ORIGIN OF "JACK THE GIANT-KILLER."


[Illustration: Letter A.]

After various adventures, Thor, accompanied by Thialfi and Loke, his
servants, entered upon Giantland, and wandered over plains--wild
uncultivated places--among stones and trees. At 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 voices alarmed them. Thor grasped his hammer, and stood in the
doorway, 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, who had
his suspicions, did not like the ways of Skrymir, and 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 thunderbolt blow, of force to rend