As he spoke, Skrymir took his great sack from his back and plucked it open with one pull at the huge knot. Picking out the wallet of the gods, he laid it on the ground; and flourishing his enormous cap about his head, by way of good-by, he went leaping off toward the hills. The gods watched him, speechless, till he was out of sight. One moment his huge form rose clear against the blue sky as he jumped over a mountain range; the next, it was lost to view on the other side.
Loki turned trembling to the other gods. “Let us turn back,” he cried. “I am not going on to be laughed at in Giantland.” Then his eye caught the wallet. Diving for it, he tore it open, and the starving gods fell to. There was only a mouthful apiece, but it gave them new courage.
Thor brandished his hammer. “Go back? Never!” he cried. “On we travel to Giantland. They shall yet learn to know the great god Thor!”
Thialfi sprinted ahead along the marvelous white road, and Loki, more ravenous than ever, pelted after.
Suddenly, the road turned sharply upward. The gods climbed, panting. There in the distance, beyond the hill-top, gleamed a tremendous palace, all of ice. Immense icicles made its pillars, and its frosty pinnacles glittered above the clouds. In the sunlight it shone with a thousand rainbows.
Thialfi stopped. Straight before him flashed the palace gate, each great icicle-bar blazing back the sun. For a moment he paused, dazzled. Then he saw that wide as the huge bars were, wider still were the spaces between them. He walked through, arms outstretched, without touching on either side. Thor and Loki followed along the glittering ice-roadway to the palace.
Up and down in front paced two giant sentinels, their heads erect and their great eyes peering out through the upper air. The tiny gods slipped unnoticed by their very feet, and into the great hall of the giant king.
Around the sides sat giant nobles on benches as high as hills, and at the end the king himself on his towering throne. Blinding light flashed from the floor, the ceiling, the walls. But the gods did not quail. Proud and straight, they passed unremarked down the center of the hall.
Before the throne Thor stopped, and dashed his hammer on the floor. The vast hall resounded and the giants rose to look.
Thor drew himself up. “I am the great god Thor,” he cried, “whose hammer cleaves the clouds and shakes the sky. I come to demand the homage of the giants.”