The myth of Thor’s journey to the land of giants is an interesting one to be certain. Every religion and culture has their share of myths and fables for how the world came to be the way it is now, but in Norse mythology Thor is one of the big names that tends to be involved in quite a few things. During one such tale he, a human servant, and his brother Loki were traveling to the land of the giants. Along the way they met a giant that said he would gladly carry their provisions in his sack. However, when the group stopped to rest Thor became hungry and could not open the sack to retrieve something to eat. He attempted to wake the giant but even with his mighty hammer Mjolnir he couldn’t wake the giant up. The next day the giant departed, and the trio went on their way to the land of the giants to meet with their king.
The king gave the three a challenge to prove that they were the best at a particular skill. Loki claimed to be the world’s fastest eater, and was able to show his blinding speed at consuming a long trough of food. Unfortunately the servant that the king summoned was far more adept at eating as he not only consumed the flesh and the bones of the meal, but the trough as well. The next challenge was for the human, who could outrun anything or anyone in the wild. When the giant king summoned another servant however the human was left in the dust. On the second try he came close to beating the servant, but on the third he wasn’t even close. This brought the next challenge to Thor.
Thor was given three challenges. The first was to drain a giant drinking horn, as the king said his people could do so in two gulps. Thor took three gulps, but could only hope to lower the level of the drinking horn just a little before he had to stop. The next challenge involved wrestling one of the giants after Thor demanded to do so. The king gave him an old woman to wrestle, but try as he might Thor could not bring her to the ground, and in the end she brought him to a knee. The last challenge was for Thor to pick up the king’s cat, which was as tall as Thor. While he did try his hardest however the cat merely shifted and made it impossible for Thor to get more than one paw off of the ground. The three were defeated, but upon being shown to the gates the king revealed the ruse.
Loki’s opponent was wildfire, which consumes everything it touches. The human’s opponent was the very essence of thought, which cannot be outrun by action. Thor could not defeat the old giant since she represented old age, which not even a god can outrun. The drinking horn was filled with the ocean, which Thor drained enough to cause the tides. The cat was the serpent that encircles the world, which caused a shift thanks to Thor’s efforts. The giant they met along the way to the kingdom was the king in disguise, and the hammer blows that were deflected created rifts and valleys thanks to Thor. So in truth, the illusions that were used against them caused the trio to push themselves harder than ever before, and in doing so to change the world.
Kind of inspiring isn’t it?
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