Thor’s Journey to Utgard

At a Glance

• Central figures: Thor, god of thunder and wielder of Mjolnir; his companion Loki; the human servants Thjalfi and Roskva; and Utgard-Loki, the giant ruler of the fortress of Utgard.
• Setting: Jotunheim, the land of the frost giants, and the fortress of Utgard; the story belongs to the Norse mythological tradition preserved in the Prose Edda.
• The turn: Thor and his companions accept a series of challenges at Utgard, each of which they lose - not because of weakness, but because Utgard-Loki has rigged every contest with illusion and disguise.
• The outcome: The fortress of Utgard and Utgard-Loki vanish before Thor can strike back; Thor departs Jotunheim undefeated in any honest contest but outwitted throughout.
• The legacy: Thor’s drinking during the contest lowered the level of the sea itself, which Utgard-Loki names as the origin of the ocean’s tides.

Thor crossed into Jotunheim with Loki beside him and two human servants at his back - Thjalfi and Roskva, quick and capable both. He carried Mjolnir. He was looking for proof that no giant’s land could hold him, that Asgard’s thunder god needed no fortress walls to be the most dangerous thing in any room. He did not find what he was looking for. What he found instead was Utgard-Loki, the oldest and most patient kind of enemy: one who understood exactly where a man’s pride would lead him.

Skrymir’s Glove

They were deep in Jotunheim when night came down hard and the cold set in. They found a hall in the dark - enormous, open, the floor bare stone - and bedded down inside it. Useful shelter. Strange, but useful.

Then, before dawn, the hall shook. A sound filled the world, too big for thunder. They stumbled out into grey light and saw Skrymir.

He was taller than any jotunn Thor had faced. The hall they had slept in was his glove. He found this funny. He offered to travel with them toward Utgard and carry their provisions in his pack, and Thor - wary, but seeing no immediate cause for refusal - agreed.

That night, Skrymir slept. He snored so loudly the ground trembled, and Thor lay awake until the rage became too much. He took Mjolnir and brought it down on Skrymir’s skull with everything he had. The giant opened one eye, murmured something about a leaf falling, and went back to sleep. Thor hit him again. A harder blow. A third blow, the hardest of the three. Skrymir groaned faintly about a bird in the branches above him.

In the morning, Skrymir yawned and pointed them toward Utgard. He warned them, almost as an afterthought, that the giants there were considerably larger than he was. Then he walked away. Thor watched him go. Something was wrong, but he could not name it yet.

The Gates of Utgard

The fortress was visible from a great distance because its walls scraped the bottom of the clouds. Thor and his companions pressed their faces between the gate bars - the gates were locked, and the bars were set too far apart to block entry but too narrow to walk through without crouching. They squeezed inside. That was the first small humiliation.

Utgard-Loki sat in his hall surrounded by giants. He looked at Thor with the measured patience of someone who has been expecting a visitor and already knows how the visit ends. His welcome was technically courteous. He remarked that the gods of Asgard were somewhat smaller than reputation suggested. He said that if they wished to remain in his hall, each of them would need to demonstrate some skill or art beyond what ordinary creatures possessed.

Thor said yes. He always said yes.

Loki Against Wildfire, Thjalfi Against Thought

Loki went first. A giant named Logi sat down opposite him before a long trough of meat. The first to eat the trough clean would win. Loki ate fast - he stripped bones bare and drove down the length of his side without stopping. He was, by any fair measure, a remarkable eater. Logi reached the center of the trough at the same moment. But Logi had eaten the bones as well. And the wooden trough itself. Loki stared at what remained on his side and said nothing.

Thjalfi ran next. The giant set against him was named Hugi. They lined up together and the signal was given. Thjalfi ran the way he always ran, which was faster than any man alive. Hugi was already at the far end, turned around, and walking back before Thjalfi was halfway. They ran twice more. The result was the same each time. Thjalfi stopped trying to understand it.

The Drinking Horn and the Grey Cat

Utgard-Loki had a horn brought out for Thor. He explained that his men drank it empty in one long pull; lesser drinkers needed two; no one, he added carefully, had ever required more than three.

Thor drank. He was thirsty and he was angry and he pulled at the horn until his lungs burned. He set it down and looked. The level had dropped, but barely. He drank again, longer, harder, until black spots gathered at the edge of his vision. Still nearly full. The third pull he made with everything left in him, his whole body locked around the effort, and when he finally let go, gasping, he could see that the level had fallen by the width of a few fingers.

The giants in the hall laughed.

Utgard-Loki pointed to a grey cat walking along the wall. Something simple, he said. Lift the cat. Thor reached down with both hands and heaved. The cat arched and strained against him. One paw lifted from the floor. One paw only. The laughter got louder.

Thor turned and demanded a wrestling match. He was not finished. Utgard-Loki nodded and called for Elli - an old woman, bent, white-haired, who crossed the floor slowly. Thor locked his arms around her. She didn’t move. He pushed harder. She began to push back. The stronger he forced, the more solid she became beneath his hands. His knee touched the floor.

The Truth at the Gate

Utgard-Loki walked them to the city gate the next morning. His manner had changed. He was not mocking them now. He was almost careful.

He told them the truth.

He had been Skrymir. The hammer blows had struck the mountains - Thor had swung so hard he had carved three valleys into the rock and never touched him. Logi, who had eaten the bones and the trough, was fire - actual wildfire - and nothing on earth outeats wildfire. Hugi, who had outrun Thjalfi without effort, was thought, and thought goes faster than any body ever will.

The drinking horn had run directly into the ocean. Thor had lowered the sea level. That pull, Utgard-Loki said, had frightened them - they had not believed it possible.

The grey cat was Jormungandr, the world-serpent, coiled around the roots of the world. Thor had lifted one of its paws clear of the floor. Everyone in that hall had felt the ground shift when he did it.

Elli was old age. No one defeats old age. Not gods, not giants, not anything alive.

Utgard-Loki said this without malice. He said that Thor had, in honest accounting, done things in that hall that no other being had ever come close to doing. He also said that Utgard could not remain somewhere Thor knew to find it.

The fortress was gone before Thor could raise his hammer. The walls, the gate, the hall - all of it. Nothing left but frost and open wind, and the long grey expanse of Jotunheim in every direction.

Thor stood in the cold for a long time. Then he turned back toward Asgard.