nightfall they noticed a house; and as the door, which indeed formed one
whole side of the house, was open, they entered. It was a simple
habitation; one large hall, altogether empty. They stayed there. Suddenly
in the dead of the night loud noises alarmed them. Thor grasped his
hammer; stood in the door, prepared for fight. His companions within ran
hither and thither in their terror, seeking some outlet in that rude hall;
they found a little closet at last, and took refuge there. Neither had
Thor any battle: for, lo, in the morning it turned out that the noise had
been only the _snoring_ of a certain enormous but peaceable Giant, the
Giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably sleeping near by; and this that they took
for a house was merely his _Glove_, thrown aside there; the door was the
Glove-wrist; the little closet they had fled into was the Thumb! Such a
glove;--I remark too that it had not fingers as ours have, but only a
thumb, and the rest undivided: a most ancient, rustic glove!

Skrymir now carried their portmanteau all day; Thor, however, had his own
suspicions, did not like the ways of Skrymir; determined at night to put an
end to him as he slept. Raising his hammer, he struck down into the
Giant's face a right thunder-bolt blow, of force to rend rocks. The Giant
merely awoke; rubbed his cheek, and said, Did a leaf fall? Again Thor
struck, so soon as Skrymir again slept; a better blow than before; but the
Giant only murmured, Was that a grain of sand? Thor's third stroke was
with both his hands (the "knuckles white" I suppose), and seemed to dint
deep into Skrymir's visage; but he merely checked his snore, and remarked,
There must be sparrows roosting in this tree, I think; what is that they
have dropt?--At the gate of Utgard, a place so high that you had to "strain
your neck bending back to see the top of it," Skrymir went his ways. Thor
and his companions were admitted; invited to take share in the games going
on. To Thor, for his part, they handed a Drinking-horn; it was a common
feat, they told him, to drink this dry at one draught. Long and fiercely,