Travelling on and on, through many days and many nights, Thor and his companions came to a great castle. Its pinnacles reached far up among the clouds, and its great gateways were broad even like the horizon itself.

In between the bars crept Thor and Loke and the children Thjalfe and Roskva.

“Let us enter the castle,” said Thor grimly. “It must be the palace of the king—the Utgard-Loke—whose threats have defied even the All-wisdom and the All-power of the mighty Odin.”

At these words the walls of the castle trembled. The pillars of frost and the great arches of ice glittered and glistened. Thjalfe and Roskva grew white with fear. “We hear your voice,” thundered Thor; “but we have no fear of you even though you shake the castle walls until they fall. And behold, we dare come into your very presence, thou terrible king of Utgard!”

The great king showed his glittering teeth. His brow grew black with rage.

“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.

And now Thor rose to his feet and drew himself up to his greatest height; but even that seemed as nothing compared with the enormous stature of the Utgard-king. He clenched the hammer tightly and thundered as never he had thundered before. The tiny fringe of icicles trembled. Then Utgard-Loke laughed; and with his thunder the whole castle rocked and reeled.

“And will Thor contest with the power of Utgard?” asked the king. “I will,” roared Thor, and there was a fire in his eye that even Utgard shrank before.

But Utgard only roared in turn and brought to Thor a great horn, filled to its brim with sparkling water.

“Drink,” said he; “and if one half the power is yours that Odin claims, you will empty the horn at a single draught.”

Thor seized the horn. One long, deep draught, such as no mortal, no giant, nor even another god could have drawn—and the horn was hardly one drop less full.

The king roared till the icicles and the fringes of frost, swaying and rocking beneath the thunder, fell with a crash upon the palace floor.

“Can the great god Thor boast no greater power than that? Once more, thou greatest of all the sons of Odin—once more lift the horn in thy mighty hands and show us the greatness of the gods of Asgard.”

Thor, stung by the sneer of the Utgard-king, raised the horn again to his lips; and calling upon the name of Odin and all the gods of the shining city, drank again. Higher and higher he raised the horn, deeper and deeper drew he the draught. But alas, again, when the horn was lowered, the waters were no lower than before.

“You seem not so great as we the frost giants have believed,” said the king with a cold sneer.

Thor’s anger rose. His blood boiled with rage and fury. With a burst of thunder and a flash of lightning that shattered the pillars of the great hall, he seized the horn again. Three long hours passed. Utgard-Loke trembled with fear and dread; for never for one second had the angry god taken the horn from his lips. “The ruin of the Utgard kingdom is come,” he groaned. “There is no hope for victory over such a god. The horn—even the magic horn—will fail before the might of this fierce and awful Thor, the god of Thunder.”

Then Thor lifted the horn from his lips. Defiance flashed from his eye. The king of the Frost giants trembled. Both looked into the horn. Alas for Thor! Even now hardly could it be counted one quarter emptied. Darkness gathered over the strong god’s face. Courage sprang into the eyes of the king. “Let not your valor fail you,” said the king, taking the horn from the hand of Thor. “You are great—you have proved it, in that you have, even in so small a degree as this, emptied the horn from which none but a god could have quaffed one drop. It is only that your greatness is less than you have boasted, and less than we have believed it to be.”

“I will not stand defeated,” thundered Thor. “Bring before me another challenge. I will not go forth until the giants of Utgard have indeed known and felt the power of Thor, the god whose lightnings rend the skies, and whose thunders rock the very mountains of the earth.”

“Once more, then, shall you contend for power,” said the Utgard-king. “And this time with Elle, the toothless giant of endless years, before whose power bend all the strongest sons of Midgard, and before whom, in some far off day, even the gods of Asgard shall bow as powerless as the children of Midgard.”

Thor sprang upon the giant Elle. Like a demon of the under world he fought, and for a time even this All-conquering giant swayed before the wild madness of his bursts of thunder, and his crashing, hissing bolts of fire. But alas for Thor! Even his godlike strength was doomed to fail him. He trembled; his sight vanished; a strange chill settled over him, and he sank, conquered, before the power of the giant Elle.

And now the night had fallen upon the land. The light had faded from the mountain tops; and the chill of night was in the frosty air. Exhausted, the great god wrapped himself about and sank into heavy sleep. And his dreams were of great battles, of terrible foes, and of the last great day which, sometime in the ages to come, should fall upon the city of the gods, and in which even the power of Odin should fail, and the light go out from all the earth. All night long these dreams haunted the great heart of Thor; and in the morning the people in Midgard said, “It was a strange night. Through all the hours of darkness, the thunders rolled in the distance, and the pale lightnings flashed among the mountain peaks beyond the seas.”

In the morning, even with the first rays of light, Thor, with Loke and Thjalfe and Roskva, set forth upon their journey homeward. There was a terrible blackness upon the face of Thor, and the thunders rumbled deeply. Never before had Thor known the bitterness of defeat, and he returned to Asgard and to Odin sick at heart.

“Lose not thy courage, Thor,” said the All-wise. “Know that thou art not even now defeated in any test of true strength. Utgard-Loke has triumphed to be sure; but even he trembles now, and has closed the doors of his castle, and has set thousands upon thousands of sentinels to watch against thy return.

“The horn from which thou didst drink reached far down into the depths of the sea; and the people of Midgard even now throng the shores and wonder what power in heaven or in earth can so have shrunken the great waters of the sea.

“Loge, with whom Loke contended, was none less than Wild Fire; and Huge was Thought itself. Even the gods, even Odin himself, with these would but contend in vain. And Elle—it is indeed as Utgard-Loke said—no power in heaven itself can equal hers. She is the all-powerful, the never-failing, the ever-present Old Age. All the people of the earth, all the gods of Asgard—aye, even the Earth and Asgard must one day fall before her mighty will. That you contended even as you did, has driven terror deep into the hearts of the cruel Frost giants; nor do they doubt that you are the terrible god of Thunder, the greatest of all the sons of Odin.”