“You have drunk well,” said Utgard-Loki; “but you need not boast.  Had it been told me that Asu-Thor could only drink so little, I should not have credited it.  No doubt you will do better at the second pull.”

Without a word, Thor again set the horn to his lips and exerted himself to the utmost.  When he looked in it seemed to him that he had not drunk quite so much as before, but the horn could now be carried without danger of spilling the liquor.  Then Utgard-Loki said—­

“Well, Thor, you should not spare yourself more than befits you in such drinking.  If now you mean to drink off the horn the third time it seems to me you must drink more than you have done.  You will never be reckoned so great a man amongst us as the AEsir make you out to be if you cannot do better in other games than it appears to me you will do in this.”

Thor, angry, put the horn to his mouth and drank the best he could and as long as he was able, but when he looked into the horn the liquor was only a little lower.  Then he gave the horn to the cup-bearer, and would drink no more.

Then said Utgard-Loki—­

“It is plain that you are not so mighty as we imagined.  Will you try another game?  It seems to me there is little chance of your taking a prize hence.”

“I will try more contests yet,” answered Thor.  “Such draughts as I have drunk would not have seemed small to the AEsir.  But what new game have you?”

Utgard-Loki answered—­

“The lads here do a thing which is not much.  They lift my cat up from the ground.  I should not have thought of proposing such a feat to Asu-Thor, had I not first seen that he is less by far than we took him to be.”

As he spoke there sprang upon the hall floor a very large grey cat.  Thor went up to it and put his hand under its middle and tried to lift it from the floor.  The cat bent its back as Thor raised his hands, and when Thor had exerted himself to the utmost the cat had only one foot off the floor.  Then Thor would make no further trial.

“I thought this game would go so,” said Utgard-Loki.  “The cat is large and Thor is little when compared with our men.”

“Little as you call me,” answered Thor, “let any one come here and wrestle with me, for now I am angry.”

Utgard-Loki looked along the benches, and said—­

“I see no man here who would not think it absurd to wrestle with you, but let some one call here the old woman, my nurse, Elli, and let Thor wrestle with her, if he will.  She has cast to the ground many a man who seemed to me to be as strong as Thor.”

Then came into the hall a toothless old woman, and Utgard-Loki told her to wrestle with Asu-Thor.  The story is not a long one.  The harder Thor tightened his hold, the firmer the old woman stood.  Then she began to exert herself, Thor tottered, and at last, after a violent tussle, he fell on one knee.  On this Utgard-Loki told them to stop, adding that Thor could not desire any one else to wrestle with him in the hall, and the night had closed in.  He showed Thor and his companions to seats, and they passed the night, faring well.