"That was the time of which I told you, Jarl Keith, when surprise and treachery almost enabled the Jotuns to conquer us. The Jotuns, led by Loki and aided by the hellish forces his science devised, would have overcome us had I not used my own scientific powers to defeat Loki's and had we not all fought valiantly. We repelled the Jotuns with great slaughter."
Thor grinned and nodded, but his giant face reddened with hatred as Odin continued.
"Defeated, Loki fled with his wolf and serpent into the labyrinth of caves in Midgard. We followed him to the cave in which he hid, but Loki, in his extremity, bargained cunningly for his life. Loki called out to us: 'I have an instrument which can destroy all Asgard and the Aesir, by loosing the sea upon the atomic fires of Muspelheim. Unless you agree to spare my life, I will use that secret and you will all perish with me.'"
"'We agree then to spare your life, Loki,' I answered. 'You have our pledge, if you surrender that deadly instrument.' Loki surrendered the instrument to me. And then I told him: 'We agreed to spare your life, Loki — but that is all! Though you shall remain alive, you will no longer be a menace to us, for we shall prison you eternally in this cave to which you fled.'
"And we did that to Loki, Jarl Keith. We cast him into a state of suspended animation by filling his cave with a gas whose scientific secret I had discovered. That gas paralyzed the functions of the body by freezing, but left the mind conscious as ever. Into that waking, frozen sleep we cast Loki and his two hideous pets. Then we closed that cave forever with a door that was not of metal or stone, but of invulnerable force.
"That wall of energy was a screen of vibrations controlled by the generator inside a tiny projector. You, Jarl Keith, have that projector — the rune key! Only the rune key can unlock the door of Loki's cave-prison. Until it is unlocked, Loki must lie there with his two dreadful familiars in suspended animation.
"But though Loki's body lies frozen, his mind is awake and active, and he seeks by mental forces to free himself. We had given the wardership of the rune key to Odur, husband of Freya, one of our greatest jarls. Loki's mind worked from afar upon Odur by telepathic command, attempting to force the keeper of the key to release Loki.
"Fearing that Loki's telepathic orders might some day succeed, I commanded Odur to take the rune key and travel to the great ocean far outside icy Niffleheim, and fling it into the deepest sea. Then, I thought, Loki would not be able to bring the key back into Asgard, and would never manage to escape his doom. Odur took the rune key and went beyond the ice of Niffleheim, and flung the key into the ocean as I bade.
"But before he could return across the ice, Odur and his wife Freya and their party were lost. I think now that they reached the lands of your outer world, and that their tales of the Aesir and Asgard started the myths you mentioned, Jarl Keith. But we thought ourselves safe, with the rune key resting in the ocean deeps far outside Asgard.
"For even did a stranger chance to find the key in some future day, the runes upon it would warn him. In case he could not read the runes, the key was constructed to telepath a constant thought message. He would receive a constant mental warning to get rid of the key."