All day long the chariot wheeled on and on, the children never tiring, until, at nightfall, they found themselves upon the shores of the country of the Frost giants.
Plunging into a deep forest, they hurried through and came out into a great plain beyond. Here they found a house, the very doors of which were as high as the mountains and as broad as the broadest river.
“We will rest here,” said Thor, and, spreading the great skins which they found near the doorway, they made for themselves beds, and soon were fast asleep.
At midnight they were awakened by a terrible roar. The whole house shook with its vibrations. Thor, seizing his hammer in his strong right hand, strode to the door. The whole earth trembled, but in the darkness even Thor could not see beyond the doorway.
Hour after hour he stood there, listening. Slowly, at last, the dawn began to come; the sun rose, and there, just at the edge of the forest, Thor saw the outstretched body of a giant, whose head was in itself a small mountain, and whose feet stretched away into the valley below.
“And it is you, then, that have rocked the very earth with your giant snores, and have taken from me my night of rest,” thought Thor, when he saw the giant form stretched out before him.
With one angry stride Thor reached the side of the sleeping giant. Raising his hammer a full mile into the air, he smote the giant full upon the skull, with a crash that sounded like the fall of a mighty oak.
“What is that?” asked the giant, opening his sleepy eyes. “Indeed, Thor, are you here? Something awoke me. I think an acorn must have dropped upon my head,” said the giant, gathering himself to rise.
“Go to sleep again,” growled Thor; “it isn’t morning yet. I am going to sleep myself.”
A few minutes and the snores of the giant rang through the air again.