The Mythology Book

146

A

lthough Thor’s strength,

bravery, and dependability

were renowned, the Norse

god was also portrayed as rather

slow-witted and easy to deceive.

Many of the myths concerning

Thor were humorous examinations

of the limitations of brute strength.

He was often paired with Loki,

who was cunning and clever, but

also cowardly, malicious, and

deceitful. Thor and Loki had an

antagonistic relationship, but they

made a good team and were

frequent traveling companions.

The combination of Thor’s

brute strength and Loki’s

cleverness often brought success,

but not always. In one story in the

AM I WRONG IN

THINKING THAT

THIS LITTLE FELLOW

IS THOR?

THE ADVENTURES OF THOR AND LOKI

IN JÖTUNHEIM

IN BRIEF

THEME

The limitations of the gods

SOURCE

Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson,

ca. 1220 ce.

SETTING

Jötunheim, the land of

the giants.

KEY FIGURES

Thor The thunder god.

Loki Thor’s brother; the

trickster god.

Thialfi Thor’s human slave;

a farmer’s son.

Utgarda-Loki A strong giant,

against whom Thor wished to

test his strength.

Logi A giant who bested Loki

in an eating contest.

Hugi A small man who beat

Thialfi in a series of races.

Elli An old woman; nursemaid

to Utgarda-Loki.

Loki traveled to Jötunheim many

times. On one occasion, he tricked

Idun, the goddess of spring, and she

was kidnapped by a giant. Disguised

as a falcon, Loki flew to her rescue.

Prose Edda, Thor decided to

travel to Jötunheim, a land of

giants, to test his strength against

Utgarda-Loki. He took with him

Loki and a human bondservant,

a slave called Thialfi.

Giant’s challenge

When Thor, Loki, and Thialfi

arrived in Jötunheim, the giant

Utgarda-Loki expressed

disappointment with Thor,

complaining that he had expected

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NORTHERN EUROPE 147

See also: Prometheus helps mankind 36–39 ■ Hermes’s first day 54–55 ■ Creation of the universe 130–33 ■ The Mead

of Poetry 142–43 ■ Ananse and the spider 286–87

Thor strives in vain to lift

Utgarda-Loki’s cat in this 1930

illustration from a book of Norse tales

retold and illustrated by the American

artist Katharine Pyle.

the god to be bigger. The giant

went on to explain that the

three visitors could only stay in

Jötunheim if they each managed

to excel in some art or skill.

Loki offered to take part in an

eating competition against Logi,

one of the giants of Jötunheim. Loki

ate all the meat placed before him,

whereas Logi ate his meat, the

bones, and the wooden plate, too.

Next, Thialfi had to race against a

small man called Hugi, but lost

three times in succession.

Then Utgarda-Loki challenged

Thor to drain a large drinking horn

in one go. After taking three huge

draughts, Thor discovered that the

level of the liquid had only lowered

slightly. Utgarda-Loki next asked

Thor if he was even strong enough

to pick up the giant’s cat. Thor

barely managed to lift just one of

the feline’s feet off the ground.

Frustrated, Thor offered to fight

anyone in the giant’s hall. Utgarda-

Loki’s response was that, in view of

Thor’s weakness, he would only be

allowed to wrestle with the giant’s

nursemaid, an old lady called Elli.

When Elli forced Thor down onto

one knee, the god believed he had

lost his strength completely.

Trickery of the giants

As the crestfallen trio set out for

home, Utgarda-Loki revealed that

everything they had experienced

had been an illusion. The trickster

Loki had competed with fire, which

consumes everything. Thialfi had

raced against thought, for which

his speed could be no match.

Utgarda-Loki’s drinking horn had

been connected to the sea and

Tricksters

Tricks played a prominent role

in the mythologies of many

cultures. Whether a trickster

was human, a god, a demigod,

or even an anthropomorphized

animal, they all broke rules and

defied normal expectations

of accepted behavior. Many,

such as Loki, had the ability to

shape-shift. Stories of tricksters

who achieved their ends

through guile and cleverness

rather than strength invited

audiences to identify with them

as the underdogs, even when

their subterfuges were

considered immoral. The

trickster spider Ananse,

originally from the mythology

of the Akan people of Ghana,

became a symbol of resistance

when transported to the West

Indies via the slave trade.

When a trickster’s actions

benefited the human race, he

or she sometimes became a

culture hero. Examples include

the tale of the Norse god Odin,

when he stole the Mead of

Poetry, and, in ancient Greek

mythology, Prometheus’s theft

of fire from the gods.

Thor had drunk enough of it to

create the tides. Utgarda-Loki’s

cat had really been the monstrous

Midgard serpent, a creature so

large it encircled the whole world;

Thor had lifted the serpent up

almost to the sky. The ancient

nursemaid was old age; while age

would defeat everyone in time, it

had only managed to force Thor

down onto one knee.

As Utgarda-Loki explained, the

giants had been so terrified by

Thor’s strength that they could only

fight him with trickery. Enraged,

Thor reached for his hammer, but

before he could strike, Utgarda-Loki

had disappeared. He, too, had been

an illusion. So ended a myth that

exposed the limitations of the Norse

gods, proving that there are forces in

the universe over which neither

strength nor cunning can prevail. ■

Small as you say I am, just

let someone come out and

fight me. Now I am angry!

Thor, Prose Edda

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