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ox, eight huge salmon, and all the cakes and sweets provided for the women, washing down these miscellaneous viands with the contents of two barrels of mead. The giant bridegroom watched these gastronomic feats with amazement, whereupon Loki, in order to reassure him, confidentially whispered that the bride was so deeply in love with him that she had not been able to taste a morsel of food for more than eight days. Thrym then sought to kiss the bride, but drew back appalled at the fire of her glance, which Loki explained as a burning glance of love. The giant's sister, claiming the usual gifts, was not even noticed; wherefore Loki again whispered to the wondering Thrym that love makes people absent-minded. Intoxicated with passion and mead, which he, too, had drunk in liberal quantities, the bridegroom now bade his servants produce the sacred hammer to consecrate the marriage, and as soon as it was brought he himself laid it in the pretended Freya's lap. The next moment a powerful hand closed over the short handle, and soon the giant, his sister, and all the invited guests, were slain by the terrible Thor. "'Bear in the hammer to plight the maid; Upon her lap the bruiser lay, And firmly plight our hands and fay.' The Thunderer's soul smiled in his breast; When the hammer hard on his lap was placed, Thrym first, the king of the Thursi, he slew, And slaughtered all the giant crew." Thrym's Quida (Herbert's tr.). Leaving a smoking heap of ruins behind them, the gods then drove rapidly back to Asgard, where the borrowed garments were given back to Freya, much to the relief of Thor, and the AEsir rejoiced at the recovery of the precious hammer. When next Odin gazed upon that part of Joetun-heim from his throne Hlidskialf, he saw the ruins covered with tender green shoots, for Thor, having conquered his enemy, had taken possession of his land, which henceforth would no longer remain barren and desolate, but would bring forth fruit in abundance. Thor and Geirrod Loki once borrowed Freya's falcon-garb and flew off in search of adventures to another part of Joetun-heim, where he perched on top of the gables of Geirrod's house. He soon attracted the attention of this giant, who bade one of his servants catch the bird. Amused at the fellow's clumsy attempts to secure him, Loki flitted about from place to place, only moving just as the giant was about to lay hands upon
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