Thor and the Stolen Hammer

Part One · The Empty Bed

High above the world, in the shining land of Asgard, lived the gods of the north. The strongest of them all was Thor, the god of thunder, who had a wild red beard, a booming voice and an enormous appetite. He traveled across the sky in a chariot pulled by two goats, and whenever its wheels rumbled over the clouds, people on the earth below would say, "Listen, Thor is driving!" But Thor's greatest treasure was his hammer, whose name was Mjolnir, and it was the mightiest weapon in all the worlds.

Mjolnir had a short handle, but it was heavier than a mountain. Nobody but Thor could lift it. Whenever he threw it, it never missed, and it always flew back to his hand like a faithful dog. With his hammer, Thor protected Asgard from the frost giants, who lived in the frozen lands beyond the mountains and wanted nothing more than to knock down the walls of the gods. As long as Thor had Mjolnir, the giants did not dare to come close.

So you can imagine how Thor felt when he woke up one morning, reached for his hammer beside the bed, and grabbed nothing but air. He looked under the bed and under the pillow, he shook out his blankets, and he turned his boots upside down, until his red beard bristled with rage. "Loki!" he roared, so loudly that the dishes rattled in every house in Asgard. "Somebody has stolen my hammer!" Outside, his two goats stopped chewing and stared at each other in alarm.

Part Two · Loki Flies North

Loki came running. He was the cleverest of the gods and the most full of mischief, and whenever anything went wrong in Asgard, he was usually the reason, but this time he had done nothing at all. "It must have been the giants," said Loki, scratching his chin, "and if anyone can find out, I can." He hurried to the beautiful goddess Freya and borrowed her magic cloak of falcon feathers. As soon as he put it on, he became a falcon, and he flew away north over the mountains, toward the land of the giants.

In the land of the giants, everything was huge and frozen. On top of a hill sat Thrym, the king of the frost giants, braiding golden collars for his dogs and combing the manes of his horses. He grinned when he saw the falcon land beside him. "Well, well, what brings you here, Loki?" he said. "Have you lost something?" Loki folded his wings and asked, "Have you hidden Thor's hammer?" Thrym laughed so hard that the snow came tumbling off the mountains around them.

"I have," said Thrym, "and I have buried it eight miles deep under the earth, where nobody will ever find it. Nobody will ever get it back, either, unless they bring me Freya to be my bride." Freya was the loveliest of all the goddesses, and Thrym had wanted to marry her for years. Loki flew home as fast as his feathers could carry him, and Thor was waiting in the courtyard, stamping his feet. "Well?" he thundered. "Do you have good news or bad news?" "Both," said Loki, "but mostly bad."

Part Three · The Bride

Thor and Loki marched straight to Freya's hall. "Put on your wedding dress," said Loki cheerfully, "because you are going to marry a giant." Freya was so furious that the whole hall shook, the benches toppled over, and her famous golden necklace snapped and scattered across the floor. "Never!" she cried. "Do you really think I would travel to the land of the giants and marry that frosty lump? Find another way!" Loki and Thor looked at each other, because nobody had ever seen Freya so angry.

So the gods gathered in a great council to think of a plan. They argued and talked for a long time, until finally Heimdall, the wise watchman of Asgard, stood up slowly. "I have an idea," he said. "Let us disguise Thor as the bride, in Freya's dress and her necklace, with a long white veil to cover his face, and send him to the giants instead." The hall was silent for a moment, and then all the gods burst out laughing, every single one of them except Thor.

"Me, in a dress?" Thor shouted. "Everyone in Asgard will laugh at me forever!" "Hush, Thor," said Loki. "Without your hammer, the giants will climb over the walls and take Asgard for themselves, and then nobody will be laughing at all." Thor grumbled and growled and said a great many things that cannot be written down, but at last he agreed. So they squeezed him into a long dress, fastened a golden necklace around his thick neck, and hung a bunch of jingling keys at his belt, like a housekeeper.

Finally they draped a long white veil over his head, which covered his red beard completely, and placed a crown of flowers on top. Loki, giggling, dressed himself up as the bridesmaid. Then the two of them climbed into Thor's chariot, the goats leaped into the sky, and they rumbled away toward the land of the giants. The mountains cracked and the lightning flashed all the way there, because underneath the flowers and the veil, the bride was in a terrible mood.

Part Four · The Wedding Feast

Thrym was so excited that he could barely stand still. "Spread fresh straw on the benches and bring out the finest food," he shouted to the other giants, "because Freya is coming to be my wife!" That evening the giants sat down to an enormous wedding feast. The bride sat beside Thrym with her face hidden behind her veil, and while everyone watched, she ate a whole ox and eight large salmon, and every cake meant for the ladies, and then she drank three barrels of mead.

Thrym's mouth fell open. "I have never seen a bride eat so much!" he said. Loki leaned over quickly and whispered, "Freya was so excited about marrying you that she has not eaten a crumb for eight whole days." Thrym was delighted. He leaned closer and lifted the corner of the veil to steal a kiss, but he jumped back so fast that he nearly fell off the bench. "Why are Freya's eyes so frightening?" he gasped. "They are burning like fire!"

Loki answered just as quickly as before. "Freya was so excited about marrying you," he explained, "that she has not slept a wink for eight whole nights." Thrym nodded happily, because he believed every word. "Bring in the hammer!" he called. "We will lay it in the bride's lap to bless the wedding, as we always do." Under the veil, Thor's heart leaped. Four giants staggered into the hall, carrying Mjolnir between them, and they laid it carefully across the bride's knees.

Part Five · Thunder in the Hall

The moment Thor's fingers closed around the handle, he laughed out loud, a laugh like a thunderclap. He tore off the veil and the crown of flowers, and there were his wild red beard and his fiery eyes. "Surprise!" he roared, and he stood up and swung his hammer over his head. Lightning crackled across the ceiling, the roof beams shook, the benches flew in every direction, and the walls of Thrym's hall rumbled like a storm that was about to break.

The giants took one look at the bride with the red beard and the hammer in her hands, and they ran. Thrym ran fastest of all, out of the door and over the hills, with the other giants tumbling after him, all of them scrambling up into the snowy mountains as fast as their huge feet could carry them. Thor let them go, because he had what he came for. He swung his hammer onto his shoulder, kicked off Freya's slippers, and climbed back into his chariot beside Loki, who was still wearing his bridesmaid's gown.

And that is how Thor got his hammer back. For a long time afterward, the frost giants did not come anywhere near Asgard, and all the gods could sleep soundly again. Thor himself, however, never wanted to hear about the wedding. Whenever somebody mentioned the lovely bride with the enormous appetite, he would pretend to be very busy polishing his hammer. Everybody else in Asgard, of course, remembered it as the funniest story ever told, and they told it at every feast for a thousand years.