High above the world, in the golden halls of Asgard, lived Thor, the god of thunder. He was the strongest of all the gods, with arms as thick as tree trunks and a wild red beard that bristled with sparks when he was angry. At his belt hung Mjolnir, his magical hammer, which always returned to his hand after he threw it. One morning, Thor announced: 'I shall journey to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, and show them the might of Asgard!'
His companion Loki, the clever trickster, grinned and said: 'I'll come along. Someone needs to do the thinking!' Loki was thin where Thor was broad, quiet where Thor was loud, and cunning where Thor relied on strength. Together they rode in Thor's chariot, pulled by two magical goats named Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr, whose hooves struck lightning from the clouds as they galloped across the sky.
As evening fell, they stopped at a poor farmer's cottage. Thor cooked his two goats for supper — but he told the farmer's family to place all the bones carefully back on the goatskins. Young Thjalfi, the farmer's son, was so hungry that he cracked one leg bone to suck the marrow. The next morning, Thor blessed the skins with Mjolnir and the goats sprang back to life — but one limped badly! Thor's eyes blazed with anger, and the ground shook.
Trembling with fear, Thjalfi confessed what he had done. Thor gripped his hammer so tightly his knuckles turned white. But when he saw the boy's honest, frightened face, his anger melted. 'You will come with us to Jotunheim,' Thor declared, 'and serve me to repay your debt.' Thjalfi's eyes went wide — he was going on an adventure with the gods! They left the goats to rest and continued on foot into the wild, frozen north.
They walked through dark forests where the trees grew taller than towers, and across frozen rivers that cracked and groaned beneath their feet. As night fell and snow swirled around them, they found an enormous building in the wilderness — a great hall with a wide-open doorway but no door. 'We'll shelter here,' said Thor. They crept inside, and the hall was so vast they couldn't see the walls in the darkness.
In the middle of the night, a terrible rumbling shook the ground. The whole building trembled and swayed! Thor grabbed Mjolnir and stood guard while Loki and Thjalfi hid in a side passage. At dawn, Thor went outside and found the source of the earthquake — an enormous giant, fast asleep in the snow, snoring so loudly that the trees bent! The 'hall' they had slept in was the giant's glove, and the side passage was its thumb!
The giant yawned, stretched, and sat up. He was as tall as a mountain. 'Good morning, little fellow!' he boomed with a friendly smile. 'I am Skrymir. You must be Thor — I've heard of you. Shall we travel together?' Though Thor didn't like being called 'little,' he agreed. Skrymir offered to carry their food in his enormous sack, and they set off through the snowy mountains toward the land of the giants.
That evening, Skrymir fell asleep instantly and told them to open his food sack for supper. But no matter how hard Thor pulled and tugged, he couldn't untie the knot! Furious and hungry, Thor swung Mjolnir down on the sleeping giant's head. Skrymir blinked one eye open and mumbled: 'Did a leaf fall on me?' Thor hit him even harder. 'Hmm, was that an acorn?' the giant yawned, and went right back to sleep. Thor stood there, speechless.
In the morning, Skrymir pointed toward a great fortress in the distance. 'That is Utgard, the stronghold of the giant king Utgarda-Loki. A word of advice, little Thor: don't act too proud in there. The giants of Utgard don't take kindly to boasting from small folk.' Then Skrymir waved goodbye and strode away over the mountains. Thor's face turned as red as his beard. 'Small folk?' he growled. 'I'll show them!'
The fortress of Utgard was so enormous that Thor had to crane his neck all the way back to see the top of its walls. The gate was locked, but the bars were so far apart that they squeezed right through. Inside the great hall sat Utgarda-Loki, the giant king, on a throne of carved stone. He looked down at them and laughed. 'So this is the famous Thor? You're much smaller than the stories say. No one stays in Utgard without proving their skill. What can you do?'
Loki stepped forward first. 'No one can eat faster than me!' he declared. A giant named Logi was brought to compete. A long wooden trough filled with meat was placed between them. Loki ate furiously from one end, but when they met in the middle, Logi had eaten not just the meat but the bones and the trough itself! 'You lose,' laughed Utgarda-Loki. Then young Thjalfi challenged the giants to a race — but his opponent, Hugi, was so impossibly fast that Thjalfi was left far behind.
Now it was Thor's turn. 'I can out-drink anyone alive!' he boasted. Utgarda-Loki smiled and handed him a long drinking horn. 'Most of my guests drain this in one gulp. Good drinkers take two. No one has ever needed three.' Thor drank with all his might. He gulped and gulped until his face turned purple and his eyes watered — but the level in the horn had barely dropped! He tried twice more, but could not empty it. Thor slammed the horn down in frustration.
'Perhaps something easier,' said Utgarda-Loki with a sly grin. 'Can you lift my cat?' A huge grey cat padded into the hall. Thor wrapped his mighty arms around its belly and heaved with all his strength. He strained and groaned, his muscles bulging, his face red with effort — but the enormous cat merely arched its back, and Thor could only lift one single paw off the ground. The giants roared with laughter.
Thor was burning with shame. 'Let me wrestle someone — anyone!' he demanded. Utgarda-Loki stroked his beard and called out: 'Elli! Come here, grandmother.' A thin, wrinkled old woman hobbled into the hall, leaning on a walking stick. 'You want me to wrestle a granny?' Thor sputtered. But when they locked arms, no matter how hard Thor pushed, the old woman stood firm as a mountain. Slowly, impossibly, she forced the mighty thunder god down to one knee.
That night, Thor sat in silence, staring at his hands. He had never failed before. Loki said nothing for once, and even little Thjalfi dared not speak. Had the great Thor finally met his match? In the morning, Utgarda-Loki himself walked them to the gates. Once outside the fortress, the giant king's face grew serious. 'Now that you are safely beyond my walls, I will tell you the truth.'
'Everything was an illusion,' the giant king said. 'The drinking horn was connected to the sea — and you drank so much the ocean's level dropped! The cat was actually Jormungandr, the World Serpent that wraps around the entire earth. You nearly lifted it out of the sea, and the whole world trembled! And old Elli? She was Old Age herself. No one can defeat Old Age, yet you held her off longer than any being ever has.'
Thor's eyes grew wide as saucers. Utgarda-Loki continued: 'Skrymir was me in disguise. When you hit me with your hammer, I moved a mountain between us — your blows carved three deep valleys into the rock! Loki's opponent was Wildfire, which devours everything. And Thjalfi raced against Thought itself, the fastest thing in existence.' The giant king looked at Thor with genuine respect. 'You are far mightier than you know. And that is why you must never return — my people are terrified of you.'
Thor raised Mjolnir, ready to smash the fortress to rubble — but in a flash of light, Utgarda-Loki, the fortress, and the great walls vanished completely. There was nothing but an empty snow-covered plain stretching to the horizon. Thor lowered his hammer slowly. Loki whistled. 'Well,' said Thjalfi quietly, 'at least now we know.' Thor looked at his companions and, for the first time in days, he laughed — a great, booming laugh that echoed across the mountains like thunder.
On the long journey home, Thor was quieter than usual. He gazed at the stars and thought about what he had learned. He had fought the ocean, wrestled Old Age, and nearly lifted the World Serpent. He hadn't failed at all — he had done the impossible and simply hadn't known it. Sometimes, Thor realized, the greatest victories don't look like victories at all.
When they reached Asgard, the other gods gathered to hear their tale. Thor told the story honestly — every failure, every humiliation, and every wonderful truth revealed at the end. The gods listened in amazement. Young Thjalfi returned home to his family's farm, carrying stories that would last a lifetime. And whenever thunder rumbled across the Viking skies, the people would smile and say: 'There goes Thor, the god who drank the sea, lifted the World Serpent, and wrestled Old Age to a standstill. The bravest of them all.'
