Norse myths have been very popular with fantasy and science
fiction writers. Why? I think it’s because of Snorri’s special touch—the wry
and sarcastic humor that infuse his tales.
In 2005, for example, Shadow Writer interviewed Neil Gaiman while he was touring for The Anansi Boys (read it here: http://www.shadow-writer.co.uk/neilinterview.htm). They asked Gaiman if he had a favorite myth. He answered, “I
keep going back to the Norse ones because most myths are about people who are
in some way cooler and more magical and more wonderful than us, and while the
Norse gods probably sort of qualify, they’re all sort of small-minded evil, conniving
bastards, except for Thor and he’s thick as two planks.”
Then Gaiman referred a tale Snorri wrote: “I still remember the
sheer thrill of reading about Thor,” Gaiman said, “and going into this weird
cave that they couldn’t make sense of with five branches—a short one and four
longer ones—and coming out in the morning from this place on their way to fight
the giants … and realizing they’d actually spent the night in this giant’s
glove, and going, Okay, we’re off to fight these guys. Right.”
It’s the beginning of the story of the god Thor’s encounter with
the giant Utgard-Loki. No other source tells this tale. I think Snorri made it
up. I imagine him regaling his friends with it, as they sat around his feast
hall at his grand estate of Reyholt in Iceland, sipping horns of mead or ale. Snorri
was known for holding extravagant feasts, to which he invited other poets and
storytellers. He might have read aloud from his work-in-progress, the Edda. Or he might have told the tale
from memory, like an ancient skald.
Here’s how I relate the story in my biography of Snorri, Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making
of Norse Myths:
One day Thor the Thunder-god and Loki the Trickster sailed east
across the sea to Giantland. With them was Thor’s servant, a human boy named
Thjalfi, who carried Thor’s food bag. They trudged through a dark forest. That
night they found no lodgings except one large, empty house. It had a wide front
door, a vast central hall, and five side chambers. Thor and his companions made
themselves comfortable in the hall. At midnight came a great earthquake. The
ground shuddered. The house shook. They heard scary grumblings and groans. Loki
and the boy fled into one of the little side chambers, and Thor guarded the
doorway, brandishing his hammer against whatever monster was making that noise.
Nothing more happened that night. At dawn Thor saw a man lying
asleep at the edge of the forest. Thor clasped on his magic belt and his
strength grew. He lifted his hammer—but then the man awoke and stood up. He was
so huge that “Thor for once was afraid to strike him.” Instead, he politely
asked the giant’s name.
The giant gave a fake one. “I do not need to ask your name,” he said
in return. “You are the mighty Thor. But what were you doing in my glove?”
(Here I imagine Snorri
pausing, while laughter fills the room. Maybe he gets up and refills his ale
horn.)
The giant, Snorri continues, suggested they travel together and
offered to carry their food bag in his giant knapsack. After a long day keeping
up with giant strides they camped for the night under an oak tree. The giant
settled in for a nap. “You take the knapsack and get on with your supper.”
Thor could not untie the knot. He struggled. He fumed.
And—giantlike?—he flew into a rage. He grasped his hammer in both hands and
smashed the giant on the head.
The giant awoke. “Did a leaf fall on me?”
(Another
pause for laughter.)
He went back to sleep.
Thor hit him a second time.
“Did an acorn fall on me?”
(Pause
for laughter.)
He went back to sleep.
Thor took a running start, swung the hammer with all his might—
The giant sat up. “Are you awake, Thor? There must be some birds
sitting in the tree. All sorts of rubbish has been falling on my head.”
(Pause
for laughter.)
The giant showed Thor the road to the castle of Utgard then went
on his way.
Thor and Loki and little Thjalfi walked all morning. They reached
a castle so huge they “had to bend their heads back to touch their spines” to
see the top. Thor tried to open the gate, but couldn’t budge it. They squeezed
in through the bars. The door to the great hall stood open. They walked in.
King Utgard-Loki (no relation to the god Loki) greeted them. “Am I
wrong in thinking that this little fellow is Thor? You must be bigger than you
look.”
It was the rule of the giant’s castle that no one could stay who
was not better than everyone else at some art or skill. Hearing this, Loki
piped up. He could eat faster than anyone.
The king called for a man named Logi. A trencher of meat was set
before the two of them. Each started at one end and ate so fast they met in the
middle. Loki had eaten all the meat off the bones, but his opponent, Logi, had
eaten meat, bones, and wooden trencher too. Loki lost.
The boy Thjalfi was next. He could run faster than anyone. The
king had a course laid out and called up a boy named Hugi. Thjalfi lost.
Thor could drink more than anyone, he claimed. The king got out
his drinking horn. It was not terribly big, though it was rather long. Thor
took great gulps, guzzling until he ran out of breath, but the level of liquid
hardly changed. He tried twice more. The third time, he saw a little
difference.
He called for more contests.
“Well,” said the king, “you could try to pick up my cat.”
Thor seized it around the belly and heaved—but only one paw came
off the ground. “Just let someone come out and fight me!” he raged, “Now I am
angry!”
The king’s warriors thought it demeaning to fight such a little
guy, so he called out his old nurse, Elli.
“There is not a great deal to be told about it,” Snorri writes.
“The harder Thor strained in the wrestling, the firmer she stood. Then the old
woman started to try some tricks, and then Thor began to lose his footing, and
there was some very hard pulling, and it was not long before Thor fell on one
knee.”
Utgard-Loki stopped the contest, but allowed them to stay the
night anyway.
The next day the king treated Thor and his companions to a feast.
When they were ready to go home, he accompanied them out of the castle and said
he would now reveal the truth. He himself had been the giant they met along
their way; he had prepared these illusions for them.
When Thor swung his hammer—the leaf, the acorn, the
rubbish—Utgard-Loki had placed a mountain in the way: It now had three deep
valleys. At the castle, they had competed against fire (the name Logi literally
means “fire”), thought (Hugi), and old age (Elli). The end of the drinking horn
had been sunk in the sea—Thor’s three great drafts had created the tides. The
cat? That was the Midgard Serpent which circles the entire earth.
Outraged at being tricked, Thor raised his mighty hammer once
more. But he blinked and Utgard-loki and his castle disappeared.
“Thick as two planks,” indeed.
Why do I think Snorri made up this story of Thor’s visit to
Utgard-Loki? A poet does refer to Thor hiding in a giant’s glove—but it’s a
different giant. Another mentions his struggle with the knot of a giant’s
food-sack. A kenning for old age refers to Thor wrestling with Elli—but it
appears in Egil’s Saga, which Snorri probably
wrote, so he may be quoting himself. Otherwise, the journey and the contests
are unknown.
I think the brilliant character of the giant Utgard-Loki, with his
wry attitude toward that little fellow Thor who “must be bigger than he looks,”
is a stand-in for Snorri himself. They share the same humorous tolerance of the
gods. There is very little sense throughout the Edda that these were gods to be feared or worshipped, especially
not the childish, naïve, blustering, weak-witted, and fallible Thor who is so
easily deluded by Utgard-Loki’s wizardry of words. What god in his right mind
would wrestle with a crone named “Old Age”? Or expect his servant-boy to outrun
“Thought”?
It also fits with why Snorri wrote the Edda: to teach the 14-year-old king of Norway about Viking poetry.
This story has a moral: See how foolish you would look, Snorri is saying to
young King Hakon, if you didn’t understand that words can have more than one
meaning, or that names can be taken literally? The story of Utgard-loki is, at
heart, a story about why poetry matters.
This essay was adapted from my biography of Snorri
Sturluson, Song of the Vikings:
Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths, published
by Palgrave Macmillan. It originally appeared on the science fiction and
fantasy lovers website Tor.com.
Join me again next Wednesday at
nancymariebrown.blogspot.com for another writing adventure in Iceland or the
medieval world.
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