Most stories about Thor end with the thunder god smashing his enemies with his hammer. This one does not. In the longest and most elaborate of the Thor myths told by Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda, Thor travels deep into the land of the giants, enters the fortress of the giant king Útgarða-Loki (“Loki of the Outer Enclosure”), and fails at every contest he is set. He cannot drain a drinking horn. He cannot lift a cat. He is brought to one knee by an old woman. Only at the very end does he learn that he has been fighting illusions — and that his failures were in fact astonishing feats.
The story is a masterpiece of storytelling, full of humour and surprise. It also contains one of the most profound ideas in Norse myth: that the greatest strength can be defeated by deception, and that even the gods are subject to the limits of the world.
The Journey Begins
Thor set out from Asgard in his chariot drawn by two goats, Tanngnjóstr and Tanngrisnir, accompanied by Loki. At nightfall they stayed with a farmer. Thor slaughtered his goats and cooked them for supper, inviting the farmer’s family to eat, but told them to throw the bones onto the goatskins spread by the fire. The farmer’s son, Þjálfi, split one of the thigh bones with his knife to get at the marrow.
In the morning Thor raised his hammer over the goatskins and blessed them, and the goats stood up alive. But one was lame in its hind leg. Thor was furious; his knuckles went white on the hammer’s shaft, and the farmer’s family begged for mercy. Thor accepted the farmer’s children, Þjálfi and his sister Röskva, as servants in compensation. From then on they travelled with him.
The Giant in the Forest
Leaving the goats behind, Thor, Loki, Þjálfi, and Röskva crossed the sea and entered a vast forest. At nightfall they found a huge, empty hall with a wide entrance along one whole side. They slept there, but at midnight there was a great earthquake. Searching in the dark, they found a smaller side room and sheltered there, Thor sitting at the door with his hammer.
In the morning, Thor went out and found a gigantic man asleep nearby, snoring loudly. The earthquake had been his snores. The giant woke and said his name was Skrýmir. He asked Thor if he had been moving his glove. The “hall” they had slept in was the giant’s glove; the side room was its thumb.
The Knapsack and the Hammer Blows
Skrýmir offered to travel with them and share his provisions. He tied all their food into his knapsack and walked ahead. That night he went to sleep and told Thor to open the bag and help himself. But Thor could not undo a single knot.
In anger, Thor struck the sleeping giant on the head with Mjölnir. Skrýmir woke and asked whether a leaf had fallen on him. At midnight Thor struck again, harder, and the hammer sank deep into the giant’s skull. Skrýmir woke and asked whether an acorn had fallen on him. Near dawn Thor struck a third time with all his strength, and the hammer sank to its handle. Skrýmir sat up, stroked his cheek, and asked whether some birds were in the tree above him, dropping twigs.
Then Skrýmir gave them directions to Útgarðr, the fortress of Útgarða-Loki, with a warning: in that place they would see men far bigger than himself, and they should not boast. He went off another way.
The Fortress of Útgarðr
The fortress was so tall that the travellers had to bend their heads back until their necks almost touched their spines to see the top. The gate was locked, but they squeezed between the bars. Inside was a hall full of enormous giants. On the high seat sat Útgarða-Loki. He greeted them with mocking courtesy: surely this small fellow could not be Ása-Thor? Perhaps he was bigger than he looked. What skills did they have? No one could stay there unless he excelled in some art.
The Contests
Loki’s eating contest. Loki said he could eat faster than anyone. A trough of meat was set on the floor, and Loki sat at one end and a giant named Logi at the other. They met in the middle. Loki had eaten all the meat off the bones, but Logi had eaten the meat, the bones, and the trough too. Loki lost.
Þjálfi’s race. Þjálfi, the fastest runner among humans, raced a small figure called Hugi. Three times they ran, and each time Hugi was so far ahead at the finish that he turned to meet Þjálfi coming. Þjálfi lost.
Thor’s drinking contest. Thor said he would compete at drinking. Útgarða-Loki’s servant brought a long horn, and the giant said that good drinkers emptied it in one draught, most in two, and none so poor as to need three. Thor drank deeply, but the level had barely dropped. He drank again, until he was out of breath, and the level dropped only a little. The third time he drank with all his might, and the horn was a little lower, enough that it could be carried without spilling. Thor gave up.
Lifting the cat. Útgarða-Loki said the young men there had a game of lifting his cat off the floor. A large grey cat ran out. Thor put his hand under its belly and heaved. The cat arched its back as Thor lifted, and however hard he strained, he could raise only one of its paws from the floor.
Wrestling Elli. Now in a fury, Thor demanded to wrestle someone. Útgarða-Loki said everyone there would think it beneath them to wrestle him, but he might try his strength against the old woman Elli, the king’s nurse. The old crone came in, and the harder Thor gripped her, the firmer she stood. At last Thor lost his footing and sank down on one knee. Útgarða-Loki called an end to the contest.
The Revelation
The next morning, Útgarða-Loki led his guests out of the fortress and, as they parted, told them the truth. He himself had been Skrýmir. He had tied the knapsack with iron wire so that Thor could not open it. When Thor struck with his hammer, the giant had placed a mountain between himself and the blow — and on the way home Thor would see three square valleys in the mountain, the marks of his hammer.
As for the contests:
- Logi, who beat Loki at eating, was wildfire itself, which consumes wood and trough alike.
- Hugi, who outran Þjálfi, was Útgarða-Loki’s own thought, and nothing can run as fast as thought.
- The end of Thor’s drinking horn was in the sea. When Thor reached the shore, he would see how much the sea had fallen — and that, Snorri says, is the origin of the ebb tide.
- The cat was Jörmungandr, the World Serpent, which lies around the whole earth. When Thor raised one paw, he lifted the serpent almost to the sky. Everyone in the hall had been terrified.
- Elli was old age. No one has ever lived, the giant said, whom old age did not bring down in the end — and Thor had only gone down on one knee.
“It will be better for both of us,” said Útgarða-Loki, “if you never come here again.” Thor seized his hammer to strike, but the giant had vanished, and so had the fortress. There was only an open plain.
What the Story Means
The myth is one of the finest examples of what folklorists call an illusion contest: the hero is beaten, then discovers that his opponents were abstract forces he could never have defeated. Its lessons are several:
- Strength has limits. Even Thor cannot defeat fire, thought, the sea, the World Serpent, or old age.
- Appearances deceive. The giants’ power lies not in size but in illusion — in magic, sjónhverfingar (“sight-deceptions”), which Snorri uses as a technical term.
- Failure can be glory. Thor’s apparent humiliations were in fact feats that astonished the giants.
The story also connects with the wider mythology. Thor’s lifting of the “cat” foreshadows his fishing expedition, when he hooks Jörmungandr on a line baited with an ox’s head, and his final battle with the serpent at Ragnarök, in which each kills the other.
Origins and Parallels
Snorri’s story may draw on older traditions. The tenth-century skaldic poet Eilífr Goðrúnarson alludes to Thor and Þjálfi’s journeys to the giants. The motif of a hero sleeping in a giant’s glove appears in folktales across Europe. Some scholars have compared the tale to Irish stories of heroes entering otherworldly halls where nothing is as it seems. The twelfth-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells of a king named Gorm who journeys to a hideous figure called Utgarthilocus, bound in a cave — apparently a very different version of the same name.
Last reviewed: September 2026.