The Gods & the Eddas
Thor in Útgarðr — the Contests That Were Illusions
Eastward into Jötunheim
Thor set out eastward toward Jötunheim, the land of the giants, leaving his goat-chariot behind and crossing the deep sea, with Loki and his human servants Þjálfi and Röskva beside him.[1] They walked all day through a great forest, and when night fell they found an enormous hall with a wide door and lay down in it — until a great earthquake shook the earth and a fearful humming sound drove them, frightened, into a side-chamber, while Thor sat in the doorway gripping his hammer-shaft to defend them.
The tale opens as a straightforward adventure — the strongest of the gods marching into the giants' country — but everything in it will turn out to be other than it seems, and the first night's strange lodging is the first illusion of many. The myth's whole art is the gap between appearance and truth: a hall that is not a hall, a sound that is not what they fear, a journey whose every event will be re-explained at the end. Snorri, the great storyteller, sets the trap of misunderstanding from the very first page.
The source text · 1
"Thereupon he left his goats behind, and began his journey eastward toward Jötunheim and clear to the sea; and then he went out over the sea, that deep one; but when he came to land, he went up, and Loki and Thjálfi and Röskva with him. Then, when they had walked a little while, there stood before them a great forest; they walked all that day till dark. Thjálfi was swiftest-footed of all men; he bore Thor's bag, but there was nothing good for food. As soon as it had become dark, they sought themselves shelter for the night, and found before them a certain hall, very great: there was a door in the end, of equal width with the hall, wherein they took up quarters for the night. But about midnight there came a great earthquake: the earth rocked under them exceedingly, and the house trembled. Then Thor rose up and called to his companions, and they explored farther, and found in the middle of the hall a side-chamber on the right hand, and they went in thither. Thor sat down in the doorway, but the others were farther in from him, and they were afraid; but Thor gripped his hammer-shaft and thought to defend himself. Then they heard a great humming sound, and a crashing.— gylfaginning
Thor journeys eastward to Jötunheim with Loki, Thjálfi and Röskva (Brodeur tr.).
Skrýmir's glove
At dawn Thor found a vast man asleep and snoring in the wood — and learned that the "hall" they had slept in was the giant's glove, and the side-chamber its thumb.[1] The giant called himself Skrýmir, took all their food into his own great bag, and strode ahead. That night, hungry and unable even to loosen the knots of the food-bag, Thor in his rage struck the sleeping giant three mighty blows on the head with his hammer — and Skrýmir each time merely woke and wondered whether a leaf, an acorn, or some bird-dirt had fallen on him, then slept again.[2]
The image of the gods sleeping the night in a giant's glove is one of the most famous in Norse myth — a single picture that makes the scale of the giant-world overwhelming. And Thor's three hammer-blows, the killing strokes of the god of thunder, brushed off as falling leaves, deliver the myth's central anxiety: that the strongest of the gods may be small and weak against the powers of the giant-world. The reader, like Thor, does not yet know these are illusions; the humiliation feels real, and is meant to.
The source text · 2
"But when it drew near dawn, then Thor went out and saw a man lying a little way from him in the wood; and that man was not small; he slept and snored mightily. Then Thor thought he could perceive what kind of noise it was which they had heard during the night. He girded himself with his belt of strength, and his divine power waxed; and on the instant the man awoke and rose up swiftly; and then, it is said, the first time Thor's heart failed him, to strike him with the hammer. He asked him his name, and the man called himself Skrýmir,—'but I have no need,' he said, 'to ask thee for thy name; I know that thou art Ása-Thor. But what? Hast thou dragged. away my glove?' Then Skrýmir stretched out his hand and took up the glove; and at once Thor saw that it was that which he had taken for a hall during the night; and as for the side-chamber, it was the thumb of the glove. Skrýmir asked whether Thor would have his company, and Thor assented to this. Then Skrýmir took and unloosened his provision-wallet and made ready to eat his morning meal, and Thor and his fellows in another place. Skrýmir then proposed to them to lay their supply of food together, and Thor assented. Then Skrýmir bound all the food in one bag and laid it on his own back; he went before during the day, and stepped with very great strides; but late in the evening Skrýmir found them night-quarters under a certain great oak. Then Skrýmir said to Thor that he would lay him down to sleep,—'and do ye take the provision-bag and make ready for your supper.'— gylfaginning
The 'hall' was Skrýmir's glove, the side-chamber its thumb (Brodeur tr.).
"Thereupon Skrýmir slept and snored hard, and Thor took the provision-bag and set about to unloose it; but such things must be told as will seem incredible: he got no knot loosened and no thong-end stirred, so as to be looser than before. When he saw that this work might not avail, then he became angered, gripped the hammer Mjöllnir in both hands, and strode with great strides to that place where Skrýmir lay, and smote him in the head. Skrýmir awoke, and asked whether a leaf had fallen upon his head; or whether they had eaten and were ready for bed? Thor replied that they were just then about to go to sleep; then they went under another oak. It must be told thee, that there was then no fearless sleeping. At midnight Thor heard how Skrýmir snored and slept fast, so that it thundered in the woods; then he stood up and went to him, shook his hammer eagerly and hard, and smote down upon the middle of his crown: he saw that the face of the hammer sank deep into his head. And at that moment Skrýmir awoke arid said: 'What is it now? Did some acorn fall on my head? Or what is the news with thee, Thor?' But Thor went back speedily, and replied that he was then but new-wakened; said that it was then midnight, and there was yet time to sleep.— gylfaginning
Thor's three hammer-blows taken for a leaf, an acorn, bird-dirt.
The castle of Útgarðr
They came to a castle so high they had to bend their necks back to see over it — Útgarðr, the stronghold of the giant-king Útgarða-Loki.[1] Slipping between the bars of the locked gate, they came before the king, who looked them over and smiled scornfully, calling Thor a "toddler" and demanding to know what feats these little visitors could perform — for no one stayed in his hall who had not some craft surpassing other men.
Útgarða-Loki's contempt sets the stage for the contests, and his rule — that every guest must prove some surpassing skill — turns the visit into a series of public humiliations for the gods. The castle itself, too high to see over, gates they can only creep between, is another image of the giant-world's crushing scale. Everything is arranged to make Thor and his companions feel small; and because the reader still takes it all at face value, the coming defeats land with full weight.
The source text · 1
"Thor turned forward on his way, and his fellows, and went onward till mid-day. Then they saw a castle standing in a certain plain, and set their necks down on their backs before they could see up over it. They went to the cattle; and there was a grating in front of the castle-gate, and it was closed. Thor went up to the grating, and did not succeed in opening it; but when they struggled to make their way in, they crept between the bars and came in that way. They saw a great hall and went thither; the door was open; then they went in, and saw there many men on two benches, and most of them were big enough. Thereupon they came before the king Útgarda-Loki and saluted him; but he looked at them in his own good time, and smiled scornfully over his teeth, and said: 'It is late to ask tidings of a long journey; or is it otherwise than I think: that this toddler is Öku-Thor? Yet thou mayest be greater than thou appearest to me. What manner of accomplishments are those, which thou and thy fellows think to be ready for? No one shall be here with us who knows not some kind of craft or cunning surpassing most men.'— gylfaginning
The castle so high they bend their necks back; Útgarða-Loki calls Thor a toddler (Brodeur tr.).
The rigged contests
One by one the visitors were beaten. Loki claimed none could eat faster than he — and was matched against one called Logi, who devoured the meat, the bones, and the very trough.[1] Þjálfi, swiftest of men, ran three foot-races against a lad named Hugi and was left far behind each time. Then Thor chose to drink: but the great horn he was given would not empty in one draught, nor two, nor three, however hugely he swallowed.[2] Bidden to lift the king's grey cat, he could raise only a single one of its paws from the floor; and challenged to wrestle, he was set against the king's old nurse Elli — and the harder he gripped, the firmer she stood, until she forced him down onto one knee.
This is the heart of the tale's comedy and its dread: the god of thunder, the mightiest being the Norse imagined, fails at eating, running, drinking, lifting a cat, and wrestling an old woman. Each defeat is more absurd and more shaming than the last. The myth lets the humiliation run to its limit — Thor on one knee before a crone — holding the reader in the same baffled dismay as Thor himself. Only afterward will every one of these losses be turned inside out and revealed as something staggering. The set-up is built entirely to make the reveal land.
The source text · 2
"Then spoke the one who came last, 'Who was called Loki: 'I know such a trick, which I am ready to try: that there is no one within here who shall eat his food more quickly than I.' Then Útgarda-Loki answered: 'That is a feat, if thou accomplish it; and this feat shall accordingly be put to the proof.' He called to the farther end of the bench, that he who was called Logi should come forth on the floor and try his prowess against Loki. Then a trough was taken and borne in upon the hall-floor and filled with flesh; Loki sat down at the one end and Logi at the other, and each ate as fast as he could, and they met in the middle of the trough. By that time Loki had eaten all the meat from the bones, but Logi likewise had eaten all the meat, and the bones with it, and the trough too; and now it seemed to all as if Loki had lost the game.— gylfaginning
Loki out-eaten by Logi, who devours bones and trough too (Brodeur tr.).
"Next, Útgarda-Loki asked Thor what feats there were which he might desire to show before them: such great tales as men have made of his mighty works. Then Thor answered that he would most willingly undertake to contend with any in drinking. Útgarda-Loki said that might well be; he went into the hall and called his serving-boy, and bade him bring the sconce-horn which the henchmen were wont to drink off. Straightway the serving-lad came forward with the horn and put it into Thor's hand. Then said Útgarda-Loki: 'It is held that this horn is well drained if it is drunk off in one drink, but some drink it off in two; but no one is so poor a man at drinking that it fails to drain off in three.' Thor looked upon the horn, and it did not seem big to him; and yet it was somewhat long. Still he was very thirsty; he took and drank, and swallowed enormously, and thought that he should not need to bend oftener to the horn. But when his breath failed, and he raised his head from the horn and looked to see how it had gone with the drinking, it seemed to him that there was very little space by which the drink was lower now in the horn than before. Then said Útgarda-Loki: 'It is well drunk, and not too much; I should not have believed, if it had been told me, that Ása-Thor could not drink a greater draught. But I know that thou wilt wish to drink it off in another draught.' Thor answered nothing; he set the horn to his mouth, thinking now that he should drink a greater drink, and struggled with the draught until his breath gave out; and yet he saw that the tip of the horn would not come up so much as he liked. When he took the horn from his mouth and looked into it, it seemed to him then as if it had decreased less than the former time; but now there was a clearly apparent lowering in the horn. Then said Útgarda-Loki: 'How now, Thor? Thou wilt not shrink from one more drink than may he well for thee? If thou now drink the third draught from the horn, it seems to me as if this must he esteemed the greatest; but thou canst not be called so great a man here among us as the Æsir call thee, if thou give not a better account of thyself in the other games than it seems to me may come of this.' Then Thor became angry, set the horn to his mouth, and drank with all his might, and struggled with the drink as much as he could; and when he looked into the horn, at least some space had been made. Then he gave up the horn and would drink no more.— gylfaginning
Thor cannot drain the horn in three draughts.
The truth at parting
As Thor left, downcast and ashamed, Útgarða-Loki walked him from the castle and told him the truth: it had all been eye-illusion.[1] He himself had been Skrýmir; the iron-bound food-bag could never be opened; and Thor's three hammer-blows, which Skrýmir had turned aside onto a mountain, had cut three square valleys into its top — and the least of them would have killed him. Loki had eaten against Logi, who was wildfire; Þjálfi had raced against Hugi, who was the king's own thought, which nothing outruns.
The reveal is one of the great turns in all of Norse literature, and it transforms every defeat into a near-triumph. The point of the whole tale arrives here: Thor was never as weak as he seemed; he was matched against the elemental forces of the cosmos and came terrifyingly close to mastering them. The mountain cut with three valleys by hammer-blows Thor thought had missed is the proof — the giant-king barely survived the god he was busy humiliating. The illusion was not Thor's weakness but the giant's only defence against his strength.
The source text · 1
"But at morning, as soon as it dawned, Thor and his companions arose, clothed themselves, and were ready to go away. Then came there Útgarda-Loki and caused a table to be set for them; there was no lack of good cheer, meat and drink. So soon as they had eaten, he went out from the castle with them; and at parting Útgarda-Loki spoke to Thor and asked how he thought his journey had ended, or whether he had met any man mightier than himself. Thor answered that he could not say that he had not got much shame in their dealings together. 'But yet I know that ye will call me a man of little might, and I am ill-content with that.' Then said Útgardi-Loki: 'Now I will tell thee the truth, now that thou art come out of the castle; and if I live and am able to prevail, then thou shalt never again come into it. And this I know, by my troth! that thou shouldst never have come into it, If I had known before that thou haddest so much strength in thee, and that thou shouldst so nearly have had us in great peril. But I made ready against thee eye-illusions; and I came upon you the first time in the wood, and when thou wouldst have unloosed the provision-bag, I had bound it with iron, and thou didst not find where to undo it. But next thou didst smite me three blows with the hammer; and the first was least, and was yet so great that it would have sufficed to slay me, if it had come upon me. Where thou sawest near my hall a saddle-backed mountain, cut at the top into threesquare dales, and one the deepest, those were the marks of thy hammer. I brought the saddle-back before the blow, but thou didst not see that. So it was also with the games, in which ye did contend against my henchmen: that was the first, which Loki did; he was very hungry and ate zealously, but he who was called Logi was "wild-fire," and he burned the trough no less swiftly than the meat. But when Thjálfi ran the race with him called Hugi, that was my "thought," and it was not to be expected of Thjálfi that he should match swiftness with it.— gylfaginning
'I made ready against thee eye-illusions'; Skrýmir was the king; Logi was wildfire, Hugi was thought (Brodeur tr.).
The sea, the Serpent, and Old Age
And the rest, said Útgarða-Loki, was greater still. The drinking-horn's far end had reached down into the sea, and Thor — drinking the very ocean — had lowered it so much that he had made the ebb-tides.[1] The grey cat he could lift only one paw of was the Midgard Serpent that circles all the world, and he had stretched it so high that its head all but touched heaven, terrifying every onlooker.[2] And the old nurse Elli, who forced him to one knee, was Old Age — whom no one who lives has ever thrown, or ever will. Then Útgarða-Loki and his castle vanished, and Thor, swinging his hammer in fury, found only an empty plain.
The final revelations lift the tale from comedy into something close to awe. Thor drank down the tides; he hauled the world-encircling Serpent nearly to heaven; and the only thing that truly bent his knee was Old Age, which conquers all. The god's apparent failures were feats no being could fully accomplish — and his single real defeat is the one defeat no one escapes. The vanishing castle leaves Thor (and the reader) with the deep Norse truth beneath the laughter: that even the mightiest are matched against the sea, the Serpent, and time, and that against the last of these, strength is no use at all. And the seed of doom is planted — Thor resolves to seek out the Midgard Serpent again, which one day he will.
The source text · 2
"Moreover, when thou didst drink from the horn, and it seemed to thee to go slowly, then, by my faith, that was a wonder which I should not have believed possible: the other end of the horn was out in the sea, but thou didst not perceive it. But now, when thou comest to the sea, thou shalt be able to mark what a diminishing thou hast drunk in the sea: this is henceforth called "ebb-tides."'— gylfaginning
The horn's far end was in the sea; Thor's drinking made the ebb-tides (Brodeur tr.).
"And again he said: 'It seemed to me not less noteworthy when thou didst lift up the cat; and to tell thee truly, then all were afraid who saw how thou didst lift one foot clear of the earth. That cat was not as it appeared to thee: it was the Midgard Serpent, which lies about all the land, and scarcely does its length suffice to encompass the earth with head and tail. So high didst thou stretch up thine arms that it was then but a little way more to heaven. It was also a great marvel concerning the wrestling-match, when thou didst withstand so long, and didst not fall more than on one knee, wrestling with Elli; since none such has ever been and none shall be, if he become so old as to abide "Old Age," that she shall not cause him to fall. And now it is truth to tell that we must part; and it will be better on both sides that ye never come again to seek me. Another time I will defend my castle with similar wiles or with others, so that ye shall get no power over me.'— gylfaginning
The cat was the Midgard Serpent; Elli was Old Age, whom none can throw.
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