THRYM’S LAY

(Þrymskviða)

1 Thor woke enraged when he felt

his hammer, Mjollnir, missing.
Beard bristling, back hair hackled
Earth’s number-one-son groped

2 about his crow-feather cot then belted

out, “Loki! let your ear hear this, no
earthling or Valhallian knows my woes
My God-given tool’s been taken.”

3 Post-haste they ran to Freya’s place.

Face-first through her gates Thor wept,
“Freya, I must borrow your raven wing cape
so Loki can fly to find my poor Mjollnir.”

Freyja replied:
4 If my cape were silver-sewn and brocaded
gold, or solid gold and sequined silver, I wouldn’t
blink twice when you look that good.

5 Loki turned the cloak over his shoulders

to soar, feathers fifing over the Æsir’s ground
and into the Giant’s high-walled compound.

6 There the Lord-of-Ogres, Thrym, sat acrown

a gravemound, grooming his mare’s mane
and braiding golden halters for his hounds.

Thrym said:
7 Loki, what brings you here by your lonesome?
Are the Æsir okay? Are the elves alright?

Loki answered:
8 Well the Æsir and the elves are both a little red.
You don’t, by chance, have Thor’s magic mallet?

Thrym said:
9 Why yes! I do! I mean, I did. But I hid his hammer
in this very mound I’m squatting on. Loki,
it’s safe to say Thor’s mallet won’t see
the light of day unless Freyja weds me down.

10 Loki threw himself to the air and flew,

Freyja’s cloak fully fanned and hissing
through headwinds, over the Gargantulands,
arriving back in the inner sanctums of the Æsir
 where Thor had worn a trench, pacing in wait.

And Thor said:

11 Don’t land my feathered fiend. Hover a bit.
For, once sitting, you’re liable to forget,
and so lie down, and thus, be prone to lying.
Have we won?

Loki said:
12 Well, it didn’t go so well. That ogre Thrym
has your man-hammer and he’s drowned it
a handful of fathoms in a mound. He won’t
bring it up until he’s wedlocked to Freyja.

13 So, those two went to see fair Freyja

and, once there, Thor ordered, “Strap on
your bridal veil. The two of us must
race post-haste to the Gargantulands.”

14 Freyja bent her head back and wailed

a gale-scaled screech, gutting halls and dells,
until her Brising necklace blew and beaded
over the floor: “I’ll not be that slut!”

15 So, all the Æsir were called to assembly

and all the Gods and Goddesses debated,
how could Thor and Loki get Mjolnir back?

16 Bleach-blanched Heimdall, who, like the Vanir,

is gifted with the plight of foresight, lisped,
“Why don’t we strap a veil over Thor’s face?
We’ll restring the Brising on his thick throat

17 and let the wedlock keys ting ’round his waist,

and fit a skin-tight dress from his neck to knees,
and loop crystal gems ’cross his chest!
Topping him off with a lily hat paler than me!”

18 Thor retorted, “If I strap on that veil

and don that jewelled dress, you’ll all call me
a cock-tucking, cross-dressing he-she.”

19 But the son of Laufrey, we know as Loki, replied,

“Tuck your lip and listen to me, we must untomb
Mjolnir or the Giants will trash all Asgard.”

20 So, from throat to knobby knees, Thor was decked

in a dress. On his neck they hung a high-strung
Brising, while ‘round his waist wedlock keys sung
cast iron songs, and on the foothills of his chest clung
diamonds. With a bridal veil covering his face,
they finished him off with a lily-white hat, bleached
 lighter than Heimdall himself.

21 Laufrey’s son, Loki then said to Thor, “I’ll be

beside you as your right hand maid. We’ll dart
arm in arm in your goat-drawn cart,
galloping to the Gargantulands in pomp.”

22 Thor’s cart was brought in high-stepping trot,

and his palms quickly lapped up the reins.
He goaded those billys full out, until the earth
blazed and the mountains spread themselves.

23 Eying their approach, Thrym barked,

“Up an’ at ‘em Ogres, straw the benches.
That daughter of Niord, from Noatun, Freyja,
my bride-to-be, gains hard on our great gate.

24 I have pit-black oxen and gold-crowned

cows, my stables are stocked with enough
and then some; gems, jewels, and pearls,
but I’ve not one, not a one, Freyja!

25 At the first sign of evening dawning

the Ogres tapped some ale. Thor ate
an entire Ox, eight salmon, and all
the desserts baked for a lady’s lady,
before sucking back three casks of mead.

26 “Whoa!” Thrym cheered, “I’ve never eyed

a lovely packing it back, or spied a lass
with such a broad bite! And I’ve never
been near a broad inhaling that much beer!”

27 The could-be bride’s maid chimed in time,

“She was so smitten to sidle next you that
she has not supped for eight long nights.”
(She cooed this with the finest of finesse.)

28 Endeared, Thrym bent to raise the veil

and kiss his hungry miss, but fell backwards
off the bench and sprinted down the hall in fear,
“Why are Freyja’s eyes like cloud-high pyres?”

29 But the maid in drag beside the bride-to-be

answered promptly, “Freyja didn’t sleep
for eight whole nights, so eager to be entered
into your Gargantuan hands.”

30 At that moment Thrym’s sister arrived

and began to scavenge her gifts from the bride,
“I’ll take those gold rings from your fat fingers—
but only if you fancy my too-true love.”
31 Thrym, the Ogre Lord, ignored her, “It’s time
to sanctify my bride. Bring in Mjollnir and lay
that meat mallet on this lovely’s lap, and by
the hand of Var, consecrate our too-true unison.”

32 Thor’s heart burst like a keg of laughs when he

felt Mjollnir brush his thick thighs. In one fluid go
he pivoted, piloting its blunt right through Thrym,
halving him to two. Then one by one, he mashed

33 everyone but his drag-queened maid.

And instead of the gold ring bride-gifts
she had pined for, Thrym’s sister won Mjollnir
riding through her burst pink brains.

And that is how Thor got his hammer back.

* Published in Grain Magazine 36.4, 2009.