een it
myself I should never have believed it. For one end of that horn reached
the sea, which thou wast not aware of, but when thou comest to the shore
thou wilt perceive how much the sea has sunk by thy draughts. Thou didst
perform a feat no less wonderful by lifting up the cat, and to tell thee
the truth, when we saw that one of his paws was off the floor, we were
all of us terror-stricken, for what thou tookest for a cat was in
reality the Midgard serpent that encompasseth the earth, and he was so
stretched by thee that he was barely long enough to enclose it between
his head and tail. Thy wrestling with Elli was also a most astonishing
feat, for there was never yet a man, nor ever will be, whom Old Age, for
such in fact was Elli, will not sooner or later lay low. But now, as we
are going to part, let me tell thee that it will be better for both of
us if thou never come near me again, for shouldst thou do so, I shall
again defend myself by other illusions, so that thou wilt only lose thy
labor and get no fame from the contest with me."

On hearing these words Thor in a rage laid hold of his mallet and would
have launched it at him, but Utgard-Loki had disappeared, and when Thor
would have returned to the city to destroy it, he found nothing around
him but a verdant plain.

265

One of the very best sources for the stories of
Norse mythology is the little book called
_Norse Stories_, by Hamilton Wright Mabie
(1846-1916). (Edited by Katherine Lee Bates,
and published by Rand McNally & Co., Chicago.
Copyright, and used here by permission.) It
reads well as a connected story and the
versions follow closely the originals as found
in the ancient Eddas. In his introduction Mr.
Mabie comments upon those who made these
stories, in language that suggests something of
the value of the stories to us: "They thought
of life as a tremendous fight, and they wanted
to acquit themselves like men; enduring
hardship without repining, doing hard work
honestly and with a whole heart, and dying with
their faces toward their foes. Their heaven was
a place for heroes, and their gods were men of
heroic size and spirit." Of the subject of the
following myth it has been said, "Odin had no
less than two hundred names, as, Father of the
Ages, Father of Hosts, F