Norse Mythology Read online

  Aegir knew well that the gods had no such cauldron. And without the cauldron, he did not have to give the feast.

  Thor asked the other gods for advice, but each god he asked was of the opinion that such a cauldron did not exist. Finally he asked Tyr, god of battle, god of war. Tyr scratched his chin with his left hand, which was his only hand. “On the edge of the world sea,” he said, “lives the giant king Hymir. He owns a cauldron three miles deep. It’s the biggest cauldron there has ever been.”

  “Can you be sure?” asked Thor.

  Tyr nodded. “Hymir is my stepfather. He is married to my mother,” he said. “She is a giant. I have seen the great cauldron with my own eyes. And as my mother’s son, I will be welcome in Hymir’s hall.”

  Tyr and Thor climbed into Thor’s chariot, pulled by the goats Snarler and Grinder, and swiftly they traveled to Hymir’s enormous fortress. Thor tied the goats to a tree, and the two made their way inside.

  There was a giantess in the kitchen, cutting up onions as big as boulders and cabbages the size of boats. Thor could not help staring: the old woman had nine hundred heads, each head uglier and more terrifying than the last. He took a step backward. If Tyr was disturbed, he did not show it. Tyr called out, “Greetings, Grandmother. We are here to see if we can borrow Hymir’s cauldron to brew our beer.”

  “Such tiny things! I thought you were mice,” said Tyr’s grandmother, and when she spoke it sounded like a crowd of people shouting. “You do not want to talk to me, Grandson. You should talk to your mother.”

  She called out, “We have guests! Your son is here, with a friend,” and in moments another giantess walked in. This was Hymir’s wife, Tyr’s mother. She was dressed in golden cloth, and she was as beautiful as her mother-in-law was alarming; she carried two of the tiniest giant thimbles, which she had filled with beer. Thor and Tyr gripped the thimbles, which were the size of buckets, and they drank the beer with enthusiasm.

  It was excellent beer.

  The giantess asked Thor his name. Thor was about to tell her, but before he could speak Tyr said, “His name is Veor, Mother. He’s my friend. And an enemy of the enemies of Hymir and the giants.”

  They heard a distant rumbling, like thunder on the peaks, or mountains crumbling, or huge waves crashing to shore, and the earth shook with each rumble.

  “My husband is coming home,” said the giantess. “I hear his gentle footsteps in the distance.”

  The rumbling became more distinct and seemed to be coming rapidly closer.

  “My husband is often bad-tempered when he gets home, wrathful and grim of mind. He treats his guests badly,” the giantess warned them. “Why don’t you get under that kettle and stay there until he’s cheerful enough for you to come out?”

  She hid them beneath a kettle on the floor of the kitchen. It was dark under there.

  The ground shook, a door slammed, and Thor and Tyr knew that Hymir must be home. They heard the giantess tell her husband that they had guests, her son and a friend, and that he had to be on his best behavior as a gracious host and not kill them.

  “Why?” The giant’s voice was loud and petulant.

  “The little one is our son, Tyr. You remember him. The big one’s name is Veor. Be nice to him.”

  “Thor? Thor our enemy? Thor who has killed more giants than anyone else, even other giants? Thor whom I have sworn to slay if ever I encounter him? Thor the—”

  “Veor,” said his wife, calming him down. “Not Thor. Veor. He’s our son’s friend, and an enemy of your enemies, so you have to be nice to him.”

  “I am grim of mind and wrathful of spirit and I have no desire to be nice to anyone,” said a huge rumbling giant’s voice. “Where are they hiding?”

  “Oh, just behind that beam over there,” said his wife.

  Thor and Tyr heard a crash as the beam she had pointed to was smashed and broken. This was followed by another series of crashes as, one after another, all the kettles in the kitchen were knocked down from the ceiling and destroyed.

  “Are you finished breaking things?” asked Tyr’s mother.

  “I suppose so,” said Hymir’s voice grudgingly.

  “Then look under that kettle,” she said. “The one on the floor that you didn’t destroy.”

  The kettle beneath which Tyr and Thor were hidden was lifted, and they found themselves staring up at an enormous face, its features twisted into a sulky scowl. This, Thor knew, was Hymir, the giant king. His beard was like a forest of ice-covered trees in midwinter, his eyebrows like a field of thistles, his breath as rank and foul as a midden in a bog.

  “Hello, Tyr,” said Hymir, without enthusiasm.

  “Hello, Father,” said Tyr, with, if possible, even less pleasure.

  “You will join us as guests at dinner,” said Hymir. He clapped his hands.

  The door of the hall opened, and a giant ox was led in, its coat shining, its eyes bright, its horns sharp. It was followed by another, even more beautiful, and then the last ox, even finer than the first two.

  “These are the most excellent oxen in existence. So much bigger and fatter than the beasts of Midgard or Asgard. I am,” Hymir confided, “enormously proud of my herd of cattle. They are my treasures, and the delight of my eyes. I treat them like my own children.” And for a moment his scowling face seemed to soften.

  The grandmother with nine hundred heads killed each ox, skinned it, and tossed it into her enormous cooking pot. The pot boiled and bubbled over a fire which hissed and spat, and she stirred it with a spoon as big as an oak tree. She sang quietly to herself as she cooked, in a voice like a thousand old women all singing at the tops of their voices at once.

  Soon enough the food was ready.

  “You are guests here. Do not stand on ceremony. Take as much as you can eat from the pot,” said Hymir expansively. The strangers were small, after all—how much could they eat? After all, the oxen were enormous.

  Thor said he didn’t mind if he did, and he proceeded to devour two of the oxen all by himself, one after the other, leaving nothing but clean-picked bones. Then he belched in a satisfied way.

  “That’s a lot of food, Veor,” said Hymir. “It was meant to feed us for several days. I do not think I have ever seen even a giant eat two of my oxen at once before.”

  “I was hungry,” said Thor. “And I got a little carried away. Look, tomorrow, why don’t we go out fishing? I hear you are quite a fisherman.”

  Hymir prided himself on his skills at fishing. “I am an excellent fisherman,” he said. “We can catch tomorrow night’s dinner.”

  “I too am a fine fisherman,” said Thor. He had never fished before, but how hard could it be?

  “We’ll meet tomorrow at dawn, out on the dock,” said Hymir.

  In their huge bedroom that night, Tyr said to Thor, “I hope you know what you are doing.”

  “Of course I do,” said Thor. But he didn’t. He was just doing whatever he felt like doing. That was what Thor did best.

  In the gray light before dawn, Thor met Hymir on the dock.

  “I should warn you, little Veor,” said the giant, “that we will be going far out into the icy waters. I row farther out into the cold and stay out longer than a tiny thing like you can survive. Icicles will form on your beard and your hair, and you will turn blue with cold. Probably you will die.”

  “Doesn’t worry me,” said Thor. “I like the cold. It’s bracing. What are we using for bait?”

  “I already have my own bait,” said Hymir. “You must find your own. You could look in the field of the oxen for it. Nice big maggots in the ox dung, after all. Bring whatever you want from there.”

  Thor looked at Hymir. He thought about hitting Hymir with his hammer, but then he would never get the cauldron, not without a fight. He walked back up the shore.

  In the meadow was Hymir’s herd of beautifu
l oxen. There were giant patties of dung on the ground, with huge maggots writhing and burrowing in them, but Thor avoided all of them. Instead he walked over to the biggest, most majestic, fattest of the beasts, raised his fist, and thumped it between the eyes, killing it instantly.

  Thor ripped off the beast’s head, placed it in his sack, and carried it down to the sea.

  Hymir was in the boat. He had already cast off and was rowing out of the bay.

  Thor jumped into the cold water and swam out, hauling his sack behind him. He grabbed the back of the boat with numb fingers, then hauled himself onboard, dripping with seawater, ice crusting his red beard.

  “Ah,” said Thor. “That was fun. Nothing to wake you up on a cold morning like a good swim.”

  Hymir said nothing. Thor took the other set of oars, and they began to row together. Soon enough the land was gone and they were alone on the waters of the northern sea. The ocean was gray, the waves were choppy and high, and the wind and the seagulls screamed.

  Hymir stoppped rowing. “We will fish here,” he said.

  “Here?” asked Thor. “We’ve hardly gone out into the sea at all.” And he picked up the oars and began singlehandedly to row them into deeper waters.

  The boat flew across the waves.

  “Stop!” boomed Hymir. “These waters are dangerous. This is where Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent, is to be found.”

  Thor stopped rowing.

  Hymir took two large fish from the bottom of the boat. He gutted them with his sharp, sharp bait knife, tossed the guts into the sea, then impaled the fish on the hooks of his line.

  Hymir dropped his baited fishing line. He waited until the line jerked and twitched in his hand, and then he hauled up the line: two monstrous whales hung from it, the hugest whales that Thor had ever seen. Hymir grinned with pride.

  “Not bad,” said Thor.

  He pulled the head of the ox from his sack. When Hymir saw the dead eyes of his favorite ox, his face froze.

  “I got bait,” said Thor helpfully. “From the ox field. Like you said.” Expressions of shock, of horror, and of anger chased each other across Hymir’s huge face, but he said nothing.

  Thor took Hymir’s fishing line, rammed the ox’s head onto the hook, and threw the line and the head into the ocean. He felt it sink to the bottom.

  He waited.

  “Fishing,” he said to Hymir. “I suppose it must all be about learning patience. It’s a bit dull, isn’t it? I wonder what I’m going to catch for our dinner.”

  And that was when the sea erupted. Jormungundr, the Midgard serpent, had bitten down on the huge ox head, and the hook had dug deep into the roof of its mouth. The serpent writhed in the water, trying to free itself.

  Thor held on to the line.

  “It’s going to drag us under!” boomed Hymir in horror. “Let go of the line!”

  Thor shook his head. He strained against the fishing line, determined to hold on.

  The thunder god slammed his feet through the bottom of the boat, and he used the sea bottom to brace himself, and he began to haul Jormungundr up on board.

  The serpent spat gouts of black poison toward them. Thor ducked, and the poison missed him. He continued to pull.

  “It’s the Midgard serpent, you fool!” shouted Hymir. “Let go of the line! We’ll both die!”

  Thor said nothing, just hauled the line in, hand over hand, his eyes fixed on his enemy. “I will kill you,” he whispered to the serpent, beneath the roar of the waves and the howl of the wind and the thrashing and screaming of the beast. “Or you will kill me. This I swear.”

  He said it beneath his breath, but he could have sworn that the Midgard serpent heard him. It fixed him with its eyes, and the next gout of poison came so close to Thor that he could taste it on the ocean air. The poison sprayed his shoulder, and it burned where it touched.

  Thor simply laughed and hauled again.

  Somewhere, it seemed to Thor, in the distance, Hymir was babbling and grumbling and shouting about the monstrous serpent, and about the sea rushing into the rowing boat through the holes in the bottom, and about how they would both die out here, in the cold, cold ocean, so far from dry land. Thor did not care about any of this. He was fighting the serpent, playing it, letting it exhaust itself thrashing and pulling.

  Thor began to pull the fishing line back onto the boat.

  The Midgard serpent’s head was almost within striking distance. Thor reached down without glancing away, and his fingers closed around the haft of his hammer. He knew just where the head of the hammer would need to strike to kill the serpent. One more heave on the fishing line and—

  Hymir’s bait knife flashed, and the line was cut. Jormungundr, the serpent, reared up, high above the boat, then tumbled back into the sea.

  Thor threw his hammer at it, but the monster was already gone, vanished into the cold gray waters. The hammer returned, and Thor caught it. He turned his attention back to the sinking fishing boat. Hymir was desperately bailing the water from the bottom.

  Hymir bailed the water, and Thor rowed the boat back to shore. The two whales that Hymir had caught earlier, at the prow of the boat, made the rowing harder than it normally would have been.

  “There’s the shore,” gasped Hymir. “But my home is still many miles distant.”

  “We could make land here,” said Thor.

  “Only if you are willing to carry the boat and me and the two whales I caught all the way to my hall,” said Hymir, exhausted.

  “Mm. All right.”

  Thor jumped over the side of the fishing boat. A few moments later, Hymir felt the boat rising into the air. Thor was carrying them on his back: boat, oars, Hymir, and whales, carrying them along the shingle at the edge of the sea.

  When they reached Hymir’s hall, Thor lowered the boat to the ground.

  “There,” said Thor. “I brought you home, as you requested. Now I need a favor from you in return.”

  “What is it?” asked Hymir.

  “Your cauldron. The huge one you brew beer in. I want to borrow it.”

  Hymir said, “You are a mighty fisherman, and you row hard. But you are asking for the finest brewing kettle in existence. The beer that is magically brewed in it is the best of beers. I will only lend it to someone who can break the cup I drink from.”

  “That doesn’t sound very hard,” said Thor.

  They ate roast whale meat for dinner that night, in a hall filled with many-headed giants, all of them shouting and happy and most of them drunk. After they had eaten, Hymir drained the last of the beer from his drinking cup and called for silence. Then he handed the cup to Thor.

  “Smash it,” he said. “Smash this cup, and the cauldron in which I brew my beer is yours as my gift to you. Fail and you die.”

  Thor nodded.

  The giants stopped their joking and their songs. They watched him warily.

  Hymir’s fortress was built of stone. Thor took the drinking cup, hefted it in both hands, then threw it with all his might against one of the granite pillars that held up the roof of the banqueting hall. There was an ear-splitting crash, and the air was filled with blinding dust.

  When the dust settled, Hymir got up and walked over to what was left of the granite pillar. The cup had gone through first one pillar, then another, breaking them into tiny fragments of stone. In the rubble of the third pillar was the drinking cup, a little dusty but quite undamaged.

  Hymir held his drinking cup above his head, and the giants cheered and laughed and made faces at Thor with all their heads, along with crude gestures.

  Hymir sat down at the table once more. “See?” he said to Thor. “I didn’t think you were strong enough to break my cup.” He held up the cup, and his wife poured beer into it. Hymir slurped the beer. “Best beer you will ever taste,” he said. “Here, wife, pour more beer for you
r son and for his friend Veor. Let them taste the best beer there is and be sad that they will not be taking my cauldron home with them, and that they will never again taste beer this good. Also, they will be sad that I need to kill Veor now, for my cup remains unbroken.”

  Thor sat at the table beside Tyr and picked up a lump of charred whale meat and chewed it resentfully. The giants were raucous and loud, and now were ignoring him.

  Tyr’s mother leaned over to fill Thor’s cup with beer. “You know,” she said quietly, “my husband has a very hard head. He’s stubborn and thick-skulled.”

  “They say the same of me,” said Thor.

  “No,” she said, as if she were talking to a small child. “He has a very hard head. Hard enough to break even the toughest of cups.”

  Thor drained his beer. It really was the best beer he had ever tasted. He stood up and walked over to Hymir. “Can I try again?” he asked.

  The giants in the hall all laughed at this, and none of them laughed louder than Hymir.

  “Of course you can,” he said.

  Thor picked up the drinking cup. He faced the stone wall, hefted the cup once, twice, then turned swiftly on his heel and smashed the cup down on Hymir’s forehead.

  The fragments of the cup fell one by one onto Hymir’s lap.

  There was silence in the hall then, a silence broken by a strange heaving noise. Thor looked around to see what the noise was, and then he turned back and saw Hymir’s shoulders shaking. The giant was crying, in huge, heaving sobs.

  “My greatest treasure is no longer mine,” said Hymir. “I could always tell it to brew me ale, and the cauldron itself would magically brew the finest beer. Never again will I say, Brew me ale, my cauldron.”

  Thor said nothing.

  Hymir looked at Tyr and said bitterly, “If you want it, stepson, then take it. It’s huge and heavy. It takes over a dozen giants to lift it. Do you think you are strong enough?”

  Tyr walked over to the cauldron. He tried to lift it once, twice, but it was too heavy even for him. He looked at Thor. Thor shrugged, grasped the cauldron by the rim, and flipped it so he was inside it and the handles clattered at his feet.