have offered to the Dwellers in Asgard?"

Old AEgir mumbled and pulled at his beard. At last he looked his guest in
the face and told why the banquet was not being made ready. The mead for
the feast was not yet brewed. And there was little chance of being able
to brew mead that would do for all, for AEgir's hall was lacking a mead
kettle that would contain enough.

When the AEsir and the Vanir heard this they were sorely disappointed.
Who now, outside of Asgard, would give them a feast? AEgir was the only
one of the Giants who was friendly to them, and AEgir could not give them
full entertainment.

Then a Giant youth who was there spoke up and said, "My kinsman, the
Giant Hrymer, has a mead kettle that is a mile wide. If we could bring
Hrymer's kettle here, what a feast we might have!"

"One of us can go for that kettle," Frey said.

"Ah, but Hrymer's dwelling is beyond the deepest forest and behind the
highest mountain," the Giant youth said, "and Hrymer himself is a rough
and a churlish one to call on."

"Still, one of us should go," Frey said.

"I will go to Hrymer's dwelling," said Thor, standing up. "I will go to
Hrymer's dwelling and get the mile-wide kettle from him by force or
cunning." He had been sitting subdued under the mocking tales that Loki
told of him and he was pleased with this chance to make his prowess
plain to the AEsir and the Vanir. He buckled on the belt that doubled his
strength. He drew on the iron gloves that enabled him to grasp Mioelnir.
He took his hammer in his hands, and he signed to the Giant youth to
come with him and be his guide.

The AEsir and the Vanir applauded Thor as he stepped out of old AEgir's
hall. But Loki, mischievous Loki, threw a gibe after him. "Do not let
the hammer out of your hands this time, bride of Thrym," he shouted.

Thor, with the Giant youth to guide him, went through the deepest forest
and over the highest mountain. He came at last to the Giant's dwelling.
On a hillock before Hrymer's house was a dreadful warden; a Giant crone
she was, with heads a-many growing out of her shoulders. She was
squatting down on her ankles, and her heads, growing in bunches, were
looking in different directions. As Thor and the Giant youth came near
screams and yelps came from all her heads. Thor grasped his hammer and
would have flung it at her if a Giant woman, making a sign of peace, had
not come to the door of the dwelling. The youthful Giant who was with
Thor greete