Tales of Valhalla by Martyn Whittock & Hannah Whittock

Author:Martyn Whittock & Hannah Whittock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2018-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

15

Thor and Tyr fetch a giant cauldron from Giantland, and Loki insults the gods and goddesses in the hall of Aegir

THIS STORY IS found in the collection known as the Poetic Edda, in a section known as Hymir’s Poem. When the gods decide to hold a great feast, they force the giant Aegir to prepare the beer. He, in turn, demands a giant cauldron in which to brew the beer. This belongs to the giant Hymir and so the gods Thor and Tyr set off into Giantland to get it. In this great trial of strength, Thor is helped at crucial moments by a giant-woman. The adventure contains a version of the fishing trip for the Midgard serpent that is also found in The Tricking of Gylfi, that is preserved in the Prose Edda (for a shorter version, see Chapter 7). It also contains a version of the laming of Thor’s goat (also see Chapter 7) but in Hymir’s Poem this, rather confusingly, is placed at the end of the story and is not fully explained. It is probable that it originally was placed earlier in the poem (as in the version in the Prose Edda). To better make sense of this story, that is where it is placed here and it is expanded on (using information from the Prose Edda) in order to make better sense of the story than survives in the manuscript of the Poetic Edda.

The journey into Giantland is followed by a story called Loki’s Quarrel. In this poem, the troublemaking trickster-god, Loki, forces his way into the hall of the gods and insults every god and goddess in turn. His insults are only halted when Thor returns from journeying into Giantland and threatens the troublemaker with his great hammer. The story is complex in the original, for the poem suggests that Loki was never invited to the feast and gate-crashed it; whereas a prose introduction (also in the original manuscripts) explains that Loki was expelled for killing a servant but later returned to disrupt the event. It is likely that either there were two traditional stories (that became awkwardly combined) or that the writer of the prose introduction did not fully understand the emphasis in the (possibly earlier) poetic tradition. Here, we reconcile the two accounts.

The quarrelling includes references to many other stories that are found elsewhere in this book.

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