And lo! when Loki came thereto he found Thrym the Giant King sitting outside his palace cave, playing with his dogs and horses.  The dogs were as big as elephants, and the horses were as big as houses, but Thrym himself was as huge as a mountain; and Loki trembled, but he tried to seem brave.

“Good-day, Loki,” said Thrym, with the terrible voice of which he was so proud, for he fancied it was as loud as Thor’s.  “How fares it, feathered one, with your little brothers, the AEsir, in Asgard halls?  And how dare you venture alone in this guise to Giant Land?”

“It is an ill day in Asgard,” sighed Loki, keeping his eye warily upon the giant, “and a stormy one in the world of men, I heard the winds howling and the storms rushing on the earth as I passed by.  Some mighty one has stolen the hammer of our Thor.  Is it you, Thrym, greatest of all giants—­greater than Thor himself?”

This the crafty one said to flatter Thrym, for Loki well knew the weakness of those who love to be thought greater than they are.

Then Thrym bridled and swelled with pride, and tried to put on the majesty and awe of noble Thor; but he only succeeded in becoming an ugly, puffy monster.

“Well, yes,” he admitted.  “I have the hammer that belonged to your little Thor; and now how much of & lord is he?”

“Alack!” sighed Loki again, “weak enough he is without his magic weapon.  But you, O Thrym—­surely your mightiness needs no such aid.  Give me the hammer, that Asgard may no longer be shaken by Thor’s grief for his precious toy.”

But Thrym was not so easily to be flattered into parting with his stolen treasure.  He grinned a dreadful grin, several yards in width, which his teeth barred like jagged boulders across the entrance to a mountain cavern.

“Mioelnir the hammer is mine,” he said, “and I am Thunder Lord, mightiest of the mighty.  I have hidden it where Thor can never find it, twelve leagues below the sea caves, where Queen Ran lives with her daughters, the white-capped Waves.  But listen, Loki.  Go tell the AEsir that I will give back Thor’s hammer.  I will give it back upon one condition—­that they send Freia the beautiful to be my wife.”

“Freia the beautiful!” Loki had to stifle a laugh.  Fancy the AEsir giving their fairest flower to such an ugly fellow as this!  But he only said politely, “Ah, yes; you demand our Freia in exchange for the little hammer?  It is a costly price, great Thrym.  But I will be your friend in Asgard.  If I have my way, you shall soon see the fairest bride in all the world knocking at your door.  Farewell!”

So Loki whizzed back to Asgard on his falcon wings; and as he went he chuckled to think of the evils which were likely to happen because of his words with Thrym.  First he gave the message to Thor—­not sparing of Thrym’s insolence, to make Thor angry; and then he went to Freia with the word for her—­not sparing of Thrym’s ugliness, to make her shudder.  The spiteful fellow!