Thor's lost hammer

In the far North, where winters last a long time, people said that above the clouds lay Asgard, the home of the gods. The strongest of them was Thor. He had a red beard, a voice that rumbled like a storm, and a hammer called Mjölnir that always flew back into his hand when he threw it. As long as Thor had it, the giants didn't dare come near the fields of men.

One morning, Thor reached for the foot of his bed and found nothing. He searched under the furs, behind the chests, even in the stable where his two goats slept. The hammer was gone. His anger shook the rafters, and Loki, the trickster god, poked his head round the door. "If someone took it," he said, scratching his chin, "I'll find out who."

Loki borrowed the goddess Freyja's cloak of feathers and flew off to the land of the giants. On a hilltop he found Thrym, their king, braiding gold collars for his dogs. "Yes, I have the hammer," Thrym admitted with a wide grin. "I buried it eight miles underground. I'll give it back on the day the beautiful Freyja comes to marry me."

When Loki brought the news home, Freyja was so furious that her necklace snapped. "I will never go to that giant!" The gods gathered, quite stuck, until Heimdall the watchman came up with an idea that made everyone laugh except Thor: Thor himself would go, dressed as the bride. They put him in a gown and a thick veil, hung a ring of keys at his belt, and Loki went along as the bridesmaid.

At the giants' feast, the bride ate a whole ox, eight salmon and three barrels of mead. Thrym stared. "I've never seen a bride eat so much!" Loki answered at once, in a tiny voice: "She was so eager to see you that she hasn't eaten for eight nights." Thrym lifted a corner of the veil and jumped back. Two eyes were burning underneath like coals. "She hasn't slept for eight nights either," Loki added.

Satisfied, Thrym had the hammer brought in to bless the bride, as custom required, and it was laid in her lap. Thor felt the familiar handle under his fingers. He stood up and tore off his veil, and when the giants saw the god of thunder in a wedding dress with his hammer in his hand, they ran off in every direction, knocking over the benches.

Thor and Loki rode home to Asgard in their chariot under a sky that was settling down. Thor said very little about the trip, and nobody dared ask whether he planned to keep the dress. That night he put Mjölnir right beside his bed, within easy reach, pulled the fur up to his chin and fell asleep. Over the fields of the North, only a light, quiet rain fell.