The giants looked at Thor and they began to jeer, but he glared at them, and they were silent.
“Ah,” said Utgardaloki. “So the tales of the mighty Thor are only tales. Well, even so, we will allow you to drink the horn dry on your third attempt. There cannot be much left in there, after all.”
Thor raised the horn to his lips and he drank, and he drank like a god drinks, drank so long and so deeply that Loki and Thialfi simply stared at him in astonishment.
But when he lowered the horn, the mead had gone down by only another knuckle’s worth. “I am done with this,” said Thor. “And I am not convinced that it is only a little mead.”
Utgardaloki had his cup-bearer take away the horn. “It is time for a test of strength. Can you lift up a cat?” he asked Thor.
“What kind of a question is that? Of course I can pick up a cat.”
“Well,” said Utgardaloki, “we have all seen that you are not as strong as we thought you were. Youngsters here in Utgard practice their strength by picking up my housecat. Now, I should warn you, you are smaller than any of us here, and my cat is a giant’s cat, so I will understand if you cannot pick her up.”
“I will pick up your cat,” said Thor.
“She is probably sleeping by the fire,” said Utgardaloki. “Let us go to her.”
The cat was sleeping, but she roused when they entered and sprang into the middle of the room. She was gray, and she was as big as a man, but Thor was mightier than any man, and he reached around the cat’s belly and lifted her with both hands, intending to raise her high over his head. The cat seemed unimpressed: she arched her back, raising herself, forcing Thor to stretch up as far as he could.
Thor was not going to be defeated in a simple game of lifting a cat. He pushed and he strove, and eventually one of the cat’s feet was lifted above the ground.
From far away, Thor and Thialfi and Loki heard a noise, as if of huge rocks grinding together: the rumbling noise of mountains in pain.
“Enough,” said Utgardaloki. “It’s not your fault that you cannot pick up my housecat, Thor. It is a large cat, and you are a scrawny little fellow at best, compared to any of our giants.” He grinned.
“Scrawny little fellow?” said Thor. “Why, I’ll wrestle any one of you—”
“After what we’ve seen so far,” said Utgardaloki, “I would be a terrible host if I let you wrestle a real giant. You might get hurt. And I am afraid that none of my men would wrestle someone who could not drain my drinking horn, who could not even lift up the family cat. But I will tell you what we could do. If you wish to wrestle, I will let you wrestle my old foster mother.”
“Your foster mother?” Thor was incredulous.
“She is old, yes. But she taught me how to wrestle, long ago, and I doubt she has forgotten. She is shrunken with age, so she will be closer to your height. She is used to playing with children.” And then, seeing the expression on Thor’s face, he said, “Her name is Elli, and I have seen her defeat men who seemed stronger than you when she wrestled them. Do not be overconfident, Thor.”
“I would prefer to wrestle your men,” said Thor. “But I will wrestle your old nurse.”
They sent for the old woman, and she came: so frail, so gray, so wizened and wrinkled that it seemed like a breeze would blow her away. She was a giant, yes, but only a little taller than Thor. Her hair was wispy and thin on her ancient head. Thor wondered how old this woman was. She seemed older than anyone he had ever encountered. He did not want to hurt her.
They stood together, facing each other. The first to get the other one down onto the ground would win. Thor pushed the old woman and he pulled her, he tried to move her, to trip her, to force her down, but she might as well have been made of rock for all the good it did. She looked at him the whole time with her colorless old eyes and said nothing.
And then the old woman reached out and gently touched Thor on the leg. He felt his leg become less firm where she had touched him, and he pushed back against her, but she threw her arms around him and bore him toward the ground. He pushed as hard as he could, but to no avail, and soon enough he found himself forced onto one knee . . .
“Stop!” said Utgardaloki. “We have seen enough, great Thor. You cannot even defeat my old foster mother. I do not think any of my men will wrestle you now.”
Thor looked at Loki, and they both looked at Thialfi. They sat beside the great fire, and the giants showed them hospitality—the food was good, and the wine was less salty than the mead from the giant’s drinking horn—but each of the three of them said less than he usually would have said during a feast.
The companions were quiet and they were awkward, and humbled by their defeat.
They left the fortress of Utgard at dawn, and King Utgardaloki himself walked beside them as they left.
“Well?” said Utgardaloki. “How did you enjoy your time in my home?”
They looked up at him gloomily.
“Not much,” said Thor. “I’ve always prided myself on being powerful, and right now I feel like a nobody and a nothing.”
“I thought I could run fast,” said Thialfi.
“And I’ve never been beaten at an eating contest,” said Loki.
They passed through the gates that marked the end of Utgardaloki’s stronghold.
“You know,” said the giant, “you are not nobodies. And you are not nothing. Honestly, if I knew last night what I know now, I would never have invited you into my home, and I am going to make very certain you are never invited in again. You see, I tricked you, all of you, with illusions.”
The travelers looked at the giant, who smiled down at them. “Do you remember Skrymir?” he asked.
“The giant? Of course.”
“That was me. I used illusion to make myself so large and to change my appearance. The laces of my provision bags were tied with unbreakable iron wire and could be undone only by magic. When you hit me with your hammer, Thor, while I pretended to sleep, I knew that even the lightest of your blows would have meant my death, so I used my magic to take a mountain and put it invisibly between the hammer and my head. Look over there.”
Far away was a mountain in the shape of a saddle, with valleys plunging into it: three square-shaped valleys, the last one going deepest of all.
“That was the mountain I used,” said Utgardaloki. “Those valleys are your blows.”
Thor said nothing, but his lips grew thin, and his nostrils flared, and his red beard prickled.
Loki said, “Tell me about last night, in the castle. Was that illusion too?”
“Of course it was. Have you ever seen wildfire come down a valley, burning everything in its path? You think you can eat fast? You will never eat as fast as Logi, for Logi is fire incarnate, and he devoured the food and the wooden trough it was in as well by burning it. I have never seen anyone eat as quickly as you.”