the hall.

Before the throne Thor stopped, and dashed his hammer on the floor. The vast hall resounded and the giants rose to look.

Thor drew himself up. “I am the great god Thor,” he cried, “whose hammer cleaves the clouds and shakes the sky. I come to demand the homage of the giants.”

Like a burst from a hundred volcanoes at once, the giants’ laughter came booming down the hall.

The giant king smiled. “The giants welcome the gods,” he said kindly, “but we can bow only before proofs of greater power than our own.”

At that, Loki who was nearly starving, could stand it no longer. “Greater power!” he shouted. “Greater power! Let any one here eat food faster than I!”

The giants clapped their hands with a noise like waves smiting the beach. “Hear! Hear!” they roared.

“Have my cook Logi bring a trough of meat,” called the giant king.

Setting the trough before the throne, Logi sat down at one end, and Loki at the other.

“Ready!—Start!” cried the king.

Click-clack! Loki’s little jaws were at it before Logi got his great mouth open. Click-clack, click-clack, they kept on while Logi’s great tongue swept down the trough. Squarely in the middle, their heads bumped, Loki’s little head against Logi’s big one.

“A tie!” cried Thor. And so it seemed. But while Loki had eaten every morsel of meat from the bones, Logi had devoured meat, bones, trough and all.

Thialfi stepped forward, flushing at Loki’s defeat. “Who will race with me?” he cried.

“Hugi! Hugi!” shouted a dozen giant voices.

Hugi walked out, a slender young giant, and led Thialfi to a race-course covered with marble-dust, just behind the palace.

The giant king gave the signal, and off they dashed. Thialfi smaller and quicker, was off first; but Hugi, with his long legs, covered an immense distance at a single bound. Before the course was half finished, Thialfi was running like a tiny hound at the heels of a deer. As they drew nearer the goal, Hugi with a sudden urge, sped forward and crossed the line before Thialfi was three-quarters of the way around.

“Bravo, Hugi! Well run, Thialfi!” cried the giants kindly.

But Thor blazed with wrath from head to foot. His muscles quivered and his throat was dry. “Bring out your largest drinking-horn,” he thundered, “and see how Thor will empty it.”

The giants trooped back into the hall, and Logi brought a horn as deep as a well, filled with mead.

“With us, Thor,” said the king, “a giant is thought a good drinker if he can empty the horn at a single draught; a moderate drinker does it in two, and any giant can do it in three.”

Thor gave his magic belt a quick twist. Instantly his little form began to expand; and he stood before them, a god of majestic size, half as big as the giants themselves, and with muscles greater than their own. Taking the horn in one of his mighty hands, he breathed with all his force and drank till it seemed as if the vessel must have been emptied twice over. Triumphantly he raised his head and looked within. But the mead still brimmed to the horn’s edge.

Astonished and angry, he bent his lips again and drank till he thought he should burst. But again the horn seemed as full as when he had begun. With a last desperate straining, he lifted it a third time and buried his face in its vast depth. He stopped, breathless and choking. The mead had sunk below the rim, but the horn was still more than half full.

A great silence came over the hall. Loki and Thialfi cast down their eyes. But Thor threw back his head, unbaffled. “Give me any weight,” he cried, “and I will lift it. You shall yet see the matchless strength of Thor.”

A gray cat larger than an elephant rubbed itself against the steps of the throne. “Perhaps then, Thor,” said the giant king, “you will lift my cat for me.”

Snorting with scorn, Thor took a swift step forward, and put one immense arm around it. But the cat seemed bound to the floor with iron chains. Thor tugged again. But the harder he pulled, the higher the cat arched its back; and the best he could do was to make it lift one paw from the floor.

Thor roared with rage. “Let me wrestle,” he cried. “I defy any giant of you all to match his strength against mine. Let any one try to bring Thor low, in fair and single combat!”

“Ask my old nurse Elli to come in,” ordered the giant king.

Thor’s eyes flashed. “Do not mock me,” he thundered. “At your risk you taunt the great god Thor.”

“No offense is offered you,” said the giant king kindly. “Elli is no mean opponent. Many a bold champion before now she has brought to his knees.”

As he spoke, there hobbled into the room a hag so bent, so wrinkled, so infirm, that Thor drew back in anger and dismay.

“Elli,” said the giant king, “will you wrestle with the god Thor?”

The old dame nodded her head, and tottering up to the god, cackled tauntingly in his face. “Throw me!” she quavered. “Throw me!”

Enraged beyond endurance, Thor seized her about the waist, meaning to lay her gently upon the floor. But the harder he gripped her, the steadier she stood. Bracing all his muscles Thor took a new hold, but the hag had grasped him in her turn. Something in her slow embrace seemed to sink into his very limbs. His arms loosened. His legs weakened. Before he knew it, he dropped kneeling before her.

“Enough, Elli!” cried the giant king. “Let Thor go. We must give him better entertainment. Come, minstrels. Come, cooks; deck out our board and feast our guests like gods.”

In a twinkling a magnificent repast was spread, and giant jokes sped about the hall. The minstrels played great, sounding tunes upon their mammoth harps, and the giants did their best to make their guests forget the outcome of all their boasting. But the gods, humbled and downcast, took little part in the merrymaking. Even Thor, who had resumed his natural size, had no more pride left in him. They sat silent and dejected, and went off early to bed.

Next morning they rose before daybreak, hoping to escape from the palace without seeing the giants again. But the giant king was up before them, and in the great hall a breakfast stood ready. After they had finished, the king himself led them down the gleaming roadway, and out through the great ice gate, rosy with the light of dawn.

The giant king paused. “Before I leave you, my small friends,” he said, “I must in honesty tell you that the giants admire while they do not yield to the power of the gods. For had it not been for the magic we used, we, and not you, would have been humbled.

“I myself was that giant Skrymir in whose glove you slept. I tied up the wallet with the enchanted rope. It was I whom Thor struck with his unconquerable hammer. Any one of the blows would have killed me had I not each time brought a mountain in between. There in the distance you can see in the peak the three great clefts his hammer made.

“Yesterday Loki could not win his eating wager. But it was because he was matched against Logi who is none other than Fire itself, which could devour meat, bones, trough and all. Thialfi lost his race. But we giants marveled at his speed, for he ran against Hugi who is Thought, the swiftest thing in the world.

“When Thor drank, then indeed we wondered; for his drinking-horn was connected with the ocean, and his great draughts made the waters ebb from shore to shore. My cat which he tried to lift was none other than the terrible serpent which lies around the world with its tail in its mouth. When Thor tugged, he lifted it up till its back arched against the sky, and it seemed likely to slip altogether out of the sea.

“When he wrestled with my nurse Elli, we saw the greatest marvel of all. For she is Old Age, whom no one has ever withstood.

“But strong as you are, do not boast again, my tiny gods. For remember, the giants’ magic is as great as the giants themselves, and can never be conquered.”

Overcome with rage, Thor raised his hammer to shatter the giant and his palace forever. But a sudden mist blinded his eyes. When it cleared, he found himself, with Loki and Thialfi, alone on a wide moor glowing in the sunrise.

—From a Norse myth.