Imprisoned lay the giant snake,
With naught his sullen sleep to break.”
Thor’s Fishing, Oehlenschläger (Pigott’s tr.).
Baiting his powerful hook with the ox head, Thor angled for Iörmungandr, while the giant meantime drew up two whales, which seemed to him to be enough for an early morning meal. He was about to propose to return, therefore, when Thor suddenly felt a jerk, and began pulling as hard as he could, for he knew by the resistance of his prey, and the terrible storm created by its frenzied writhings, that he had hooked the Midgard snake. In his determined efforts to force the snake to rise to the surface, Thor braced his feet so strongly against the bottom of the boat that he went through it and stood on the bed of the sea.
After an indescribable struggle, the monster’s terrible venom-breathing head appeared, and Thor, seizing his hammer, was about to annihilate it when the giant, frightened by the proximity of Iörmungandr, and fearing lest the boat should sink and he should become the monster’s prey, cut the fishing-line, and thus allowed the snake to drop back like a stone to the bottom of the sea.
“The knife prevails: far down beneath the main
The serpent, spent with toil and pain,
To the bottom sank again.”
Thor’s Fishing, Oehlenschläger (Pigott’s tr.).
Angry with Hymir for his inopportune interference, Thor dealt him a blow with his hammer which knocked him overboard; but Hymir, undismayed, waded ashore, and met the god as he returned to the beach. Hymir then took both whales, his spoil of the sea, upon his back, to carry them to the house; and Thor, wishing also to show his strength, shouldered boat, oars, and fishing tackle, and followed him.