"Steal the hammer! Steal the hammer!" shouted all the giants until the very skies echoed with the words. "And I will be the one to steal it," bellowed Thrym, the strongest and greatest giant of them all. "And, moreover, I will go at once to the city of Asgard. The gods are asleep. With my great eye, I can see even now the hammer lying beside the sleeping Thor. Guard my castle. I am gone." And putting on the guise of a great bird, Thrym spread his wings and flew across the black night to Asgard. The gods shivered in their sleep as he entered and breathed his breath upon the summer air of heaven, but knew not what had chilled them. In the morning there was a heavy frost upon the gateways. There was a chill in the air. For Thrym, the frost giant, had crept in upon them. He had crept even to the hall in which the mighty Thor was sleeping. He had crept close beside the mighty god--and the magic hammer was gone. XII. THE FINDING OF THE HAMMER. "My hammer! My hammer!" thundered Thor, awaking and finding it gone. The gods in all Asgard awoke with a start. "What a crash of thunder! So quick, so sharp!" cried the earth-people; for they did not know it was a cry of rage from Thor. "Loke," thundered Thor again. "Put you on wings. Go you to the home of the Frost giants and bring back my hammer. Some one of them has stolen it. Go! Go! I say." And Loke, who had been a very obedient servant to Thor since his theft of the golden hair of Sif, put on the magic wings and fled away. "What brings you here in the land of the Frost giants?" growled Thrym, as Loke alighted before him. "I have come for the hammer you have stolen from Thor," answered Loke boldly, seeing at once, from the jeering look in Thrym's eye, that he was the thief. "You will never find it," sneered Thrym. "It is well hidden; but I will send it back to you if Odin will send me Freyja for my wife." Loke begged and coaxed and threatened; but it was all of no avail. "Never," bellowed Thrym, "until you send Freyja to me." "She shall go," thundered Thor, when Loke came back to Asgard. "Whatever the price, the hammer must be brought back. Asgard is not safe without it." But Freyja was as fierce as had been Thrym himself. "I will not go," she insisted. "Never! Never! Never will I go!" "I say you must," thundered Thor. But although Thor's thunders were terrible and his frown was deep and inky black, Freyja was not to be moved either by pleading or threatening. "Go yourself," said she. "Dress yourself as a goddess and go." Nor would she listen even to another word. Thor thundered and rumbled and rolled. It was all of no avail. Freyja was a goddess and would not be driven. "I will go," said Thor at last. "Bring me a bridal dress. Hang a necklace around my neck. Bind a bridal veil about my head. The giants are as stupid as they are large; and I will set forth in the name of Freyja to meet the giant Thrym."