all gods and mortals will die. The situation is deadlocked.
Loki returns to Asgard, so the myth goes, and tells Freyja to put on her
wedding attire for she is (alas!) to wed the king of the giants. Freyja is furious,
and says people will think she is absolutely man-crazy if she agrees to marry
a giant.
Then the god Heimdall has an idea. He suggests that Thor dress up as a
bride. With his hair up and two stones under his tunic he will look like a
woman. Understandably, Thor is not wildly enthusiastic about the idea, but he
finally accepts that this is the only way he will ever get his hammer back.
So Thor allows himself to be attired in bridal costume, with Loki as his
bridesmaid.
To put it in present-day terms, Thor and Loki are the gods’ “anti-terrorist
squad.” Disguised as women, their mission is to breach the giants’ stronghold
and recapture Thor’s hammer.
When the gods arrive at Jotunheim, the giants begin to prepare the
wedding feast. But during the feast, the bride—Thor, that is—devours an
entire ox and eight salmon. He also drinks three barrels of beer. This
astonishes Thrym. The true identity of the “commandos” is very nearly
revealed. But Loki manages to avert the danger by explaining that Freyja has
been looking forward to coming to jotunheim so much that she has not eaten
for a week.
When Thrym lifts the bridal veil to kiss the bride, he is startled to find
himself looking into Thor’s burning eyes. Once again Loki saves the situation
by explaining that the bride has not slept for a week because she is so excited
about the wedding. At this, Thrym commands that the hammer be brought
forth and laid in the bride’s lap during the wedding ceremony.
Thor roars with laughter when he is given the hammer. First he kills
Thrym with it, and then he wipes out the giants and all their kin. And thus the
gruesome hostage affair has a happy ending. Thor—the Batman or James
Bond of the gods—has once again conquered the forces of evil.
So much for the myth itself, Sophie. But what is the real meaning behind
it? It wasn’t made up just for entertainment. The myth also tries to explain
something. Here is one possible interpretation:
When a drought occurred, people sought an explanation of why there
was no rain. Could it be that the giants had stolen Thor’s hammer?
Perhaps the myth was an attempt to explain the changing seasons of
the year: in the winter Nature dies because Thor’s hammer is in jotunheim.
But in the spring he succeeds in winning it back. So the myth tried to give
people an explanation for something they could not understand.
But a myth was not only an explanation. People also carried out religious
ceremonies related to the myths. We can imagine how people’s response to
drought or crop failure would be to enact a drama about the events in the
myth. Perhaps a man from the village would dress up as a bride—with stones
for breasts—in order to steal the hammer back from the giants. By doing this,
people were taking some action to make it rain so the crops would grow in
their fields.
There are a great many examples from other parts of the world of the
way people dramatized their myths of the seasons in order to speed up the
processes of nature.
So far we have only taken a brief glimpse at the world of Norse