“This is Thor, the god of Thunder,” he sneered: “and so small are you that you can creep through the bars of our gateway, pass unnoticed by our sentinels, even into the very presence of the king!”
Then Utgard-Loke—for this was the king’s name—threw back his head and laughed until the whole earth shook; trees were uprooted, and avalanches of ice and snow, pouring down into valleys, buried hundreds of the little people of Midgard.
Thor clenched his hammer. He dared not thunder; even his lightnings were as nothing in this great palace hall and before the terrible voice of the Utgard-king.
“But perhaps you are greater than you look,” continued the king, roaring again at his own wit. “Tell me what great feats you can accomplish; for no one is allowed entrance to this castle who cannot perform great deeds.”
“I can perform great deeds—many of them,” boasted Loke, nowise abashed, even in the presence of the terrible king. “I can eat faster than any creature in Midgard, in Utgard, or even in Asgard, the home of the gods.”
Again the king roared; and, placing before him a great wooden trough heaped high with food, he commanded his servant Loge to challenge Loke to the contest.
But alas for Loke, although the food disappeared before him like fields of grain beneath the scythe of steel, yet before the task was half begun, Loge had swallowed food, and trough, and all!
The king roared louder still; and Loke, never before beaten by giant power, shrank away, angry and threatening.
“But I,” said Thjalfe, “can run. I can outrun any creature that lives on land or sea.”
Then Thjalfe was placed beside a tiny little pigmy—Huge he was called; but hardly had they run a pace before Huge had shot so far ahead that Thjalfe, crestfallen, went and hid himself behind the great ice pillar that stood outside the castle gate.