Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpretedAnderson, Rasmus Björn
Religion
Norse mythology; or, The religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted
Anderson, Rasmus Björn
Mythology, Norse; Northmen -- Religion; Old Norse literature; Tales, Medieval
Once I employed
My asamight
In the realm of giants,
When Gjalp and Greip,
Geirrod’s daughters,
Wanted to lift me to heaven.
Then Geirrod invited Thor into the hall to see games. Large fires burned
along the hall, and when Thor had come opposite to Geirrod the latter
took with a pair of tongs a red-hot iron wedge and threw it after Thor;
he seized it with the iron gloves and lifted it up into the air, but
Geirrod ran behind an iron post to defend himself. Thor threw the wedge,
which struck through the post and through Geirrod and through the wall,
so that it went outside and into the ground.
Geirrod is the intense heat which produces violent thunderstorms, and
hence his daughter the violent torrent. Of course Loke (fire) is locked
up and starved through the hottest part of the summer; but this myth
needs no explanation, and we proceed to the next.
SECTION IV. THOR AND SKRYMER.
One day the god Thor, accompanied by Loke, set out on a journey in his
car drawn by his goats. Night coming on, they put up at a peasant’s
cottage, when Thor killed his goats, and, after flaying them, put them
in a kettle. When the flesh was boiled he sat down with his
fellow-traveler to supper, and invited the peasant and his wife and
their children to partake of the repast. The peasant’s son was named
Thjalfe and his daughter Roskva. Thor bade them throw all the bones into
the goats’ skins, which were spread out near the fireplace, but young
Thjalfe broke one of the shank-bones to come at the marrow. Thor having
passed the night in the cottage, rose at the dawn of day, and when he
had dressed himself he took his hammer, Mjolner, and, lifting it up,
consecrated the goats’ skins, which he had no sooner done than the two
goats reassumed their wonted form, with the exception that one of them
limped on one of its hind legs. Thor, perceiving this, said that the
peasant or one of his family had handled the shank-bone of this goat too
roughly, for he saw clearly that it was broken. It may readily be
imagined how frightened the peasant was, when he saw Thor knit his brows
and seize the handle of his hammer with such force that the knuckles of
his fingers grew white with the exertion. But the peasant, as we might
expect, and his whole family, screamed aloud, sued for peace, and
offered all they possessed as an atonement for the offense committed.
But when Thor saw their fright he desisted from his wrath and became
appeased, and he contented himself by requiring their children, Thjalfe
and Roskva, who thus became his servants and have accompanied him ever
since. Thor let his goats remain there, and proceeded eastward on the
way to Jotunheim clear to the sea. Then he went across the deep ocean,
and when he came to the other shore he landed with Loke, Thjalfe and
Roskva.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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