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~ Heathen Stories and New Myths ~
The Wedding of Thor
In the days before the forging of Mjollner, Thor was renowned as a slayer of
Jottuns,
unmatched by Vanir, Ettin or troll in battle or in duel. He was ever
alone.
While Odin had sweet Frigga for his own, and Loki the seducer had two
wives and many mistresses,
Thor himself had found no goddess, elf, or mortal to
win his heart.
In those days none was more travelled than Loki, for he alone
ranged at will in places held by god or Jottuns both.
When Thor sat in his hall
brooding over his troubles, Loki teased him, seeking to learn his troubles.
“What gives you the black look, Red-beard?” Loki asked. “Your brow gets any lower, it will be lost in your beard!”
When Loki’s jibes got no answer, he sat upon the bench with his kinsmen and asked in seriousness,
“Come Thunderer, what trouble has left you so quiet?”
In a rush, Thor spoke of his failure to find a wife who
would fill his heart with joy, his hall with strong sons
and proud daughters.
When he was finished, Thor looked hard at Loki, as if daring him to laugh.
After
a few moments, Loki seemed to have a thought. He began to speak of a maiden in
far of Jottunheim, named Sif.
Daughter of a mighty father, and a wise-woman
mother, she was of the ancient Jottun blood but fair beyond all words.
Loki
spoke of her hair soft as corn silk, golden as summer wheat that fell in braids
like streams of honey.
Loki spoke of her snowlike skin, her ice blue eyes, and
her proud yet gentle bearing, and as he wove his word-spell
the fire lit within
the eyes of the Thunderer, until his eyes blazed like his beard.
With a shout he
was off around his hall Bilskirnir, shouting for his servants to ready his cart
and his mighty goats.
In his finest raiment, filling a chest with the finest of
his treasures as guest gifts and promise of richer bride tokens,
Thor set out at
once for Jottunheim.
At the hall of Sif, Thor found that he was not alone in
wooing her, for Utgard-Loki also sought her fair hand.
When Thor offered to
fight for her, Sif said that her kinsmen had been driven from the fertile fields
and into the rocky mountain fastness by endless battle, that she could not be
won by more of the same.
Sif demanded that each suitor prove his worth and
commitment by a contest.
In a voice soft and calm as the wind in the tall grain,
she spoke thus to her suitors:
“I am a maiden alone, without household. As my
mother taught me to cook for my mighty father,
I have prepared a feast. To no
lesser god or ettin could I wed myself, so to he who can eat my father´s portion,
and drain my father´s horn, shall have me to wife.”
Utgard-Loki towerd above Thor,
his massive thews coiled with golden arm rings, his cloak of seamless soft fur
thrown back to reveal a chest the size of a bear. He laughed at the test and
boasted:
“I am best of Jottuns, rich chieftain of famed table. All the nine
worlds know that my feasts know
no equal.
You will find me a mightier man at the table than this red-bearded
stripling.”
Thor scowled, ill pleased he could not settle this with hard strokes, but in no way willing to be bested by any ettin.
“Second to no ettin, god or wight at table or battle both, I will win thee for my own, fair Sif!” he vowed.
In the central firepit hung two roasting giant auroch, easily seven feet at the
shoulder.
The sweet smell of their sizzling fat hung heavy in the hall, and with
a right good will
did Utgard-Loki step up and seize the first. Biting with his
bearsized jaws, he swore as his strong teeth failed.
“Too long we waited for this boasting Aesir to come, this meat has gone tough as old bone!”
He threw the auroch aside and laughed:
“In my hall you will never cook, for I have full hundred thralls.”
Sifs eyes looked coldly upon the discarded aurochs, and upon the smirking Jottun.
She turned to Thor to see how he would respond.
“In Bilskirnir hall right gladly will I eat any fare from your hand, and at your call will be servants
of better mettle than his whipped thralls", answered Thor as he stepped to his aurochs.
With his matchless arms he raised his aurochs, although it weighed more than a ship.
With iron jaws he chewed the auroch, although for so fair a maiden and so famed a cook,
the meat was hard as stone! Bite after bite did Thor chew, gnawing here and there upon the beast
until he could eat no more. For all that Thor staggered backwards with the beast only showing
a few meagre holes, Sif smiled full fair upon him.
Sif held forth a great horn, almost an amphora.
“This is my father’s mead horn, and he who drains it dry shall find my favour.”
Utgard-Loki again seized first chance, and raised the cup in his two great hands and began to guzzle.
With a startled oath he spat on the floor crying,
“Too salty! In my hall have I have sisters thrice who brew fine mead, that never will you have to drink such a bitter cup!”
Utgard-Loki’s boasts again left Sif unmoved.
Sif turned to Thor as if daring him to do better.
With a right good will the
Stormbringer raised the cup to his beard and manfully drew deep.
In truth it was
bitter with salt, but with her soft eyes upon him the Aesirman would not yield
and swallowed full until his blood hammered in his ears like the breaking surf,
and he could
no more wait for breath. With a gasp he handed back the horn, and
lay panting upon the floor of the great hall.
Utgard-Loki laughed to see the
Jottun-bane laid low, and demanded, since each suitor had failed
the tests,
that she find another way to choose between them.
Sif’s blue eyes
blazed like lightning in a summer storm, and her voice rang hard and bold as a
sword upon a shield boss:
“Not so,” she proclaimed. “For the aurochs each were
given were the mountains my Jottun kinsmen have been driven into.
Thor alone had
the will to chew great fjords to bring my people safe harbours, swift travel,
and bountiful catches.
For this gift he has found my favour.”
Utgard-Loki scowled as he saw the son of Jord swell with rising hope.
The Jottun sought to win back the favour he had lost by a matching offer:
“My halls overflow with gold, and were you mine, I would send great ships of wealth to your kinsmen’s harbours.”
Sif was unmoved by this offer, and she replied. “My kinsmen are no
beggars, and no one can feast on gold.
While you found the horn I brought too
bitter, Thor alone had the will to drink deep until he could hold no more.
This
horn holds not beer or mead but Ran’s own ocean. Where Thor has drained the seas
do my kinsmen find
rich lands now fertile that in the summer will hang heavy
with golden grain. For this he will find my favour, and my hand.”
With right good
will did Thor and Sif make their pledges, and no Aesir, Vanir or Jottun could
claim aught
but that his bride gifts were rich and fair, and that his oaths to
Sif were so fairly pledged and firmly held
that ages later would bride-grooms
place a hammer in their bride’s lap as a token that they would be as true as
Thor.
For all that Loki was not always welcome in the halls of his kinsmen, ever
would Sif treat him fair as the one who sent her bridegroom to her.
Utgard-Loki neither forgot nor forgave Thor's winning of the fair Sif, and
indeed there would come a time
when he would seek to challenge the matchless Aesir to another battle of wits,
but that is a story for another day.
© John T Mainer
This work by John T Mainer is licensed
under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License.
The Freyr's
Press of the
Heathen Freehold Society of BC:
Kindertales and
Kindertales
2
by John T Mainer et al.