“Odin, Loki and Hœnir went from home over mountains and uninhabited land, and it was not easy for them to get food. When they came down into a valley they saw a herd of oxen, took one of them and prepared it for the fire. When they thought it was cooked they took it off, but it was not cooked. A second time, after waiting a little, they took it off, and it was not cooked. They considered what might be the cause of this. Then they heard a voice in the tree above them which said that he who sat there caused this. They looked up, and a large eagle sat there. The eagle said: ‘If you will give me my fill of the ox, it shall be cooked.’ They assented, and the bird came slowly down from the tree, sat down on the hearth, and at once gobbled up the four shoulder-pieces of the ox. Loki got angry, took a large pole, raised it, and with all his strength struck the eagle. At the blow the eagle flew into the air. The pole adhered to its body, and the hands of Loki to one end of it. The eagle flew so that Loki’s feet touched the rocks, the stone-heaps and the trees. He thought his hands would be torn from his shoulders. He shouted, eagerly asking the eagle to spare him, but it answered that Loki would never get loose unless he swore to make Idun leave Asgard with her apples. Loki promised this, got loose and went to his companions, and no more tidings are told about their journey till they reached home. At the appointed time Loki enticed Idun to go to a wood out of Asgard by saying he had found apples which she would prefer to her own, and asked her to take her own apples with her to compare them. Thjassi Jötun then came in an eagle’s shape and took Idun and flew away to his abode in Thrymheim. The Asar were much grieved at the disappearance of Idun, and soon became grey-haired and old. They held a _Thing_ and asked each other for news of Idun. The last seen of her was when she walked out of Asgard with Loki. He was brought to the _Thing_ and threatened with death or torture. He got afraid and said he would fetch Idun from Jötunheim, if Freyja would lend him the hawk-skin which she owned. When he got it he flew north to Jötunheim, and one day came to Thjassi Jötun, who was sea-fishing. Idun was alone at home. Loki changed her into a nut, held her in his claws and flew as fast as he could. When the Asar saw the hawk flying with the nut and the eagle pursuing they went to the Asgard-wall and carried thither bundles of plane-shavings. When the hawk flew into the burgh it came down at the wall. The Asar set fire to the plane-shavings, but the eagle could not stop when it lost the hawk, and the fire caught its feathers and stopped it. The Asar were near, and slew Thjassi inside the Asgard-wall, which is a very famous deed. Skadi, his daughter, took helmet and brynja and a complete war-dress, and went to Asgard to avenge her father. The Asar offered her reconciliation and _wergild_,[77] and first that she might