Thor – Hindsight

In the Nick

SIF STRODE OUT TO THE COURTYARD. Ash trees leaned over the wall, leaves quivering in the breeze and casting speckled shadows across banquet table and gilded chairs. “Bryn,” Sif called. “Have you seen my husband?”

A dark-haired young woman looked up from the dagger she was whetting. “No. What has he done this time?”

Sif tossed her golden tresses. “Do I look upset? Just curious. See what I found in the household treasure chest!”

Sif set out a board and markers

“A hnefatafl game,” Bryn said, sheathing her dagger. “Made of gold! Has he been dealing with the dwarves again?”

“I don’t know. None of my jewels are missing, so he must have won this some other way. Play a round?”

*photo of a hnefltafl game board and pieces, by Vinicius “amnx” Amano on Unsplash*

The two women tossed a golden die to see who would field a king and defenders, and who would man the attacking army. Bryn’s thin lips sharpened into a predatory smile. She gathered up her game pieces. “I have yet to lose when I invade.”

Sif bristled. “I have yet to lose when I defend. Feel like wagering on the outcome of our game?”

After much dickering the two agreed on their stakes. A magnificent ruby on Sif’s part, and on Bryn’s, the pick of the loot from her next foray to Midgard.

The golden die rolled on the banquet table’s inlay, chiming like a bell. The players placed their pieces, one by one. Bryn made her moves with swift sure steps, her attackers clicking like talons on bone. Sif took longer on her turns, sliding the defenders with the softest of whisks.

Sif lost ground, then regained it. Bryn cursed, and songbirds scattered.

Footsteps tromped about inside the hall, and a voice thundered, “By Odin, what thief dares break into my chest?”

“Out here, husband dear,” Sif called. “No one’s stolen anything. I found it and came looking for you, but thought I’d give it a–“

“Fool woman, put that down!”

Sif scowled at the hulking redbeard in the doorway. “It can wait a moment. I’m just two steps from winning–“

“No, you’re not.” The Valkyrie Brynhildr rose with an invader piece in hand. “Because I’m just one step from–“

Thor whirled his hammer, though he did not release.

Brynhildr staggered back, and the game piece went flying.

“Put,” Thor shouted, “those–pieces–down!” With each word-blast he stomped a great stride across the courtyard.

Both women meekly obeyed.

“Now gather them back to the starting positions,” he ordered.

High above Asgard an eagle screamed. Two ravens circled Odin’s watchtower. A squirrel nattered in the ash branches.

Thor listened to the tidings, then turned to his wife. “This board came from the Norns, the spinners of fate. Your idle game here set in motion a war in the world of mankind. We nearly lost our greatest flock of adherents! But truce has been called, in the nick of time.”

Sif sniffed. “Men and their toys!”

Early 20th century painting of Valhalla — *“Walhall,” about 1905, by Emil Doepler (1855-1922)*

Loosely based on Norse mythology. The Old Norse played hnefltafl, a distant cousin of chess. Attackers and defenders had different numbers of playing pieces, and the board was marked with areas of refuge or blockade.

artwork: early 20th century century painting. Public domain info here.

Thursday

Thorsday

[Poor Thor! He doesn’t get a book in this trilogy.]

[Check in tomorrow for Part 3: Freysday]

Wednesday

Odinsday: A Trilogy of Days, Part 2

*(I don’t remember the source of this painting!)*

THOR: Why am I the odd man out? I want a book in the trilogy, too!

Odin: You’ve got fame blazing in your footsteps. I’m not letting you outshine me here. After all, I’m the All-Father. You’re just my hammerhand.

***

“Kvasir told me he’d help on a poem when next he came to Valhalla,” Frigg told her husband. “But it’s been months and no one has seen him.”

“I’ll go look.” Odin climbed to his throne at the top of Yggsdrasil. He gazed down on all the nine worlds: the lands of fire and ice, low down the branches of Yggsdrasil; the worlds of giants and dwarves, elves and trolls in the middle boughs; Midgard, home to humankind. Nowhere did he see Kvasir, wisest of the wise.

“That’s strange,” murmured the All-Father, scratching his beard, wishing for his missing eye. Sometimes he regretted trading it for a drink from the well of wisdom.

Still, his one good eye had never failed before. No sign of Kvasir in his own Asgard, or in Vanaheim, either — land of his former foes and current allies, the Vanir. It was the very truce between the two realms that had brought about the creation of Kvasir.

Odin’s raven Memory flapped down to perch near his ear. “Kvasir. Dead,” the gossip-gatherer croaked.

“That explains why I can’t see him,” Odin grumbled.

“Slain by dwarves.”

“What?!”

Thought landed nearby. “Dwarves brew Kvasir’s blood into mead,” the other raven cackled.

“How dare they?” Odin raged. “Where are the vermin?”

“Brooding. No more brew. Giant stole magic mead.”

“What giant?”

“Suttung, by Hnitbjörg. He hide mead in vault, deep under mountain. Makes daughter guard, night and day.”

Odin stalked back to Valhalla, gave orders, then set off for the realm of giants. There he shifted his shape into a towering ogre and made his way to the shadow of Hnitbjörg.

Hillsides trembled, landslides rumbled. Odin found a giant stamping in a rage. “What ails you, Suttung?”

The fellow glowered. “Strangers mistaking me for my lout of a brother, for one. For another, my nine thralls lie dead in the field they were reaping. How am I supposed to get my harvest in?”

“What a shame.” Odin had just passed through that field. He’d offered a prize to the quickest thrall. They’d all leaped to prove themselves – and, bearing newly sharpened sickles, they’d sliced each other’s necks by accident. “One of me is as good as nine thralls. I’ll reap your fields, if when done you persuade your brother to give me a drink of his mead.”

“Hah! Good luck at that. He’s a miser.”

“Surely you could talk him into it.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to try, I suppose.”

* * *

Odin slaved all summer, single-handedly brought in the whole harvest. “Now to see Suttung,” he reminded Baugi, the brother.

They tramped to Hnitbjörg. Suttung proved as miserly as Baugi had warned.

“No! I never share even a drop,” Suttung roared, and drove them off.

Baugi shrugged. “See? No chance.”

“You owe me,” Odin said. “At least lead me to the stretch of mountainside above the hidden vault. Perhaps there’s a way to break in.”

“Not likely, so no harm done in trying.” Baugi led the way over ridge and gully to a cliff.

“Here?”

Baugi nodded, made to leave.

“Take this,” Odin ordered, drawing a long augur from hiding, “and drill into the rock. At least get me a whiff of mead.”

Baugi chuckled and set to drilling. After two tries, he broke through.

“Many thanks!” Odin said, transformed into a serpent, and squirmed into the hole.

“Trickster!” shouted Baugi, jabbing with the auger. He missed.

Odin slid into a rocky chamber, coiled, and glanced all around.

A tall, lovely giantess sat upon a golden chair, watching over two huge jugs and a cauldron.

Odin flicked his serpent’s tongue, tasting honey and blood and wisdom on the dank air of the cavern.

The giantess sat with crossed arms. Sleek, graceful arms – rippling with strength beyond Odin’s own. Time to use cunning rather than might.

In his dark corner, Odin shifted shape again. He became a tall, broad-shouldered, comely giant. He stepped from the shadows and smiled, lighting the chamber with his glamour.

The lonely maiden forgot all about the treasure she was meant to guard.

* * *

For three days and three nights Odin wove his silken net of enchantment around Gunnlod until at last she agreed to let him take a sip from one jug. From two. From all three.

But with each sip, he drained the contents.

Odin shifted to an eagle’s shape, launched himself, and sped through the tunnels and passageways, seeking the entrance.

Suttung saw him flash past, heard Gunnlod’s wail, saw in a snap what had happened. He roared his rage, leaped up, transformed into a second eagle, and set out in pursuit.

Odin’s mighty wings beat up a storm as he fled back to Asgard, Suttung howling along in his wake.

In the distance Odin saw the walls of Valhalla. His people came thronging to the ramparts, following his order, bringing pots and barrels.

Suttung’s breath ruffled Odin’s tail feathers. They hurtled through the air, closing on the wall, closing on each other.

Odin came in range. In great gouts, he spewed the mead into the cauldrons of Valhalla.

Suttung screamed in defeat and wheeled away. The wind caught some last spatters of mead and blew it to ground outside the walls.

Exhausted, Odin landed. His folk surrounded him with cheers and delight as he lay panting, too weary to shape-shift back to his own form.

One pot-lugging drudge, face drenched with mead-splatter, broke out in majestic skald-praise.

“The mead of poetry,” Frigg marveled, setting down her cauldron, examining her wet fingers. She licked them one by one. “Kvasir will help me with my poem after all.”

* * *

It is said that those who scavenged the drippings beyond the walls gained only the dregs of poetic skill.

Based on Old Norse mythology

Tuesday

Tỷrsday: A Trilogy of Days, part 1

*(I don’t remember the source of the artwork!)*

THOR: Why don’t I get a book in the trilogy?

Tỷr: Because there are only three books in a trilogy. You’re the odd man out.

* * *

For the third time that day, Tỷr herded an ox into the outer compound. Servants unbarred the heavy byre doors. Tỷr goaded the ox inside, followed close behind. Doors thundered shut behind him.

Odors of death and decay. The ox balked, then bawled, scuffled, swung around to flee.

Huge jaws snapped. Bones crunched. An oxtail fell to the moldering straw.

“Will that keep you?” Tỷr asked from shelter.

A deep rumble answered. “For nowwww.” From the shadows overhead a great snout lowered. Two eyes large as shields fixed on Tỷr. “At daybreak, three dairy cows.”

“Very well. Until tomorrow.” Tỷr slipped through a narrow side exit, shuddered, and headed for Valhalla.

A raven wheeled down from above and perched on a gable along Tỷr’s route, eyeing the strapping war-leader of the Aesir. “Kråk,” it muttered.

“Something must be done about that spawn of yours, Loki,” the champion said, not breaking stride. “Our herds grow thin.”

The raven burst in a flurry of feathers, and the shape-shifting Trickster hopped down to amble at Tỷr’s side. “What gave me away?”

“The ravens hereabout make wiser comments than that.”

Loki guffawed. “But you missed the prime clue. My brute of a son has grown a ravening appetite, hasn’t he?”

“Ha.”

“You tire of feeding him? Set him loose. No one says he must be kept like a lap dog.”

“Oh ja. The worlds will thank us for setting Fenrir loose to devour everyone and everything.”

“You’re all fools to pamper him.”

“Fools, hmm? Who was it begot the monster, then left it for others to tend?”

“You should have cast the newborn pup out. Day of birth, day of death.”

“Your fatherly instincts stagger me.” Followed by Loki, Tỷr entered the great meadhall of Valhalla. Voices rang. The other Æsir and several Vanir clamored like a rookery of ravens.

“Can’t sleep with that beast howling every night!”

“He keeps trying to dig his way out. We’ve had to heap boulders around three sides of the byre already.”

“He stinks worse than a herd of horses, which belong in the byre anyway. I’m tired of trekking halfway to the bridge to fetch my mount.”

They rounded on Tỷr. Loki had conveniently vanished. Gone altogether? Or transformed into a fly?

“How many oxen today?” Odin demanded.

“Three.”

“Cast him into the sea with his brother,” someone called.

Freyja protested. “He’d scour the islands of all life!”

“Banish him to Nifleheim. Let the frost giants deal with him.”

“He’d make one of them a fine huge cloak.”

Odin struck the ground with his staff, silencing the others. “We can’t kill him, and we can’t set him free. We must find a way to bind him before he breaks out.”

“He’s burst every rope, every fetter, every halter.

“He’s snapped every chain we’ve tried, even the hulking big shipyard ones.”

A new voice broke in. “You haven’t tried this chain.”

Heads tipped to look downward. The large folk cleared a circle around a dwarf.

Thor snorted. “You call that a chain? Looks like a thread. A lamb could snap it.”

“Try.”

Thor snatched the thread and yanked, then yanked again.

Freyr joined in, then Thjalfi. Sif, Freyja, Frigg, and the valkyries grabbed one end, their pleated gowns swishing, key rings jangling, while the warriors hauled on the other end.

All the might of Valhalla could not snap one delicate little chain.

“What have you forged here?” Odin asked, squinting his one good eye at the silken cord he handled.

The dwarf chuckled. “Made from the roots of a mountain, the noise of a moving cat, the breath of a fish.”

“Unseen. Unfelt.” Odin hummed a moment. “Power hidden deep. It might just work.”

“Ah, but who’s going to bell this cat?” Frigg asked.

“Cat?” Thor asked. “I thought we were talking about Fenrir. He’s a wolf.”

Many eyes rolled.

Thor’s wife Sif turned to look at Tỷr. “You’re the one who feeds him,” she said.

“Ja,” Freyr said. “He trusts you.”

Tỷr muttered, “But do I trust him?”

* * *

“Why?” roared Fenrir.

Tỷr stood before the monstrous wolf with the silken cord draping hand to hand. “Well, if you’re afraid of a wisp of cobweb–” He let his arms droop.

Fenrir narrowed his eyes at Tỷr. “Not afraid. Stronger than stone, I am. Stronger than bone. Stronger than the hardest bronze. But smell something odd.”

Tỷr shrugged. “I used it to toy with Frigg’s chariot-cats.” He turned.

The great snout wedged itself between Tỷr and the barred exit. “Why?”

“We Æsir do a thing just to do it. No ‘why.'”

Fenrir growled long and loud. “Don’t trust tricky Æsir.”

“We’re not all like your father.”

“I grip hand between my teeth, you try your cobweb leash.”

Peril of perils! Tỷr’s thoughts whirled. Treachery begets betrayal, the old saying went. But someone had to rein in the monster. “Very well,” he said, holding out his left arm.

“The other,” Fenrir snarled.

Tỷr gave one hesitant blink, then held out his sword arm.

In a fume of foul breath, teeth like jagged tree stumps clenched on his forearm. Tỷr writhed to ease the angle while Freyr and Thor stepped up and slung the dwarf’s chain around the massive, thick-pelted neck, higher than they could reach. “See?” Tỷr asked, his voice as squeaky as a maiden’s. “Lighter than a snowflake.”

Freyr and Thor tightened the loop, cinched it, cleated it around a post.

Fenrir gave one shake of the head. Half a shake, snapped taut by the chain. The post groaned but held.

The wolf’s eyes widened in surprise, angled, slitted in fury. He chomped down hard.

* * *

All that night, the monstrous wolf howled in fury, and the one-armed champion, in pain. Tỷr’s sacrifice bought the worlds safety to last until the day of Ragnarok.

A retelling of Old Norse mythology

published on 2/22/22 — a truly twos-day!

Rivals

COME IN, COME IN!” boomed the king of Utgard, realm of giants.

Thjalfi followed Thor and Loki into the enormous hall, gazing in awe at the pillars that soared overhead to a distant roof lost in smoke and shadow.

“Before we feast,” boomed the giant king, “give us a show of your rumored skills, mighty Thor. We’ve heard such tales. Let us see your prowess. First, a footrace.” The giant’s mocking gaze fell on Thjalfi.

The youngest of the Æsir bowed. Never had he lost a race. He would do his companions proud.

A knock-kneed imp joined him. At the king’s mark, the two of them set off running.

Thjalfi put on his greatest burst of speed, but the imp tagged the halfway point and returned before the young Æsir had taken a dozen strides. Thjalfi staggered back to his companions, shoulders slumped in shame.

Loki the voracious Trickster-god set to an eating contest, and lost just as quickly.

The king gave Thor three challenges. Empty a huge drinking horn, pick up a small gray kitten, and wrestle an old woman.

Thor, the mightiest of all the Æsir, failed miserably. Thjalfi didn’t feel so distraught about the footrace as he watched the shrunken old hag force his friend to his knees.

The king and his fellows laughed like a thunderstorm, then beckoned their guests to table.

Loki ate not a thing, his belly still swollen from his failed attempt to out-eat his rival. Thor turned down the ale-horn offered by a lumbering giantess. His thick red beard still dripped with water from the drinking contest. Thjalfi picked at his food, miserable with failure.

Early 20th century painting of two kings. — *“Kings,” 1909, by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875-1911)*

The next morning, Utgard’s king escorted his guests out of his hall and set them on their path back to Asgard. “Don’t be so down-hearted, little Æsirlings,” he boomed. “You may have lost every challenge, but you didn’t see your rivals for what they were. Pardon my jesting, but it made such fun sport!”

“What do you mean?” Thor asked, crossing arms.

The king waved his meaty hand and laughed. “It’s a subtle magic I weave. I blind your eyes to true nature. Young Fleetfoot here–” He patted Thjalfi on the back, which sent the young Æsir flying through the air. “–raced against Thought itself.”

“That imp?” Thjalfi asked in astonishment as he picked himself up.

“Loki my friend, your rival in the eating contest? It was Fire — which consumes all things as no living creature can.”

Loki snarled.

Scowling, Thor put hand to hammer. “The drinking horn? The water level hardly changed after three huge swallows!”

“The sea.”

“The little gray kitten?”

“The World Serpent.”

“The stooped hag who sent me to my knees?”

The giant guffawed. “That, my hearty friend, was Old Age.”

Thor’s ruddy face turned redder than ever, and he whirled his mighty hammer, Mjolnir. “By Asgard’s snow-tipped peaks, I’ll smash your head in, you trickster!”

But the giant vanished, leaving nothing behind except the thundering echo of his laugh.

from the Prose Edda

artwork: 19th century painting: in the public domain, according to these sources:

wikiart: “This artwork is in public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or less.”

wikipedia: “This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.”

{{PD-US-expired}} : published anywhere (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before 1926 and public domain in the U.S.