Still no answer.
“Was ever there such a stupid bird? Indeed, like the people of Midgard, you seem to have no wisdom,” sneered Loke. And determined to vent his evil mood, he seized a branch and began to beat the bird.
Then a strange thing happened. The bird, who all this time had seemed so stupid—too stupid even to fly away—now seized upon the bough and held it fast. Loke pulled and pulled with all his godlike strength. He could not move it; it was as if held in the grasp of a giant.
“Stupid bird!” sneered Loke, when he found he could do the bird no harm. “I will not stay in the tree with such a stupid creature.”
A strange sound—almost like a laugh of triumph—squeezed itself out from the beak of the big bird.
“Go, Loke, go at once. Go back to Asgard; or perhaps you would like to go with me to Jotunheim,” spoke the bird at last. And as he spoke, he spread his wings, and arose high in the air. Alas, alas for Loke, as the bird rose, he rose too; nor could he free himself. He screamed, he fought, he begged, he strove with all his godlike arts to free himself, but all in vain.
On, on they flew, the bird and Loke, across the sky, over and under and between the clouds, across the great wide sea, at last across the snow-white peaks, down, down to a castle in Jotunheim, in the land of the mighty Frost giants, the terrible, the dreaded enemies of the gods.
“Let me free! Let me free!” foamed Loke, struggling against the bird, whose magic held him fast.
“I will never let you free,” answered the bird, throwing off his disguise and standing forth a giant foe; “I will never let you free except on one condition.”
“I grant it! I grant it! Whatever it is, I grant it,” cried the coward, caring for nothing but to free himself.