The marriage of Njord & Skadi

The Gods were celebrating. Idun had returned to the hall and the giant Thjazi had been slain. This called for a great feast and celebration. There was mead and meat, cake and balloons. Well…maybe not balloons, but you get the idea.

Thor was on his 11th horn of mead when the doors to the hall burst open, and in stormed a giantess, armed to the teeth with as many weapons as she could carry. It was Skadi, come to seek revenge for the death of her father, Thjazi.

Thor was up and ready, mjolnir in hand. But Loki stood between them.
‘Skadi. Beautiful, young Skadi. Come, have a drink with us. Join the party’ said Loki.

‘Why would I do that?’ Asked Skadi ‘You killed my father’

‘Yes, that was a..er, misunderstanding. We have a gift….GIFTS for you though’

‘Gifts? For me? No one ever gives Skadi gifts.

Odin stepped forward, holding out his hands, open palmed, revealing Thjazi’s eyes. He cast them into the sky, where they became two stars, forever shining in the night sky. ‘Your father will forever be looking down, and watching over you.’

Next up several attempts were made by a number of the gods to make Skadi laugh, but she looked much less than impressed. That was until Loki grabbed a rope, tied one end to a goat and the other end to his, erm… manhood. What followed was one of the most painful games of tug of war that anyone has ever witnessed. Loki screamed and howled as he pulled and pulled until finally, he landed in Skadi’s lap.
Skadi snorted, then sniggered, before falling onto the floor in fits of laughter.

‘Right’ said Odin. ‘One last gift. You can marry one God, of your choosing’.

‘I choose Baldur then’ said Skadi

‘Not so fast, Skadi. I wasn’t finished. A God of your choosing – but you must pick by his feet alone’.

This will be easy thought Skadi, I can easily choose Baldur and his beautiful feet. ‘Fine’ she said.

The Gods all hid behind a curtain, with just their feet visible along the bottom.

One set of legs stood out from the rest. Beautiful, manly, muscular legs. ‘It’s him, my beautiful Baldur’ cried Skadi.

But it wasn’t. It was the sea god Njord.

‘You tricked me!’ cried Skadi

‘Be wise with yours words Skadi. You wouldn’t want your marriage to get off on the wrong FOOT’ laughed Loki.
And so it was that Skadi the giantess married Njord, god of the sea. 

They lived for a while at Skadi’s home in the mountains. A place named Thrymhelm. But Njord could not stand the long, cold, dark nights. Most of all he loathed the sounds of the wolves howling in the night. And besides he missed his home beside the sea.

And so they moved to Noatun, Njords home beside the sea. But Skadi hated the cries of the seas birds, the warm, sunny weather and longed for her home in the mountains.

Eventually they agreed to disagree and went their separate ways.

The Kidnap of Idun

Odin, Loki and Hoenir had been travelling for some weeks. The area of mountains they were in was particularly scarce of anything to eat, so the gods were hungry.

One afternoon they happened upon a herd of Oxen.

‘Ah. Finally’ said Odin ‘I didn’t think we could go much farther without food’

So they got to work slaughtering the animal. Odin made quick work of it, and by the time he was done Loki had lit a fire.

Several hours later the meat still had not cooked. The Gods were confused.

They noticed a large eagle perched in a nearby tree staring intently at them.

‘It is I, who prevents your meat from cooking. Let me have my fill and I will release the spell that prevents its cooking’

Hoenir was angry ‘who are you, that thinks you can mess with us in this manor? Very well, as you leave us no choice, take what you must’

The eagle flew down and pulled off all the finest cuts of meat.

At this Loki flew into a rage, picked up a large branch and swung at the bird. But the eagle was so enormous it caught the branch in its talons and dragged Loki up into the sky. What Loki hadn’t realised is the bird was none other than the giant Thjazi.

By the time they were up in the clouds Loki was really not happy, he begged and pleaded with the eagle to take him back down.

‘Very well’ said Thjazi ‘but on one condition’.

‘anything’ cried Loki ‘just please put me down.’

‘OK’ said the eagle ‘Bring me Idun, and her magical fruits that keep the Gods looking so youthful.’

After some time, the Gods completed their journey back to Asgard and Loki paid a visit to Idun.

‘Idun, I have news’ called Loki ‘Beyond the walls of Asgard we found trees covered in the most wonderful fruits. You should come at once to see them, I think they may be even better than yours. It’s probably best that you bring yours along, so that we can compare them.’

And so Idun followed Loki to the woods where she was snatched up by Thjazi, the giant and flown to Thrymheim, the icy mountain region he called home.

It didn’t take long for the Gods to notice that Idun was missing. Their hair was quickly greying and their skin was becoming wrinkled.

The last person that anyone saw with Idun was Loki and it didn’t take many threats for him to come clean about where she was.

‘Trickster! You will return Idun to us safely, by nightfall’ shouted Odin ‘if you fail in this task, you will leave me no choice but to sentence you to death’.

Loki borrowed Freya’s hawk feathers and flew to Thrymheim. It happened that Thjazi was out fishing when he arrived, so he turned Idun into a nut, picked her up in his talons and flew her home.

When Thjazi returned home and noticed Idun was missing, he flew after Loki in his eagle form. Just as Loki was almost back to Asgard he turned around and spotted Thjazi right behind him.

But the other gods had noticed too. They had built a huge pile of wood around their home and, as Loki flew over it, the Gods set fire to it. Thjazi had no time to notice and flew straight into the flames and was engulfed immediately.

Idun was home safe and that was the end of the giant Thjazi.