Myths of the Norsemen

by Roger Green

  Thor and Loki saluted him politely, but at first he took no notice of them and went on picking his teeth. At length, however, he smiled at them scornfully, and said:

  ‘As you seem to have come on a long journey, I suppose you are the Æsir from Asgard, and this small boy here must be Thor himself. Perhaps, however, you are greater than you seem: so tell us if you pride yourselves on any special accomplishments. We are all skilled here in feats of strength and endurance, and in craft and cunning as well. Now which of you will challenge one of us to prove his worth?’

  ‘That I will!’ cried Loki. ‘There is one craft in which I excel, particularly at the moment, and that is eating. I’ll have an eating match with any of you, and wager that no one can eat faster than I.’

  ‘Well, that is a good contest,’ said Utgardhaloki, ‘and we will put you to the test at once. Our champion eater is called Logi, and he is ready to eat against you or anyone at any time.’

  Then a great wooden trough was placed in the middle of the floor and filled with meat, and Loki sat down at one end and Logi at the other. Each set to work as fast as he could, and they met exactly in the middle.

  ‘But Logi has won,’ Utgardhaloki pointed out. ‘For while Loki ate only the flesh, leaving the bare bones on the dish, Logi ate bones and dish and all!’

  Presently Utgardhaloki looked at Thialfi and said: ‘And this child? Is there anything he can do?’

  ‘I’ll run a race with any one of you who cares to try,’ answered Thialfi boldly.

  ‘A good accomplishment is running,’ said Utgardhaloki, ‘but you must be very swift if you are to outdistance my champion.’

  Then he led the way out of the hall to a long strip of ground inside the castle walls. ‘We will put you to the test at once,’ he said, and called for Hugi, a young Giant, and bade him race with Thialfi.

  The course was set and the two runners sped away. But in the first heat Hugi was so much ahead that when he reached the winning-post he turned round and went back to meet Thialfi.

  Then said Utgardhaloki: ‘You will need to exert yourself a bit more, Thialfi, if you are to beat Hugi – though no one who has come here has ever run faster than you have just done. Now try a second heat.’

  They set off again, but this time Hugi reached the end of the course so long before Thialfi that he had time to turn and meet him a quarter of the way back.

  ‘Thialfi has run this heat well also,’ said Utgardhaloki, ‘but I do not think that he can beat Hugi. However, he may have one more chance, and that shall decide the match.’

  They set off for the third time, but now Hugi ran so fast that he was able to reach the winning-post, turn round, and meet Thialfi halfway back along the course.

  ‘So Hugi is a better runner than Thialfi,’ said Utgardhaloki as he led the way back into the hall. ‘But these were only small contests. Thor, I am certain, will wish to show his strength, for we have heard great tales of his mighty deeds – and indeed we know that he has won victories against a Giant or two before now.’

  ‘We came here in peace, and not to perform the deeds of war,’ said Thor warily. ‘But I am quite ready to contend with anyone in a drinking match.’

  ‘An excellent notion,’ cried Utgardhaloki, and he bade one of his servants bring in the sconce-horn which was handed round among his warriors when they boasted of their powers of drinking.

  ‘If one of us drinks this horn full at a single draught,’ he said, ‘we think well of him. Many a Giant, however, needs to pull at it twice; but we think very little of anyone who needs to raise it to his lips a third time.’

  Thor took the horn, and it did not seem particularly big, except for its great length. He was very thirsty, and as he raised it to his lips he was confident that he would need to take no second draught to empty it. But when his breath failed and he raised his head from the horn and looked to see how much he had drunk, it seemed hardly any emptier than when he started.

  ‘That was well drunk,’ exclaimed Utgardhaloki, ‘and yet it was not much. I would not have believed if I had not actually seen it that Thor of Asgard was so poor a drinker. Still, I feel sure you are only waiting to drain the horn at your next draught.’

  Thor answered nothing, but raised the horn to his lips again, thinking that he would drink deeply indeed this time, and he strained at it until his breath gave out. Yet as he took the horn from his lips he realized that the end had not tilted up as far as it should; and when he came to look inside, it seemed as if less had gone than before: but now he could at least see below the rim.

  ‘How now, Thor!’ cried Utgardhaloki. ‘You’ll drink again, surely, even if the third draught is more than is good for you? The third will surely be the greatest – but even if you empty the horn this time, you are not so mighty a champion as you are said to be among the Æsir. Though what you may yet do in other contests remains to be seen.’

  At that Thor became angry. He raised the horn again and drank with all his might, straining until he could hold his breath no longer. He set down the horn and as he drew back gasping, he saw that at least the liquid in it had sunk quite a distance from the top. But he would not try again, and declared that he had drunk enough for one night.

  ‘Now it is evident that you are not as mighty as we thought,’ remarked Utgardhaloki. ‘You cannot even swallow a little drink such as this. But will you try your hand at other games? You may do better in some feat of strength.’

  ‘We hardly call such drinks as that little ones in Asgard,’ grumbled Thor. ‘But what game do you suggest now to try my strength?’

  ‘Young lads here,’ said Utgardhaloki, ‘begin by a small trial of strength which is to lift my cat off the ground. I would not suggest so easy a test to Thor of the Æsir, did I not realize how very much less powerful you are than I expected.’

  As he said this an enormous grey cat leapt into the middle of the floor and stood there spitting. Thor went forward and set his hands under its belly meaning to lift it by the middle. But the cat arched its back as Thor lifted, and though he strained upwards with all his strength he could only raise one paw off the ground.

  ‘It is just as I expected,’ smiled Utgardhaloki. ‘But indeed my cat is a very large one, and our people are big and strong, not weak and puny like Thor the Thunderer.’

  ‘Small as I am,’ shouted Thor, ‘I’ll wrestle with any of you. For now you have angered me, my strength grows double!’

  ‘I see no Giant here who would not think it a disgrace to wrestle with such a midget,’ said Utgardhaloki looking round the hall. ‘But we must not be deceived by appearances. Summon my old nurse, Elli, and let Thor wrestle with her. She has thrown men who seemed to me no less mighty than this great god of Asgard.’

  Straightway there came into the hall an old woman, bent and stricken with years. Thor flushed angrily when he saw her, but Utgardhaloki insisted on the match, and when at last Thor took hold of her and tried to throw her, he discovered that it was not as easily done as he expected. In fact, the harder he gripped her the firmer she stood; and when she caught hold of him in her turn, Thor felt himself tottering on his feet, and in spite of all he could do she brought him to his knees.

  ‘Enough of this!’ cried Utgardhaloki. ‘It is useless for Thor to try his strength with any of my warriors since he cannot even hold his own against this old woman. Sit down now, all three of you, and let us eat and drink. Only Loki has eaten and only Thor has drunk; but doubtless you can both take more of food and ale – for I would like you to see how well we in Utgard can entertain our guests.’

  So they made good cheer far into the night, and slept there in the hall. And in the morning, when they were dressed and ready, Utgardhaloki drank a parting cup with them, and led them out of Utgard and well on their way back towards Midgard.

  When he turned to bid them farewell he said: ‘Now tell me, before we part, what you think of my castle of Utgard and the greatest of the Giant kind who live there? Do you admit that you have at last met Giants who ar
e mightier than you?’

  ‘I must confess,’ said Thor sadly, ‘that I have got little but shame from my dealings with you. When I am gone you will speak of me as a weakling, and I am ill content with that. It was with a very different purpose that I came to visit Utgard as the envoy of the Æsir.’

  ‘Now I will tell you the truth,’ said Utgardhaloki, ‘since you are well away from my castle – which, if it is in my power, you shall never enter again. Indeed had I known how mighty you were, you had never come here at all: for so great is your strength that you have put us and all the world in deadly peril.

  ‘Know then that I have cheated you with false seemings and illusions of the eye.

  ‘To go back to the beginning: it was I who met you on the way, calling myself Skrymir; and as for my provision-bag, it was tied with iron made by Trolls – so that you could not possibly have untied it. Of the three blows you dealt me with your hammer Miolnir, the first was far the lightest, but it would have killed me if it had really landed on me. On your way home you will see a long mountain shaped like a saddle, with three deep gorges in it, one far deeper than the rest: those gorges you made with your hammer, for in each case I slipped aside so that the mountain received the blows and not I.

  ‘In the same way I cheated you over your contests in my castle hall. The Giant against whom Loki ate so well was called Logi – and he was Fire itself which burned up the trough and bones as well as the meat. Thialfi ran against Hugi, who is Thought: and no man can run as swiftly as thought.

  ‘When you drank from my horn, and the drink seemed to sink but slowly, you performed a wonder which I should not have believed possible. For the other end of the horn was joined to the sea, and it sank visibly throughout all the world when you drank. You caused the first ebb-tide: and the tides shall ebb and flow for ever more in memory of your deed.

  ‘When you strove to lift my cat we were all in deadly terror. For he was the Midgard Serpent which stretches round the whole world – and when you raised it, the head and tail of Jormungand scarcely touched the ground.

  ‘Finally, your last feat was as remarkable as the rest. For Elli with whom you wrestled was Old Age – and yet she only brought you to your knees, though never a man lived, nor shall ever live, who will not at the last be vanquished by Old Age.

  ‘Now we must part, and it will be best for both of us if you never come here to seek me again. Should you do so, I will defend my castle by wiles such as I have already used against you – or by others. But if you stay away from Jotunheim, there may be peace between the Æsir and the Giants.’

  Then a sudden gust of fury filled Thor, and he whirled up Miolnir to fling at Utgardhaloki, deeming that this time there should be no mistake.

  But Utgardhaloki was gone; and suddenly the mist came down from the mountains so that when Thor turned back to destroy the castle of Utgard and crush it to pieces, there was no castle to be seen.

  So Thor, Loki, and Thialfi turned and groped their way through the fog, back into the mountains, and they could scarcely see more than a few yards in front of them until they came to the great mountain with the three gorges which Thor had cleft with his hammer.

  Beyond it the fog cleared, and they made their way easily enough until they came to the farmhouse where Thor had left his chariot.

  The goat whose bone had been broken by Thialfi had now quite recovered, and next day they set out for Asgard, taking Roskva with them.

  When Thor told Odin and the other Æsir how Utgardhaloki had tricked him, and repeated what he had told him before they parted, Odin said:

  ‘You have done well in the Land of the Giants, though at first it seemed but ill. For now they know our strength – and we know what they can do to outwit us. We may not be able to destroy them, but I do not think that they will come against Asgard, nor overrun Midgard. Yet they will come against us at Ragnarok, on the Day of the Last Great Battle.’

  ‘Nevertheless I am determined to wipe out this insult to my prowess in Giant blood,’ growled Thor.

  ‘You need not doubt that Giant blood will still be shed,’ answered Odin. ‘Though we are at peace with Utgardhaloki, there are Giants who will still try to harm us or to bring ruin to men in Midgard. I do not think the hammer Miolnir will ever grow rusty!’

  ‘No!’ muttered Thor. ‘And when I have conquered the Giants, I am determined to try my strength against the Midgard Serpent! Had I known that Utgardhaloki’s cat was Jormungand, instead of trying to lift its paw from the ground I would have stroked its head with Miolnir!’

  8

  Odin Goes Wandering

  There was peace throughout the Nine Worlds: the Dwarfs were busy at their forges under the earth; in Jotunheim the Giants rested uneasily after Thor’s visit, and plotted no new evil against Asgard. In Muspelheim, the fire region, all was quiet, waiting for the Day of Ragnarok. Elves and Vanir dwelt in happiness; in Hela’s hard land and in misty Nifelheim nothing stirred. Odin and Frigga his queen rose up in Asgard and took their way across Bifrost Bridge to visit Midgard, to wander disguised in the world of men.

  Now it chanced that good King Raudung had two young sons named Gerrad and Agnar, and one day the boys set out in a small boat to fish in the smooth sea near their father’s kingdom.

  Suddenly the clouds banked up over the clear sky and a great storm rose with a mighty wind which carried the little boat far away from the land. The boys clung to the sides expecting every moment to be overset and drowned; but at last they came to a little island where the boat ran aground and they struggled on to dry land more dead than alive.

  Night was coming on, and they saw a glow of light in the distance. Towards this they crawled, and found a little cottage with smoke coming from the chimney and firelight flickering behind the windows.

  Agnar knocked at the door, and it was opened by an old, one-eyed man in a broad-brimmed hat. He welcomed the two boys into the cottage, and he and his wife warmed them by the fire, fed them, and made them comfortable for the night.

  Winter was coming on before the boys were fully recovered from their shipwreck, and the two old peasants kept them until the spring, treating them as if they were their own children.

  During the long months on the island the boys learnt many things from their kind foster-parents. Their host taught them the use of the bow and the spear, to wrestle and to run, to wield the sword and to swing both axe and hammer. But sometimes his wife led them away into the woods and taught them about all living things, from the song of the birds to the use of herbs to cure sickness or heal wounds.

  And in the long nights of winter they told the two boys about the doings of gods and men, the glories of battle and the greater glories of honour and hospitality.

  Spring came at last, and when the sun of early summer smiled upon the sea, Gerrad and Agnar launched their boat again and made ready to set sail.

  Then the two old peasants came down to the seashore and blessed the two children.

  ‘Hoist this sail,’ said the woman, and her voice sounded suddenly young and strong, the voice of a great queen. ‘And I will send a strong, sweet breeze to waft you across the waves to your home in safety.’

  ‘Go, my children,’ said the man, and he too seemed younger, and he drew himself up as if he were a great king sending out his warriors to battle. ‘You came to us as children, but you go from us as young men, tall and strong, on the very threshold of your lives. Live worthily, and come at the last to the glad halls of Valhalla.’

  As the boat skimmed away over the waters, Agnar and Gerrad turned and saw the stately figures of Odin and Frigga standing on the shore behind them.

  All that day Gerrad and Agnar sailed over the dancing waves, and in the evening they came to the land where their father King Raudung ruled. Agnar rejoiced at the thought of their homecoming, and was about to spring on to the land as the boat touched the shore in the twilight, when Gerrad turned upon him suddenly:

  ‘Sail away, Agnar!’ he cried. ‘Go to the land where Giants and Trol
ls may seize you!’

  With that he struck him so that he fell back senseless into the boat, and Gerrad pushed it back into the sea. The out-going tide caught it and the currents whirled it away into the distance.

  Gerrad then went up to his father’s palace and was welcomed eagerly by the old king.

  ‘But where is Agnar your brother?’ he asked.

  ‘Alas,’ said Gerrad, ‘he was lost at sea on our perilous voyage. A great wave swept him into the water, and do what I might, I could not save him.’

  Very soon after this Raudung died, and Gerrad became king in his place, and grew famous for his wealth and feared by his foes.

  But Agnar drifted away until the boat brought him to the Land of the Giants. There he was kindly treated, for indeed his goodness and gentleness made even the Giants forget their cruel ways.

  In time, however, he began to long for his home; and at last he set out in disguise and came to the hall of King Gerrad his brother. Here he did not reveal himself, but became a servant in his own home, serving the cruel, miserly king, and helping all those whom he could.

  Meanwhile Odin and Frigga had returned to Asgard, and one day as they sat together in Lidskialf looking out over the world, Odin said:

  ‘Did you see our foster-son Agnar whom you loved? Of late he dwelt among the Giants our enemies, and I believe that he was even married to a Giantess. How much better has his brother Gerrad turned out to be: see him, a mighty king ruling his father’s land well and wisely.’

  But Frigga replied: ‘Gerrad is cruel and miserly. He strove to kill Agnar his brother, and he is sparing of his food even to the guests within his doors.’

  ‘I will visit him in disguise,’ said Odin, ‘and prove whether your words are just. I am about to go down into Midgard on my way to Jotunheim to have speech with Valfthrudnir the wise Giant, for he boasts that he knows more of the secrets of the universe than I do myself. I would learn if he has indeed anything to teach me: but if it is all idle boasting, I shall punish him as he deserves.’