The shelter began to shake in the middle of the night.
Thor woke with his hand already on Mjollnir. Somewhere beyond the darkness came a long, rolling noise. The floor moved beneath him.
“Up,” he said.
Loki rose. Thjalfi and his sister Roskva, who served Thor and had travelled east with them, felt their way along the wall. They had found this great empty shelter after dark, deep in a forest beyond the sea. Its entrance had been strangely wide, but it had offered a roof.
Now they searched for somewhere less exposed. A narrow chamber opened to one side. Thor sent the others into it and sat across its doorway with the hammer ready.
All night the noise rose and fell. Nothing entered.
At dawn he went outside.
A giant lay among the trees. Each breath shook the branches above his face. Thor tightened his belt of strength, and the power within him grew; but when the sleeper opened his eyes and sat up, Thor’s hand stayed still upon the hammer.
“I am Skrymir,” the giant said. “And you are Thor. Have you been moving my glove?”
He reached past him.
The roof lifted. The walls folded. Thor saw the narrow chamber swing upward and become the thumb of the giant’s glove.
His companions stood blinking in the open air.
Skrymir offered to travel with them. After breakfast he suggested putting all their provisions into one bag, which he carried easily upon his back. Through the day the others hurried to keep pace with his long strides.
That evening he lay beneath an oak.
“Help yourselves to supper,” he said, and shut his eyes.
Thor knelt beside the bag.
He took hold of the fastening and pulled. The knot did not shift. He found another loop, worked his fingers beneath it and pulled harder. Nothing loosened. Behind him, Thjalfi and Roskva waited for their food. Skrymir began to snore.
Thor let go of the bag.
He walked to the giant, gripped Mjollnir and struck him on the head.
Skrymir opened his eyes.
“Did a leaf fall?”
Thor stared.
“Have you eaten?” the giant asked.
“We are going to sleep.”
They lay beneath another oak, hungry. At midnight the snoring thundered through the forest again. Thor rose, went back and brought down a second blow, harder than the first.
Skrymir stirred.
“An acorn this time?”
Thor returned to the others. He lay awake until the darkness began to thin, listening for the moment when the giant’s sleep was deepest. Then he got up once more.
The third blow used all his strength.
Skrymir sat up and rubbed his cheek.
“Something has fallen from the branches. Are there birds above me?”
Thor said nothing.
The giant shouldered the provision bag. Before leaving, he pointed east, towards the stronghold of Utgard.
“You will meet greater men than me there. Mind what you boast of.”
He strode away northward. Thor turned east.
By midday they stood beneath a wall so high they had to lean back to see its top. The gate would not open. At last they squeezed between its bars and entered the hall beyond.
Giants sat along the benches. Their ruler, Utgard-Loki, regarded the newcomers with a slow smile.
“Can this be Thor?”
Thor stood before him, feeling the ache of an empty stomach and the memory of three useless blows.
“You must have some skill,” the ruler said. “We do not keep guests here who cannot show us one.”
Loki stepped forward.
“Bring food. I will eat against anyone in this hall.”
A trough of meat was set between him and a figure called Logi. They began at opposite ends. Loki ate furiously, working towards the middle, and met his opponent there.
On Loki’s side lay clean bones.
On Logi’s side nothing remained. He had eaten the meat, the bones and the wooden trough beneath them.
Utgard-Loki turned to Thjalfi.
“And you?”
“I can run.”
They went outside to a level course. A slight young runner called Hugi took his place beside Thjalfi. At the signal, Thjalfi sprang forward so swiftly that Thor felt his spirits rise.
But Hugi reached the finish, turned and ran back to meet him.
They raced again. This time Thjalfi was still far from the end when Hugi returned. On the third race he had not reached halfway.
Thjalfi stopped, breathing hard. Hugi waited without effort.
Back in the hall, the ruler looked at Thor.
“What will you try?”
“Bring me something to drink.”
A long horn was put into his hands. It was narrow enough that he thought little of it.
“Our best drinkers empty it in one draught,” Utgard-Loki said. “Some take two. Even the poorest manage three.”
Thor raised the horn.
He drank until his chest strained for breath. Then he lowered it and looked inside.
The drink had scarcely fallen.
He shifted his grip. Around him the hall waited. He set his mouth to the rim again and swallowed until he could bear no more, willing the tip to rise, waiting for the sudden lightness of an empty horn.
It did not come.
“Surely the third will be better,” said Utgard-Loki.
Thor drank a third time. His hands clenched upon the horn. When at last he tore it from his lips, there was a visible space beneath the rim.
There was still drink below it.
He handed it back.
“Another trial.”
The ruler glanced towards the floor.
“The children here lift my cat.”
A large gray cat came into the hall. Thor put a hand beneath its belly and straightened. Its back arched. He raised his arm higher; the long body rose with it, but the feet seemed unwilling to leave the floor.
He planted his boots, stretched upward and lifted with everything he had.
One paw came clear.
Along the benches, a movement passed through the giants. Thor scarcely noticed it. He was staring at the other paws.
When he let go, the cat settled lightly upon the floor.
“Very well,” Thor said. “Let one of you wrestle me.”
Utgard-Loki looked along the benches as though considering whom he might spare.
“My old nurse will do. Fetch Elli.”
She came slowly into the hall, an old woman with a bent back. Thor faced her with his jaw set. He would finish this quickly.
He took hold of her.
She did not move.
He pressed harder, trying to turn her, to shift her weight onto a foot he could sweep away. Her grip closed upon him. The harder he strained, the more firmly she stood.
Then she began to bring him down.
His boots slid. He fought to straighten, and for a moment held himself upright against her. Then one knee struck the floor.
“Enough,” said Utgard-Loki.
Elli released him.
That evening the guests were given food and comfortable places to sleep. Thor ate without looking along the benches. The hand that held his cup had lifted only one paw of a cat.
At morning they prepared to leave. Their host fed them well and walked with them beyond the gates.
“How did you find your visit?” he asked.
Thor looked back at the wall.
“You will call me weak. I have given you cause.”
The ruler’s smile changed.
“I would never have let you enter if I had known your strength.”
Thor turned towards him.
“Now that you are outside,” Utgard-Loki said, “you may hear what happened. I was Skrymir.”
The forest returned to Thor: the moving roof, the knots beneath his fingers, the giant rubbing his cheek.
“I bound the bag with iron, where you could not find the fastening. And when you struck at me, I put a mountain in the way of your hammer.”
He pointed towards a ridge cut by three great valleys. One was deeper than the others.
“Your blows. The least would have killed me.”
Thor stared at the distant clefts.
“Logi was wildfire. That is why he consumed the trough as well as the meat. Hugi was my thought. No runner could keep pace with him.”
Thjalfi stood very still beside his sister.
“And the horn?” Thor asked.
“Its far end lay in the sea. You lowered the ocean. When you reach the shore, you will see how far the water has withdrawn.”
Thor remembered the weight that would not lessen, the drink that kept coming.
“The cat was the Midgard Serpent,” said the ruler. “Its body circles the earth. When you lifted that paw, you raised it so high that we feared what you might do next.”
The movement along the benches. The sudden stillness after it.
“Elli was old age. No one who lives long enough escapes her. Yet she brought you only to one knee.”
For a moment Thor could hear nothing but the wind outside the wall.
“All of it,” he said.
“Deception. And if you return, there will be more. You shall not have power over this place.”
Thor seized Mjollnir and raised it.
Utgard-Loki was gone.
He turned to strike the stronghold instead. There was no gate, no wall, no hall full of giants. Grass moved across a wide, empty plain.
Thor stood with the hammer above him until his companions came to his side. Then he lowered it, turned from the place where the gates had been, and began the journey home.