“Ho! Ho! Ho!” gasped the giant, wiping his eyes. “This is a rare meeting indeed. And now what do you say to some breakfast with the giant Skrymir?”
Setting Loki and Thialfi carefully on the ground, he untied a huge wallet which he had slung over his shoulder, and laid out small hills of bread and cheese in a wide semi-circle about him. The gods sat down opposite and opened their lunch-bag. A very merry breakfast they had of it. For between his tremendous mouthfuls, Skrymir told the biggest jokes in the world.
Finally he got up, and shaking out of his lap three or four crumbs, the size of an ordinary loaf, said that he was ready to start along. “And where are you bound?” he asked.
Thor told him a little sheepishly.
“That’s my direction too,” said Skrymir good-naturedly. “Come along with me; I’ll show you the road and carry your bag.”
And picking up their wallet with his thumb and forefinger he tucked it into a corner of his big one, which he tied up securely and slung again over his shoulder.
So they set off, Skrymir walking as slowly as he could, and the gods running like terriers at his great heels in a desperate effort to keep up with him.
At nightfall they stopped under a towering oak-tree, and Skrymir seeming suddenly tired out, stretched himself full length upon the ground. But Loki, who since breakfast had thought of nothing but supper, cried out to him that he had their bag.
Sleepily, he took his big wallet from his back and laid it on the ground beside them. “Take anything from it you wish,” said he; and, with that, fell fast asleep.
In a minute Loki had climbed to the top of the sack and begun to tug at the huge ropes that bound it. Thialfi sprang after him. But the harder they pulled, and the redder and hotter they grew, the more firmly the knots seemed to stay in place. Then Thor, tightening his magic belt, leaped up and pulled too. But the knots remained as securely tied as before.