Útgarða-Loki

Útgarða-Loki is the giant who beats Thor with mirrors. King of the vast castle Útgarðr in the giants' land, he is a master not of strength but of illusion — and when Thor and his companions come to his hall he humbles them utterly with a string of contests every one of which is a trick of the eye. Loki races to eat against wildfire; the boy Þjálfi runs against thought itself; Thor cannot drain a drinking-horn whose far end is the sea, cannot lift a 'cat' that is the world-circling Serpent, and is wrestled to one knee by an old woman who is Old Age. Only at parting does the giant-king reveal the truth — and admit that Thor came so terrifyingly close to mastering these forces that he will never let him near the castle again, before castle and king alike vanish into empty plain. Útgarða-Loki is the giant-world's deepest defence: not a wall the gods can break, but a deception that turns their very strength into the measure of how much greater the cosmos is than they.