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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Utgard Loke answered: 'Young men think it mere play to lift my cat from the ground; and I would never have proposed this to Aesir Thor, if I did not perceive that thou art a much less man than I had thought thee. Thereupon sprang an uncommonly great grey cat upon the floor. Thor advanced, took the cat round the body, and lifted it up.
"Then said Thor: 'Little as you call me, I challenge any one to wrestle with me, for now I am angry. Utgard Loke answered, looking round upon the benches: 'I see no one here who would not deem it play to wrestle with thee: but let us call hither the old Ella, my nurse; with her shall Thor prove his strength, if he will. She has given many one a fall who appeared far stronger than Thor is.
But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard with its sky-high gates, when Thor grasped his hammer to smite them, had gone to air; only the Giant's voice was heard mocking: "Better come no more to Jotunheim!" This is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half play, not of the prophetic and entirely devout: but as a mythus is there not real antique Norse gold in it?
I have heard you whispering to one another that I am not a man of small dimensions; but if you come to Utgard you will see there many men much taller than I. Wherefore, I advise you, when you come there, not to make too much of yourselves, for the followers of Utgard Loki will not brook the boasting of such little fellows as you are.
But you and your friends will be welcomed in Utgard. They will be sure to make little pets of you." And then he left them and they went into Utgard, the City of the Giants. Giants were going up and down in the streets. They were not so huge as Skyrmir would have them believe, Loki noticed. Utgard was the Asgard of the Giants.
Why, you are no man, said the Utgard people; there is an Old Woman that will wrestle you! Thor, heartily ashamed, seized this haggard Old Woman; but could not throw her. And now, on their quitting Utgard, the chief Jotun, escorting them politely a little way, said to Thor: "You are beaten then: yet be not so much ashamed; there was deception of appearance in it.
Finally, he takes leave of them, points out the way to Utgard Loke's palace, advises them not to give themselves airs at his court, as unbecoming "such little fellows" as they were, and disappears in the wood; "and" as the old chronicler slyly adds "it is not said whether the OEsir wished ever to see him again."
But when the banquet was ended Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, turned toward this figure and said, "O Skyrmir, Giant King of Utgard, rise up now and tell Thor of all you practiced upon him when he and Loki came to your City." Then the stranger at the banquet stood up, and Thor and Loki saw he was the Giant King in whose halls they had had the contests.
The next day Thor and Loki came into the great hall of Utgard. The Giant King was there with a throng of his friends. Thor marched into the hall with Miölnir, his great hammer, in his hands. "Our young men have been drinking out of this horn," said the King, "and they want to know if you, Asa Thor, would drink out of it a morning draught.
"'Now we must part, and it is best for us on both sides that you do not often come to me; but if it should so happen, I shall defend my castle with such other arts that you shall not be able to effect anything against me. "When Thor heard this discourse he grasped his hammer and lifted it into the air, but as he was about to strike he saw Utgard Loke nowhere.
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