quired what great feat Thor and his companions
could do. One professed to be a great eater; on which the king of giants
called one of his servants named Logi, and placed between them a trough
filled with meat. Thor's companion ate his share, but Logi ate meat and
bone too, and the trough into the bargain, and was considered to have
conquered. Thor's other companion was a great runner, and was set to run
with a young man named Hugi, who so outstripped him that he reached the
goal before the other had gone half-way. Then Thor was asked what he could
do himself. He said he would engage in a drinking-match, and was presented
with a large horn, and was requested to empty it at a single draught,
which he expected easily to do, but on looking in the liquor seemed
scarcely diminished. The second time he tried, and lowered it slightly. A
third, and it was still only sunk half an inch. Whereupon he was laughed
at, and called for some new feat. "We have a trifling game here,"
answered the king, "in which we exercise none but children. It is merely
to lift my cat from the ground." Thor put forth his whole might, but could
only lift up one foot, and was laughed at again. Angry at this, he called
for some one to wrestle with him. "My men," said King Utgard, "would think
it beneath them to wrestle with thee, but let some one call my old nurse
Eld, and let Thor wrestle with her." A toothless old woman entered the
hall, and after a violent struggle Thor began to lose his footing, and
went home excessively mortified. But it turned out afterward that all this
was illusion. The three blows of the mallet, instead of striking the
giant's head, had fallen on a mountain, which he had dexterously put
between, and made three deep ravines in it, which remain to this day. The
triumphant eater was Fire itself, disguised as a man. The successful
runner was Thought. The horn out of which Thor tried to drink was
connected with the ocean, which was lowered a few inches by his tremendous
draughts. The cat was the great Midgard Serpent, which goes round the
world, and Thor had actually pulled the earth a little way out of its
place; and the old woman was Old Age itself[329].

According to this mythology, there is coming a time in which the world
will be destroyed by fire and afterward renewed. This will be, preceded by
awful disasters; dreadful winters; wars, and desolations on earth; cruelty
and deceit; the sun and moon will be devoured, the stars hurled