Odd and the Frost Giants Read Free Page A

exception of Sif, my own little love. And it wanted the Sun and the Moon.”
    “If you interrupt me one more time,” said the fox, “ one more time, I will not only stop talking, but I shall go off on my own and leave the two of you to fend for yourselves.”
    The bear said, “Yes, but—”
    “Not one word.”
    The bear was silent.
    The fox said, “In the great hall of Odin sat all the Gods, drinking mead, eating and telling stories. They drank and bragged and fought and boasted and drank, all through the night and well into the small hours. The women had gone to bed hours since, and now the fires in the hall burned low and most of the Gods slept where they sat, heads resting on the wooden tables. Even great Odin slept in his high chair, his single eye closed in sleep. And yet there was one among the Gods who had drunk and eaten more than any of the others and still was not sleepy. This was I, Loki, called Sky Walker, and I was neither sleepy nor yet drunk, not even a little…”
    The bear made a noise, a small grumpy harrumph of disbelief. The fox looked at him sharply.
    “I said one word …”
    “That wasn’t a word,” said the bear. “I just made a noise. So. You weren’t drunk.”
    “Right. I wasn’t. And not-drunkenly I wandered out from the hall, and I walked, with my shoes that step on air, up to the top of the wall around Asgard, and I looked out over the wall. In the moonlight, standing beneath the wall, staring up at me, I saw the most beautiful woman anyone has ever seen. Her flesh was creamy, her hair was golden, her lips, her shoulders…perfection. And in a voice like the striking of a harp string, she called out to me. ‘Hail, brave warrior,’ she said.
    “‘Hail yourself,’ says I. ‘Hail, most beautiful of creatures,’ at which she laughed prettily and her eyes sparkled and I knew she liked me. ‘And what would a young lady of such loveliness be doing,a-wandering alone, and at night, with wolves and trolls and worse on the loose? Let me offer you hospitality—the hospitality of Loki, mightiest and wisest of all the lords of Asgard. I declare that I shall take you into my own house and care for you in every way that I can!’
    “‘I cannot accept your offer, O brave and extremely good-looking one,’ she said to me, eyes shining like twin sapphires in the moonlight. ‘For although you are obviously tall and powerful and extremely attractive, I have promised my father—a king who lives far from here—that I will not give my heart or my lips to any but he who possesses one thing.’
    “‘And that one thing is?’ says I, determined to bring her anything she named.
    “‘Mjollnir,’ says the maiden. ‘The Hammer of Thor.’
    “Hah! Pausing only to tell her not to go anywhere, my feet flew, and like the wind I rushed to the great hall. They were all asleep, or so drunk it made no never mind. There was Thor, sleeping in a drunken stupor, his face on the gravy-covered wooden trencher, and hanging from his side, his hammer. Only the nimble fingers of Loki, wiliest and cleverest, could have teased it from the belt without waking Thor—”
    At this, the bear made a deep noise in the back of its throat. After glaring at it for a moment, the fox said, “Heavy it was, that hammer. Heavier than people dream. It weighed as much as a small mountain. Too heavy to carry, if you are not Thor. And yet, not too much for my genius. I took off my shoes, which, as I said, can walk on the air, and I tied them, one to the handle and one to the head. Then I snapped myfingers and the hammer followed me.
    “This time I hurried to the gates of Asgard. I unbarred them and I walked through—followed, I do not need to tell you, by the hammer.
    “The maiden was there. She was sitting on a boulder and she was weeping.
    “‘Why the tears, O loveliness itself?’ I asked.
    “At that, she looked up at me with a tear-stained face. ‘I weep because once I saw you, great and noble lord, I knew I could