Utgardaloki

Loki and Thor with his human servants, Tjalfi and Roskva is on their way to Jotunheim to give back the mean giantson Quark. When the night comes they gets really tired and when the see a big, empty and warm hall, they goes inside it to sleep. In the morning they realizes that they have been sleeping in a huge giantglove, and the huge giant lies sleeping next to them. Thor tries to wake him up, but when the giant never wakes Thor hits him in the forehead with his hammer, Mjollnir. The giant mumbles something about leaves falling down on him. Thor hits him again, this time harder and now the giant opens one eye and says that an acorn must have fallen down from one of the trees. Then he turns to the other side and keeps sleeping. Then Thor raise his hammer and hits the giant as hard as he can. The giant looks up in the heaven saying that there must have been a bird doing something. Thor gives up and sits down waiting for the giant to wake, which he does pretty soon. The giant tells them that his name is Skrymer and that they are going them same way. They follow Skrymer, who is a dressed Utgardaloki. Whose forehead really hurts even thou he used three heavy stones for protecting himself of Mjollnir. The stones now had three big holes. After a while Skrymer says that he is going another way now, and wishes them good luck. Utgardaloki don't want Quark back so he hurries home and starts to prepare the gods arrival. Thor and Loki gets there in dinnertime. Utgardaloki offer them to join some competitions, and the winner is going to get rid of Quark. Thor says no, because Quark is a giantson, and the giants have to look after him by themselves. Utgardaloki who has prepared everything extremely well starts to get nervous, but when he calls Thor a chicken, Thor immediately agrees to compete. The games can start.

Loki who is hungry says that he is willing to have an eating-competition with one of the giants. On their way to the eatinghall Roskva notices some ravens looking like Hugin and Munin. Loki meets his competitor, Logi, and they take place at the table. Both of them starts to eat really fast, and they reach the middle of the tray at the same time. The only difference is that Logi has also eaten his part of the tray. The giants wins the first rond, and the next game is going to be running. Tjalfi is going to run with someone in his size, Huge. When the gun is fired Tjalfi runs as fast as he can, while Huge is standing still. Thor shouts happily. But just when Tjalfi is going to pass the goal-line Huge moves incredibly fast, and wins. Thor gets angry and tells Utgardaloki that now it's his turn to show what he goes for. Utgardaloki nods and asks his servants to go and get their biggest mead horn. The horn is the biggest that Loki and Thor have ever seen, but Thor says that he is thirsty so it could work out just fine. He starts to drink, but pretty soon he has to take a brake.

Then Tjalfi sees the ravens, who really are Hugin and Munin. They croak and shows him the table where the eating-contest was. The table was all black at the end where Logi had eaten from. Tjalfi understands that the giants have cheated so he starts trying to wake Loki, but he got to tired, eating all the food. Tor takes a deep breath a haves a second zip from the mead horn, but he didn't managed to empty it this time either. The giants smiles. Tjalfi looks at the horn trying to see how much mead it's able to hold, and then he hear the ocean inside it. Utgardaloki tells Thor that next thing is weight-lifting. Thor's first mission is to lift Utgardaloki's cat. Thor snorted, but grabbed the cat. When he lifted it up the cat stretched it's back and legs. The higher Thor lifted, the longer became the cat's back and legs. It didn't matter how high he lifted it. The cat had all four legs in the ground. Tjalfi who sneaks around in the stronghold sees in a mirror that Thor isn't lifting a cat, but the Jormungand itself. But Thor works hard and he is really strong. After a while Thor succeeded in lifting one of the cat's legs of the floor. The giants gets worried and stops him.

Thor says that now he want's to fight, there can't possibly be another fighter as good as him in the stronghold. Well, says Utgardaloki. You can always start with my old grandma Elli. Thor says that he had never and will never fight women. He wants to fight Utgardaloki, but Elli stands in his way. When Thor is going to lift her out of the way something strange happens. Thor just stands there with a surprised look in his face. He just can't move her. He tries again, but nothing happens. Suddenly Elli grabs his shoulders with her thin fingers and Roskva and Tjalfi terrified see how Thor starts to get old. Thor gets older and older and then Elli drops him at the ground where he stays. The giants walks away, laughing and slowly the curse starts to disappear and Thor manages to stand up. Utgardaloki sighes, and tells them that dinner is served. Because you have to eat something before you leave early tomorrow, he said. With Quark!

The gods eats, except for the full Loki and then they go to bed early. Then, finally, Tjalfi gets the change to tell them what he knows, that Logi was the fire, that the mead was the ocean and that the cat was the Jormungand. Thor said that it might have been like that, but there was still no excuse for him being beaten by an old lady, Elli. Now Loki wakened. Elli, wasn't that the goddess of age? When Thor found out he went furious. He wanted to grab his hammer and kill every giant he could see, but Loki calmed him down. Don't you forget that I'm also a trickster, Loki told him. Then he whispered something in his ear. Thor smiled, put his hammer away, and went to bed. Early next morning when the gods stood outside Utgard about to leave, Utgardaloki told them that he had fooled them a bit. He told them what they already knew and that the runner Huge, was his thought. Then Loki asked him if he had noticed the aesirs little joke yet? At the same time, the giantson Quark standing beside the gods turns to a hen. This, screams Loki. This is a hen. The real Quark is inside Utgard. He's going to stay with you. Then they left Jotunheim.

Related links: Elli Huge Jormungand Jotunheim Logi Loki Roskva Tjalfi Thor Utgard Utgardaloki