he travels much, but while the chief God generally goes craftily and
in disguise, to gain knowledge or test his wisdom, Thor's errands are
warlike; in _Lokasenna_ he is absent on a journey, in _Harbardsljod_
and _Alvissmal_ he is returning from one. His journeys are always
to the east; so in _Harbardsljod_: "I was in the east, fighting
the malevolent giant-brides.... I was in the east and guarding the
river, when Svarang's sons attacked me." The Giants live in the
east (_Hymiskvida_ 5); Thor threatened Loki: "I will fling thee up
into the east, and no one shall see thee more" (_Lokasenna_ 59);
the fire-giants at Ragnarök are to come from the east: "Hrym comes
driving from the east, he lifts his shield before him.... A ship
comes from the east, Muspell's sons will come sailing over the
sea, and Loki steers" (_Völuspa_ 50, 51). It would not, perhaps,
be overstraining the point to suggest that this is a reminiscence of
early warfare between the Scandinavians and eastern nations, either
Lapps and Finns or Slavonic tribes.

Thor is the God of natural force, the son of Earth. Two of the
episodical poems deal with his contests with the giants. _Thrymskvida_,
the story of how Thor won back his hammer, Mjöllni, from the giant
Thrym, is the finest and one of the oldest of the mythological poems;
a translation is given in the appendix, as an example of Eddic poetry
at its best. Loki appears as the willing helper of the Gods, and Thor's
companion. The Thunderer's journey with Tyr in quest of a cauldron
is related with much humour in _Hymiskvida_: Hymi's beautiful wife,
who helps her guests to outwit her husband, is a figure familiar in
fairy-tales as the Ogre's wife.

The chief God of the Scandinavians is, it must be confessed, an
unsympathetic character. He is the head of the Valhalla system;