“What a crash of thunder! So quick, so sharp!” cried the earth-people; for they did not know it was a cry of rage from Thor.
“Loke,” thundered Thor again. “Put you on wings. Go you to the home of the Frost giants and bring back my hammer. Some one of them has stolen it. Go! Go! I say.”
And Loke, who had been a very obedient servant to Thor since his theft of the golden hair of Sif, put on the magic wings and fled away.
“What brings you here in the land of the Frost giants?” growled Thrym, as Loke alighted before him.
“I have come for the hammer you have stolen from Thor,” answered Loke boldly, seeing at once, from the jeering look in Thrym’s eye, that he was the thief.
FREYJA IN HER CHARIOT.
“You will never find it,” sneered Thrym. “It is well hidden; but I will send it back to you if Odin will send me Freyja for my wife.”
Loke begged and coaxed and threatened; but it was all of no avail. “Never,” bellowed Thrym, “until you send Freyja to me.”
“She shall go,” thundered Thor, when Loke came back to Asgard. “Whatever the price, the hammer must be brought back. Asgard is not safe without it.”