by Roger Green
‘So you’re hungry, are you?’ growled Skrymsli, picking up the fish. ‘Well, I am afraid you will have to wait until sunset!’
With that he opened the three fishes and counted every egg in their roes until he came to the one in which Rogner was hidden.
But Loki was watching carefully, and the moment he saw that Skrymsli had the egg he turned himself into a falcon, snatched it from the Giant’s hand, and flew with it to the shore.
There he turned Rogner back into his own shape and size and said to him:
‘Wait where you are until the Giant actually sets foot on shore, then run your fastest across that stretch of very white sand and put up this iron pole at the far end of it.’
Rogner did as he was told, and the sand seemed to move and whistle strangely beneath his feet as he sped across. But when he had turned and stuck in the iron pole as he had been instructed, he saw that the Giant was sinking in the sand.
Down went Skrymsli to his knees, and then with a tremendous effort and a fearful roar of rage, he dragged out one leg and plunged forward. He tripped and fell, and put out his hands to save himself. But both his hands and arms went down into the quicksand as though it had been water, and he struck his head so hard on the iron pole that he knocked himself unconscious. Before he could recover his wits, he had gone down head first into the quicksand and was smothered. Only his legs stuck up out of the ground, and Loki came along with the Giant’s own sharp reaping hook and cut them both off.
After Loki had dealt so successfully with Skrymsli, Odin and the other Æsir were still more inclined to take his advice in matters concerning Giants – and very soon his cunning was again put to the test, but in a far more serious matter.
This time it was not merely a farmer’s son, but the very existence of Asgard which was in danger. It happened that Odin and the other Æsir were met in council to decide how to build a wall round Asgard to be a sure defence against their enemies.
While they were discussing the difficulties of this undertaking, Heimdall, the guardian of the Bridge Bifrost, came to them and said:
‘Father Odin, there stands a man in the plain below the gate of Asgard who offers to build a wall that shall keep out both the Hill Giants and the Rime Giants. But he would speak with you all and make a bargain over the price you are to pay for his labours.’
So Odin and the other Æsir came to the gate of Asgard and looked down to where the man stood, his arm through the reins of a fine white stallion. He was tall and grim-looking, but there seemed to be nothing unusual about him, except that he was in an exceedingly bad temper.
‘Are you the master mason who offers to build our wall?’ asked Odin.
‘I am,’ answered the man. ‘And I swear to build the whole wall in three years, strong enough and high enough to keep out all the Giant race.’
‘And what is your price for doing so great a feat of building?’ asked Odin.
‘Your solemn oath to give me Freya, Lady of the Vanir, as my bride,’ answered the man, ‘as well as the Sun and the Moon.’
When the Æsir heard this, they were about to treat it as a joke and send the man away with a warning against such impudence.
But Loki said: ‘Perhaps there is more to this. You know very well that none of us could build such a wall in three years. It is not possible that a man should either, but he may know some craft which we lack. So agree to his terms, but insist that he must build the wall to the very last stone in one winter, with no one to help him, and that if on the first day of summer any part of the work remains undone, he will receive no wages … He cannot possibly complete it, but he may at least lay a good foundation, which we shall get for nothing.’
It seemed as if Loki had drunk of Kvasir’s Blood, for the Æsir were persuaded by his words, and Odin proposed the conditions to the man.
‘To all this will I agree,’ he replied, ‘and no man shall help me. But you must allow me to use my horse here.’
There seemed no harm in this, so all the Æsir swore solemn oaths to give him Freya, with the Sun and the Moon, if the work were completed by the first day of summer.
The next day was the beginning of winter, and the strange mason set to work. By nightfall the watching Æsir were already feeling uneasy, for the mason’s horse Svadilfari carried and hauled such amazing quantities of such huge stones that it seemed little short of miraculous. Moreover the mason himself squared every one of those stones before morning and set each in position, firmly mortared to the next.
So the work went on. Every day Svadilfari hauled vast loads of stone, and night after night his master built them up until, as winter drew towards an end, the wall was nearing completion.
Then the Æsir met in council once more, in a great state of alarm and consternation.
‘It is only three days until the beginning of summer,’ said Odin, ‘and you can all see that this mason will easily finish the wall by then. Shall we therefore be obliged to give one of our number, Freya the Beautiful, to a stranger from Midgard? And must we destroy both Midgard and Asgard by losing the Sun and the Moon – which this wizard may sell to the Giants our enemies?’
‘But we have sworn an oath – we cannot break that,’ the son of bright Baldur, Forseti the Oathkeeper, reminded him.
‘Why did we ever swear so foolish – so wicked an oath?’ asked Tyr, the War-lord, angrily. ‘We could have fought the Giants without a wall!’
‘We were persuaded to it by cunning Loki,’ said Odin slowly.
‘You all agreed that what this mason offered was an impossible boast,’ Loki reminded the Æsir. ‘You must not blame me for what was only a suggestion – which you were quite ready to follow.’
‘I was not here,’ grumbled Thor, his red beard bristling. ‘I was away guarding against Giants. And I’m certain Loki, the son of Laufey, tricked you. He got us into this trouble, he must get us out of it – or he’ll have me to reckon with.’
Most of the Æsir seemed to agree with Thor, and Loki began to feel frightened. ‘I had no more idea than you that the man’s horse had magic powers,’ he protested. ‘I’m sure I can think of a way to prevent the mason from earning his prize – my mind is full of schemes. But it pains me to think that you suspect me of bringing this terrible danger upon us by anything but the merest accident.’
‘No one distrusts you, Loki,’ answered Odin. ‘You are one of us, and my brother by blood. But Thor is right: in you there is more cunning than any of us possess. You advised us to make this bargain – and you must save us from having to keep it.’
‘But without breaking our oath or staining our honour,’ murmured Forseti. And to this the Æsir agreed, and the council broke up.
Loki at once went away out of Asgard by himself and Thor muttered suspiciously that he was taking refuge with the Giants, and that Heimdall the Watchman of Asgard should not have let him cross Bifrost.
But the other Æsir said nothing: only they took their places on the almost completed wall and looked down to see what would happen.
As night fell the mason arrived leading the great stallion Svadilfari with another load of stones. They had almost reached the foot of the wall, when suddenly, out of a little wood nearby, sprang another horse, a beautiful white mare, neighing and prancing.
At once Svadilfari seemed to go mad. He reared up, neighing in answer to the white mare, and with a sudden plunge broke his traces, oversetting the load of stones, and dashed away into the darkness.
All that night and all the next day Svadilfari followed the white mare, and Svadilfari’s master followed him, shouting and cursing in vain. But on the last night of winter he came limping back to Asgard without his horse.
Over Bifrost he strode, and stood in the midst of the Æsir, and cursed them as cheats and oath-breakers. Greater and greater grew his fury; until suddenly it overcame all his cunning, and he grew greater too, huger and uglier and more evil. Then the Æsir knew him for one of their enemies the Rime Giants from Jotunheim, and they gathered round him angr
y and threatening.
But Odin in his wisdom placed the shield Svalin in the eastern sky to hide the rising sun. Suddenly the Giant paused in his threats of tearing down Asgard and casting the Æsir except Freya into Nifelheim, and with a cry of dismay he sprang up on to his new wall for he had seen the sun shining round the edge of the shield.
Then Odin cast down Svalin, and the risen sun shone on the Giant and turned him into a stone, which tipped forward off the wall, fell down, down to the plain of Midgard far below, and broke into a mass of splinters.
But Loki came back to Asgard some months later leading the wonderful grey horse Sleipnir, the fastest horse in the world, which had eight legs. It was the foal of Svadilfari and the white mare, and it became Odin’s horse and bore him ever afterwards through the clouds and over Midgard, wherever he had a mind to go.
5
Loki Makes Mischief
After the adventure of the Giant mason a change seemed to come over Loki. His cunning grew unkinder; his gay impudence seemed often to be slyness; and he spent more and more of his time away from Asgard.
Wise Odin saw the change in him, and was troubled. For already he understood enough of the future to know that one of the Æsir was destined to prove a traitor. And who more likely than Loki, who had been born a Giant?
Odin sat upon Lidskialf, his high throne above Asgard, and looked down upon all the worlds. Suddenly in distant Jotunheim he saw Loki playing with three monsters in the courtyard of a dark castle.
Swiftly he sent for Hermodur his son, the messenger of the Æsir:
‘Go straightway to Jotunheim,’ he commanded. ‘Loki our companion has forgotten that he is one of the Æsir and is dwelling in the castle of Angurboda the Giantess. Bid him come to me without delay.’
Swift as light Hermodur sprang away, leapt upon Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged horse, and was gone.
Very soon Loki stood before Odin in the groves of Asgard, an impudent smile on his lips, but fear lurking in his eyes.
‘No, I do not forget that I am of the Æsir, nor that the Giants are deadly foes to us,’ said Loki, when Odin had spoken of what he had seen. ‘But remember, your mother Bestla was of that race – and she was my father’s cousin … We Æsir can mingle with the Giants without taking their side. And it chanced when I led the horse Svadilfari into Jotunheim, and so saved Asgard from the Giant who would have taken Freya, the Sun, and the Moon in spite of all that any of you could do – it happened that I saw the most lovely of all the Giant race, fair Angurboda. I loved her, she loved me – we are married, and three strange children have been born to us.’
‘It is not right that the Æsir should wed with the Giants and have monsters for children –’ began Odin.
‘Indeed,’ sneered Loki. ‘Yet you, Allfather of Asgard and Midgard, once wedded Jord. Were not Anar her father and Nott her mother both of the Giant race? And is her son and yours – is great Thor a monster?’
‘Loki, you speak of things which you do not understand,’ said Odin. ‘It was only in obedience to the wisdom of Mimir, and to the will of the Norns, that I wedded kindly Jord, the Earth-Giantess, in the faraway days when the world was still in the making. Without Thor, we could not have stood against the Giants, as well you know. Thor came as our protection, but I very much fear that these children of yours are born to destroy us.’
Then Odin commanded his sons to bring the children of Loki to Asgard, and they set out for Jotunheim with Thor and Tyr in the lead.
When they returned, they led with them such monsters that the queens of the Æsir, Frigga and Sif, Iduna and lovely Freya, might well turn pale at the sight of them.
For the youngest was Hela, with one half of her body living, human flesh, and the other half the livid hue of decay. The second was the great serpent Jormungand, rising like a twisted pillar of evil. And the eldest was the Fenris Wolf – the biggest and the fiercest of all wolves.
‘These I may not slay,’ said Odin, ‘for the course of fate cannot be broken, and the web of the Norns once woven cannot be unpicked. But go, Hela, daughter of Loki, and find your own realm below Nifelheim: to you shall come the spirits of the dead who do not fall in battle. Across the river Gioll they must go – the river that none may cross again – and there Garm of the Bloody Breast, the watchdog of Helheim, shall guard your grey domains. Go, Queen of the Dead!’
Odin stretched out his hand, and with a bitter cry Hela sank through the earth, down to the lowest world, there to reign until Ragnarok, the Day of the Last Great Battle, shall dawn.
Next Odin took Jormungand and flung him into the sea; and there he grew and grew until he encircled the earth, and held his tail in his mouth; and there, as the Midgard Serpent, he too is fated to remain until the Day of Ragnarok.
But the Fenris Wolf was kept in Asgard, though only Tyr dared go near him each day to give him meat.
He grew and grew, however, and became more and more dangerous. And Odin learnt from Mimir’s Head that this Wolf was destined to be their destruction. He knew that he might not kill him, so now he called the Æsir together once more, and set out the case.
‘Leave him to me!’ muttered Thor. ‘I shall see whether we can kill him or not!’
‘It must not be,’ said Odin firmly. ‘He is the child of one of us, and to slay any in Asgard would bring the Day of Ragnarok upon us more swiftly than anything which the Giants could do.’
‘Then let us take him away and tie him up with a chain which he cannot break,’ said Thor. And this they decided to do.
So they made a very strong chain called Laeding, and took it and showed it to the Wolf.
‘You are so strong,’ said Tyr. ‘Suppose you try and see if you can break this chain!’
The Fenris Wolf looked at Laeding, and curled up his lips in a snarl of contempt.
‘Bind me if you wish,’ he growled scornfully.
So they fastened Laeding round him, linked the ends together, and stood back to watch.
Fenris rose, shook himself, and stretched lazily – and the chain Laeding broke into small pieces that fell tinkling to the ground.
After this the Æsir laboured long and carefully making another and far stronger chain, while Fenris howled in the courtyard of Asgard and grew mightier day by day.
When the second chain, the chain Dromi, was finished, Tyr took it and showed it to Fenris, and the Wolf grinned wickedly when he saw it.
‘You broke Laeding so easily,’ said Tyr, ‘that we feel you have not had a real trial of strength. But now we have put all our skill into making this chain. See if you can escape from Dromi as easily as you did from Laeding.’
Fenris examined Dromi, and saw that it was very strong and heavy.
‘It will be a little harder,’ he said. ‘But bind me up, and I’ll dash out of Dromi as surely as I lashed out of Laeding. I have grown in strength since my first feat!’
So the Æsir gathered in the courtyard, and once again the Fenris Wolf was bound in chains as securely as Thor and Tyr could make them.
This time he strained and struggled in the iron grip of Dromi, beat it against the stone pavement and stretched his hardest. In the end it flew into fragments as Laeding had done, and he cried exultantly:
‘See! I have indeed dashed out of Dromi! What are your puny chains to me? But I am tired of this sport. You cannot find a chain to hold me, so trouble me no more with any such nonsense.’
Fenris went to his dinner, stuffed himself with raw meat, and lay down contentedly – rejoicing to see from his shadow that he was still growing.
The Æsir, however, met again in council, and even Thor looked grave. But wise Frey rose up and said:
‘It is evident that none of the Æsir, nor of the Vanir, can make a chain strong enough to hold the Fenris Wolf. And if we cannot, no man in Midgard can either; and I doubt whether any Giant in Jotunheim could do it.’
‘Let us have no more dealings with Giants,’ muttered Thor. ‘A Giant smith might be just as dangerous as a Giant mason was!’<
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‘No, I would not counsel any help out of Jotunheim,’ said Frey. ‘But let me now send my faithful messenger Skirnir to the land beyond Nifelheim, to Svartalfheim, the home of the Black Elves. There dwell certain Dwarfs who are more skilled in the forging of chains than any in all the Nine Worlds.’
The Æsir agreed to this, and Skirnir the messenger set forth.
When he returned he carried with him a grey chain of tiny links which was as soft and smooth as a silken ribbon: and he carried it easily in one hand.
‘This is the chain Gleipnir,’ he said as he handed it to Frey. ‘The Dwarfs swore to me that it alone could hold the Fenris Wolf, and that he would not break from it until the day of Ragnarok, when all bonds will be broken.’
‘The chain looks thin and weak,’ mused Odin, letting it run through his fingers.
‘It is a magic chain, made with the aid of many spells,’ answered Skirnir. ‘Six things went to its making, so the Dwarfs bade me say: the sound of a cat’s foot-fall, the beard of a woman, the roots of a rock, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird. And indeed you may now perceive that a cat’s foot-fall no longer makes a sound, women now have no beards, and you cannot find the roots of a rock: as for the other things I have not yet put them to the test.’
So Odin slipped the chain into his pouch, and he and most of the Æsir went down into the yard where the Fenris Wolf lived.
The great creature came yawning and stretching out into the sunlight when they called him, and all noticed how much larger he had grown since the day on which he had broken the chain Dromi.
‘Come hunting with us in the forests of Midgard,’ said Tyr.
‘Not so,’ answered the Wolf. ‘I do not leave Asgard – yet. Here I know that I am safe.’
‘Well, then, come across the plains of Asgard,’ said Tyr. ‘Though there we are not so likely to find game.’
Fenris readily agreed to this, and they set off through the bright woods and meadows until they came to the Lake of Amsvartnir. In the middle of this was a rocky island, and at Uller’s suggestion they crossed to it.