Once upon a time, as Loki was flying about for sport in Frigg’s falcon disguise, he was taken with a desire to see how matters stood on the estates of Geirrœd. Settling on a window ledge, he looked into the hall. Geirrœd bade one of his men take the bird captive; but this was more easily said than done, and Loki was vastly amused at the proposal. He therefore remained sitting on his perch for a while, thinking there would be time enough to escape when the man had clambered up; but when Loki wanted to fly away, his feet clung to the wall and so he was taken in the toils. Geirrœd, on examining his eyes, knew that it was no real bird, but a shape-shifter; he spoke to Loki but received no answer. Geirrœd then locked him up in a chest, where he left him for three months without food. Finally he took him out again, and Loki was compelled to reveal who he was. To save his life he promised to induce Thor to pay a visit to the farmstead of Geirrœd without his hammer, his belt of strength, or his gauntlets. It is not known how Loki managed this affair, but certain it is that Thor set forth on the journey. Loki and Thjalfi went with him. On the way Thor sojourned for a time with the Giantess Grid, who was the mother of the god Vidar and as such a friend of the Æsir. From her Thor learned that Geirrœd was a crafty Giant, with whom it was no simple matter to deal. Accordingly she made Thor a loan of a belt of strength, a pair of iron gauntlets, and her own staff, the “Grid-Staff” (Gríðarvolr; volr = staff). Thor presently arrived at the banks of a great river called Vimur, across which he was compelled to wade. Girdling on his belt, he braced himself against the current by means of the staff, while Loki held fast to the belt. By the time he had reached midstream, the water flowed over his shoulders. Then quoth Thor:
Wax no more, Vimur;
My purpose holds to wade
To the very home of the Giants.
Know this, that as thy waxing
Will wax my Æsir power,
Even as high as the heavens.
Soon he became aware that Geirrœd’s daughter Gjalp was standing astride the river where it narrowed between rocky walls, and that the swelling of the waters was her work. He picked up a boulder from the bed of the stream and threw it at her, saying, “A river must be dammed at the mouth.” The boulder found its mark, and now the current bore him so close to the bank that he was able to catch hold of a mountain ash, by the aid of which he pulled himself ashore. From this incident comes the saying, “The mountain ash is the salvation of Thor.” Thjalfi — according to a skaldic poem — had seized the thong of Thor’s shield and effected his passage in this way. When Thor arrived at Geirrœd’s house, he and his companions were lodged in a goat-house where there was but a single chair. Thor sat down in it, but soon noticed that it was being raised with him toward the roof. He thrust the Grid-Staff up against a beam and let all his weight sink heavily into the chair, whereupon there at once arose from below a great crashing and wailing; the din came from Gjalp and Greip, the two daughters of Geirrced, who had lain beneath the chair and whose backs he had thus broken. Then quoth Thor:
Once I made use
Of my Æsir might,
Yonder in the home of the Giants;
That was when Gjalp and Greip,
Daughters of Geirrœd,
Would fain lift me up to the heavens.
Now Geirrœd called Thor into the hall to make trial of his prowess in games of skill. Great fires were burning lengthwise of the room, and just as Thor passed in front of Geirrœd, the Giant picked up with his tongs a glowing bolt of iron and threw it at him. Thor caught it in his iron gauntlet and raised it aloft, but Geirrœd leaped for refuge behind a pillar. Thor hurled the bolt with such force that it went through the pillar, through Geirrœd and the wall, and then buried itself in the earth.
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