by Peter Archer
“Well spoke!” declared Utgarda. He commanded his cupbearer to bring Thor the horn from which his followers usually drank at their feasts. “There is only one condition,” he said to Thor. “This horn is best if it is drunk in a single draught.”
Thor had every confidence in his ability to do this. He lifted the horn to his lips and, as he thought, drained it. But when he lowered it, he could see that the level of drink was not much lower than before.
“Now,” said Utgarda, “this surprises me. I would have thought that the mighty Thor could have drunk much more than that. But maybe you’ll do better on a second try.”
Thor drew a deep breath and drank again. This time, as he drank, he noticed he could not hold up the bottom of the cup as high as he would like. Nonetheless, he was confident he had drained the horn. But when he set it down, he saw that again the level of liquid had diminished only slightly.
Utgarda shook his head. “If that’s the best you can do,” he said, “you will not be considered as great a man among us as you are by your compatriots at Asgard. Come! Try one more time.”
For a third time, Thor drank. For a third time, he swallowed until he felt as if he would burst. And for a third time he set the horn down on the table. But within it, the drink was still there, almost as if he had not tasted it.
Utgarda’s Cat
Now Utgarda said, “Perhaps there’s something besides drinking you’re better at. What about a feat of strength?” Thor nodded assent, for he was particularly proud of his strength, which was unmatched among the gods. Utgarda smiled. “This test will be very simple,” he said. “All you must do is lift my cat.”
A gray cat strolled into the hall and sidled up to Thor. The god bent down to pick her up. But as he lifted his hand, the cat arched her back. The farther Thor brought up his hand, the more the cat arched until her back was high above his head. Finally, Thor lifted and stretched, and this time one of the gray cat’s paws lifted from the ground. But that was all.
Utgarda said, with laughter in his voice, “Well, that went as I expected. After all, my cat is large and Thor is only a little fellow.”
The Wrestling Match
Thor was furious. “Let someone wrestle with me!” he shouted. “Then you will see whether or not I am little!”
Utgarda motioned to the crowd of giants, and an old hag came forward. She was bent with age, and her name was Elli. Thor grappled with her, but to his astonishment, she proved more than a match for him. Time and again, he struggled to throw her, and time and again she held her ground. Finally, the Thunder God himself was forced to one knee.
“That is enough!” said Utgarda. “There is no need of more contests.” And he showed Thor and his companions to their sleeping places.
The Explanation
Early the next morning, the travelers made ready to depart. Utgarda accompanied them through the great gates and out onto the plain. There he stopped them and spoke as follows:
“Now I will tell you the truth about your visit, for I am the one who will decide if you are ever to be admitted to Utgard again. I was Skrymir, whom you met in the forest, and I deceived you with shape changing. I fastened our food bag with wires so that even with your great strength you could not undo it. When you struck me with your hammer, you might have done me great damage or even killed me, but with my magic I turned your blows aside. But they did not go unmarked. See that flat-topped mountain with three square valleys in it, one deeper than the others? Those are the marks of your mighty hammer.
“When Loki offered to outeat one of my giants, I summoned Logi, who is wildfire itself. There was no way Loki, fast at eating though he is, can outeat a wildfire, which destroys everything in its path.
“Hugi, whom Thjalfi raced against, was in reality my thought. And no one can be expected to outrun my thought.
“And you, Thor, you could not compete against me either. When you drank from the horn, you did not realize that its other end was attached to the sea. No one can drain the sea dry. But when you come to the ocean you will see how much you have lowered it, and your draughts are now known as the tides. When you tried to lift my cat and succeeded in lifting one of its paws from the ground, all in my court were amazed. For in truth, the cat was no cat but was the Midgard serpent, which encircles all the world, biting its own tail. And you succeeded in moving it.
“When you wrestled with the crone, you were unaware that she is old age, which no one—not even the mightiest warrior—can defeat.
“Do not come again. I will use more trickery to defeat you.”
In a rage, Thor lifted his hammer to destroy Utgarda. But the giant was gone. Thor turned back, intending to lay flat the mighty stronghold in which he and his companions had spent the night. But all that was to be seen was a broad, flat plain.
Chapter Nine
More Tales of the Gods
One feature of Viking myths that recurs over and over again is shape changing. Perhaps this is a consequence of so many days and nights spent on the ocean, where the sparkling sun and water can lead to mirages and a sense of unreality about what one sees. The gods, particularly Loki, are adept at changing their forms, from animals to birds, to humans. In the previous chapter we saw that the giant Utgarda was able to deceive Thor and Loki with his shape-shifting. The following story is told by Snorri Sturluson as part of the Prose Edda.
Thor and Hymir Fishing
After his humiliation at the hands of Utgarda, Thor was not long back at Asgard before he decided to make another expedition to the lands of the giants. He disguised himself as a young boy and set off one morning without companions. He made his way to the home of the giant called Hymir. When morning came, the giant rose to go fishing. Thor, in his guise as a boy, begged to be allowed to accompany the giant and offered to row back. The giant was dismissive. “You’re nothing more than a boy,” he growled. “Where I go and as long as I stay out . . . you’ll freeze to death!”
Thor was angered by the giant’s condescension and almost cast off his disguise so he could let his hammer slam into the giant’s head. But he caught himself in time.
“If you take me with you,” he said in his boy appearance, “I won’t affect at all how far you row out. And we’ll see which of us wants to come back first!”
The giant grunted and told Thor he’d have to supply his own bait. The god found some oxen belonging to Hymir and ripped off the head of one. “Now I have bait,” he told the giant.
They started rowing, and Hymir said that was enough; this was where he fished. “I want to go farther,” said Thor.
They rowed farther and farther, and Hymir said they were in danger because of the Midgard serpent. “No matter,” said Thor and kept on rowing.
At last they stopped, and Thor baited his hook with the oxen head. He cast it into the deep. Snorri tells us:
And it can be said in truth that this time Thor tricked the Midgard Serpent no less than Utgarda-Loki had tricked Thor into lifting the Midgard Serpent with his arm.
The Midgard Serpent opened its mouth and swallowed the ox head. The hook dug into the gums of its mouth, and when the serpent felt this, he snapped back so hard that both of Thor’s fists slammed against the gunwale.
Thor was furious and used his divine strength so that both his feet pushed through the bottom of the boat. With his feet on the floor of the sea he began pulling the serpent onboard what was left of the boat. Thor stared straight into the terrible eyes of the beast that encircled the world, while Hymir grew pale, and sweat dripped from his brow.
Thor caught up his hammer and lifted it. Light from the rising sun gleamed from it. But just at that moment Hymir seized his knife and slashed the line so the serpent went free. Even as it sank into the waves, Thor hurled his hammer at it, and some say the hammer struck the serpent’s head off. Then Thor punched Hymir so hard behind the ear that the giant fell out of the boat. And Thor, now grown to his true size, waded back to shore, leaving the giant and the wreckage of the boat behind him. Thus was Thor revenged up
on the giants for his humiliation in the stronghold of Utgarda-Loki.
Hymir, Thor, and Jörmungandr
The story of Thor’s fishing expedition exists in several versions. Snorri Sturluson includes it in the Prose Edda, and it is the subject of The Lay of Hymir, one of the poems collected in the Poetic Edda. Thor and the World Serpent, Jörmungandr, are enemies and will have their final battle in Ragnarök, the end of the world. As we saw earlier, Thor succeeded in lifting the serpent while at Utgarda (albeit unwittingly).
In The Lay of Hymir, the Æsir visit Hymir because they hear he is in possession of a marvelous cauldron, “a league deep,” which can hold enough mead for all the Æsir at once. Thor eats so much food that he and Hymir must go fishing together, which leads to Thor’s attempt to catch Jörmungandr and Hymir’s thwarting of the attempt.
The Necklace of Brísingamen
One evening in the middle of the night, the goddess Freyja left her hall, Sessrúmnir. She was unmarked in her departure by any save Loki, who followed after her. On and on she went, past a frozen river, across a glacier, over barren plains dotted with great boulders. At last she came to a narrow pathway that led down. She followed it, and Loki followed behind, unseen by her.
The pathway led to the forge of four dwarves: Alfrigg, Dwalin, Grerr, and Berling. The goddess stopped, amazed by the beautiful objects that lay scattered across the cavern. Among them one stood out—a necklace made of gold, its intricate strands twisted in a complex pattern that dazzled the eye and stirred the soul. Her heart was filled with desire for the thing.
She cast aside her cloak, and the dwarves too were consumed with desire, but theirs was for the beautiful goddess.
“I want the necklace,” she told them. “I will give you whatever you wish if you will gift it to me.”
The four dwarves conferred with one another and then, smirking, turned back to her. “There is only one thing we desire,” their leader said. “The favors of the goddess Freyja, most beautiful of all the Æsir.”
Freyja’s heart was filled for loathing for the dwarves, but it was also overflowing with lust for the necklace. “Very well,” she assented.
Loki saw all that went on.
For four days and nights Freyja slept with each of the dwarves in turn. At the end of her ordeal, the necklace was fastened about her slender neck, and she passed out of the cavern and returned to her hall.
However, Loki had gone before her, and he stood before Odin and told the one-eyed god of Freyja's treachery. Then he taunted Odin, saying that the god must be truly blind, and not merely in one eye, for such a thing to have occurred. “Where was your vision, O High One?” he sneered. “Do you not have the two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who bring you news of all that happens in the world? Were you asleep when they told you of Freyja and her shameless conduct with the dwarves?”
Odin bellowed in anger at Loki. “Bring me the necklace!” he demanded. “Too often you have set us gods against one another. Now I charge you: Bring me the necklace!”
Loki, in fear, agreed to do as Odin wished.
The Trickster approached Freyja’s hall, but it was locked. He changed himself into a fly and circled the hall, searching for a way to enter it. At last he found a tiny opening and squeezed his way through it. Freyja was asleep, still wearing the necklace.
Loki transformed into a flea and bit the goddess so that she tossed and turned in her bed until at last the clasp of the necklace was exposed. Then, assuming his own shape, Loki softly stole the necklace and fled from the hall.
When the goddess awoke, she reached for the necklace and realized it was gone. Raging, she went to Odin, whom she was sure was behind the theft. “Give me my necklace!” she demanded.
Scowling, the one-eyed god rebuked her for her conduct with the four dwarves. There was, he told her, only one thing she could do to regain the necklace for which she had sold her body. “Bring war to Midgard,” he told her. “Set two kingdoms against one another!” And then he added, “But bring life back to the corpses of the fallen, so that each day, as the sun sets, the dead rise and do battle again on the morrow.”
So great was her lust for the necklace, called Brísingamen, that Freyja agreed.
The Weird of Brísingamen
In 1960, English author Alan Garner completed the children’s novel The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. Although he borrowed the word “Brisingamen” (Brísingamen) from Norse mythology, the story itself has nothing to do with Scandinavia. Rather, it is a fantasy about two children caught in a conflict with dark magical forces. The book became the first in a series of critically acclaimed novels. Throughout them, Garner uses a mixture of terms borrowed from Scandinavian and Celtic myths, although with far different meanings than they originally had.
The Brísings
The origins of the term Brísingamen are unknown. The necklace is mentioned in the poem Húsdrápa by the poet Úlfr Uggason, who lived in the tenth century. A later account is given in the Sorla Thattr, which is part of a larger collection of tales, the Flateyjarbók, compiled at the beginning of the fifteenth century.
In some accounts, it’s suggested that rather than a necklace it was a girdle. However, the scholar H.R. Ellis Davidson in Gods and Myths of Northern Europe argues that the suffix –men is used to indicate jewelry worn around the neck.
Snorri Sturluson says that Freyja owned the necklace, information he may have had from the Húsdrápa.
As to the meaning of “Brísings,” that remains unclear. It’s possible that they were a northern people. On the other hand, the word brísingr in Old Norse means “fire.” Freyja’s necklace thus seems to have been fiery, shining like a flame.
That Freyja should have been willing to sleep with four ugly dwarves to get the necklace is unsurprising, since she was known among the gods for her promiscuity. Loki claimed that she also took all the gods and the elves as lovers, although this may have been him trying to stir up trouble as usual. The Trickster even went so far as to say that she had had incestuous relations with Freyr, her brother. When the Vikings found themselves in trouble during a love affair, they were known to call upon Freyja for assistance.
The last part of the story is significant in that Freyja receives half of the warriors who fall in battle; the other half belong to Odin. The notion that she must revive warriors who fall and make them re-fight the battle is probably connected to this belief, but the storytellers do not explain precisely how.
Hrungnir and Thor
Odin the Allseeing had a mind to visit the giants. So he mounted his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, and galloped across the hills and valleys until he came to the dwelling of a giant name Hrungnir. Then Odin, in reply to a question from the giant about who he was, began to boast. “There is no equal of my brave steed!” he cried.
Hrungnir replied, “In this you are mistaken, for I myself have a horse, named Gullfaxi, that can take greater strides than Sleipnir, and his name means ‘Golden Mane.’”
Contemptuously Odin wheeled his horse about and raced back the way he had come. But Hrungnir, anxious to pay the god back for his boasting, leaped on Gullfaxi and galloped after him. The two shot across the land like falling stars. Fast as Gullfaxi was, the horse could not overcome Odin’s eight-legged steed. But so speedily was Hrungnir riding that before he realized it he had passed into the gates of Asgard.
Now the gods gathered around him and since he demanded drink, they brought him Thor’s drinking bowls. To their astonishment, the giant drained the bowls, but he became very drunk and began again to boast.
“I will take Valhalla with me and carry it off to Giant Land,” he roared. “I will destroy Asgard and slay all you Æsir! Save you”—he turned to Freyja and Sif—“you I will bring back with me to my hall.”
Now there was thunder without Asgard, and Thor entered the hall in a rage. “What is he doing here?” he demanded. “Why have you invited him to drink among us Æsir? And why is Freyja serving him, as if he were one of us?”
Hrungnir
stared angrily at Thor. “If I had thought to bring my weapons with me,” he said, “we would even now be dueling at the place called Grjotunagardar, or the Courtyards of Rocky Fields. But I am here at Odin’s invitation, and you would not be so dishonorable as to attack an unarmed man.”
Thor was intrigued by the idea of a duel, since no one had ever challenged him to one. So the giant rose, went from the hall, and on his swift steed returned to his home. When the other giants heard of the duel, they realized that if Hrungnir could not win against Thor, there was no hope any of them could do better.
At Grjotunagardar the giants built a man of clay. He was nine leagues tall and three leagues wide, and his head was of stone. He had a shield of stone as well, and he stood next to the giant awaiting the coming of Thor. The Thunder God himself was stricken with fear when he saw the clay man, and he wet himself in terror.
The Death of Hrungnir
As the giant stood next to the clay man holding a huge whetstone as he waited for the Thunderer to attack, a young lad, Thjalfi, Thor’s manservant, approached him and said, “Thor is burrowing beneath the earth and will come up beneath you. Stand on your shield if you want to prevent this.”
Hrungnir did so, but then he saw thunder and lightning and knew the lad had lied to him. Then, a long way off, he saw Thor running toward him. The Thunder God raised his hammer, Mjollnir, and hurled it at the giant.
He in turn threw his whetstone, and it met Thor’s hammer squarely. The whetstone broke in two, and one part fell to earth, and from it spring all whetstones. The other part of the whetstone struck Thor’s head and laid him out. But the god’s hammer struck Hrungnir in the head and crushed his skull. He fell, and his leg fell across the supine Thor, pinning him. Thjalfi tried to move the dead giant’s leg but could not. All the other Æsir tried to move it, but none could budge it.
