The ghastly rotting smell rose towards him. The cold began to burn him. The darkness reached up to him and he drew near to the place as dreadful as the worst of fears, the worst of dreams.
Even now, he did not flinch or falter. Svidag was swift as light. He reached the gates of Niflheim, far under the world, and shouted, “Groa, wake! Wake, wise mother! I stand at the doors of the dead and call on you. Remember, before you went to your burial mound, remember how you told your son to ask for help.”
Then the seeress Groa rose out of her grave and slowly moved to the gates of Niflheim. “My only son,” she moaned, “what death in life afflicts you? What dire fate makes you call on me who have left the quick world and lie in the mound?”
A rank of mountains stood behind Thor. Some were like upturned ships, some like unfinished pyramids and monstrous cones with their tops sawn off, and none of them were smiling. Thor strode west over the tundra, and the sun kept pace with him. Then late in the morning he left the wilderness behind and hurried across scrub and undulating land.
Thor said Summer was the open season and he announced his plan of making a journey east into Utgard and flexing himself against the giants. ‘However few they are,’ he said, ‘they are too many.’
WHEN THOR AWOKE and reached out to grasp his hammer, it was not there. The Hurler leaped up. He tousled and tangled his red beard; his hair bristled as he searched for Mjollnir. ‘Listen, Loki!’ said Thor. ‘No god in Asgard has seen my hammer; no man in Midgard has seen my hammer: it has been stolen.’