l were asleep, he thought, he would take one of the bones that were
in the skins above him, and break and gnaw it.

So in the dead of the night the lad stood up on the bench and took down
the goatskins that Thor had left so carefully there. He took out a bone,
broke it, and gnawed it for the marrow. Loki was awake and saw him do
this, but he, relishing mischief as much as ever, did nothing to stay
the lad.

He put the bone he had broken back in the skins and he left the skins
back in the hole above the fireplace. Then he went to sleep on the
bench.

In the morning, as soon as they were up, the first thing Thor did was to
take the skins out of the hole. He carried them carefully out to the
hollow where he had left the goats standing. He put each goatskin down
with the bones in it. He struck each with his hammer, and the goats
sprang up alive, horns and hoofs and all.

But one was not as he had been before. He limped badly. Thor examined
the leg and found out that one bone was broken. In terrible anger he
turned on the peasant, his wife, and his son. "A bone of this goat has
been broken under your roof," he shouted. "For that I shall destroy your
house and leave you all dead under it." Thialfi wept. Then he came
forward and touched the knees of Thor. "I did not know what harm I did,"
he said. "I broke the bone."

Thor had his hammer lifted up to crush him into the earth. But he could
not bring it down on the weeping boy. He let his hammer rest on the
ground again. "You will have to do much service for me for having lamed
my goat," he said. "Come with me."

And so the lad Thialfi went off with Thor and Loki. Thor took in his
powerful hands the shafts of the chariot of brass and he dragged it into
a lonely mountain hollow where neither men nor Giants came. And they
left the goats in a great, empty forest to stay resting there until Thor
called to them again.

Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi went across from Midgard into
Joetunheim. Because of Mioelnir, the great hammer that he carried, Thor
felt safe in the Realm of the Giants. And Loki, who trusted in his own
cunning, felt safe, too. The lad Thialfi trusted in Thor so much that he
had no fear. They were long in making the journey, and while they were
traveling Thor and Loki trained Thialfi to be a quick and a strong lad.

One day they came out on a moor. All day they crossed it, and at night
it still stretched far before them. A great wind was blowing, night was