Now you can imagine the horror that was in Asgard as the AEsir listened to Loki’s words.  “My hammer!” roared Thor.  “The villain confesses that he has stolen my hammer, and boasts that he is Thunder Lord!  Gr-r-r!”

“The ugly giant!” wailed Freia.  “Must I be the bride of that hideous old monster, and live in his gloomy mountain prison all my life?”

“Yes; put on your bridal veil, sweet Freia,” said Loki maliciously, “and come with me to Jotunheim.  Hang your famous starry necklace about your neck, and don your bravest robe; for in eight days there will be a wedding, and Thor’s hammer is to pay.”

Then Freia fell to weeping.  “I cannot go!  I will not go!” she cried.  “I will not leave the home of gladness and Father Odin’s table to dwell in the land of horrors!  Thor’s hammer is mighty, but mightier the love of the kind AEsir for their little Freia!  Good Odin, dear brother Frey, speak for me!  You will not make me go?”

The Asir looked at her and thought how lonely and bare would Asgard be without her loveliness; for she was fairer than fair, and sweeter than sweet.

“She shall not go!” shouted Frey, putting his arms about his sister’s neck.

“No, she shall not go!” cried all the Asir with one voice.

“But my hammer,” insisted Thor.  “I must have Mioelnir back again.”

“And my word to Thrym,” said Loki, “that must be made good.”

“You are too generous with your words,” said Odin sternly, for he knew his brother well.  “Your word is not a gem of great price, for you have made it cheap.”

Then spoke Heimdal, the sleepless watchman who sits on guard at the entrance to the rainbow bridge which leads to Asgard; and Heimdal was the wisest of the AEsir, for he could see into the future, and knew how things would come to pass.  Through his golden teeth he spoke, for his teeth were all of gold.

“I have a plan,” he said.  “Let us dress Thor himself like a bride in Freia’s robes, and send him to Jotunheim to talk with Thrym and to win back his hammer.”

But at this word Thor grew very angry.  “What! dress me like a girl!” he roared.  “I should never hear the last of it!  The Asir will mock me, and call me ‘maiden’!  The giants, and even the puny dwarfs, will have a lasting jest upon me!  I will not go!  I will fight!  I will die, if need be!  But dressed as a woman I will not go!”

But Loki answered him with sharp words, for this was a scheme after his own heart.  “What, Thor!” he said.  “Would you lose your hammer and keep Asgard in danger for so small a whim.  Look, now:  if you go not, Thrym with his giants will come in a mighty army and drive us from Asgard; then he will indeed make Freia his bride, and, moreover, he will have you for his slave under the power of his hammer.  How like you this picture, brother of the thunder?  Nay, Heimdal’s plan is a good one, and I myself will help to carry it out.”