One morning, in the shining city of the gods, Thor woke up and reached out sleepily for his hammer — because that is what Thor did every morning, the way you might reach for a favourite toy or a glass of water — and his hand found nothing at all. He patted the blanket. He looked under the bed. He lifted the pillow, which is a silly place for a hammer, but he was getting worried. The hammer was gone. And Thor's hammer was not any hammer: it was Mjolnir, the thunder itself, the one thing that kept all the wild giants of the world politely on their own side of the fence.
His beard bristled. His hair stood on end. The whole of Asgard shook a little, the way a house does when someone very large is upset in it. And then he did what even gods do when things go properly wrong: he went to find the cleverest person he knew. That was Loki — who was not always good, it must be said, but was always clever, and on his good days those came to the same thing.
Loki borrowed a cloak of falcon feathers from the goddess Freyja, and the moment it settled on his shoulders he was a falcon, and away he flew, over the wall, over the rainbow bridge, out over the grey lands of the giants, until he came to a great cold hall where a giant king named Thrym sat on a mound, braiding golden collars for his dogs, looking extremely pleased with himself.
'I have hidden the thunder-god's hammer,' said Thrym, before Loki had asked anything at all, which tells you how badly he wanted to talk about it. 'Eight leagues deep in the earth, where no one will ever find it. And no one shall have it back — unless the beautiful Freyja is brought to me, to be my bride.' And he smiled a smile with too many teeth in it, and went back to braiding his dog-collars.
Well. Loki flew home, feathers whistling, and told the gods, and the gods told Freyja, and Freyja said no. She said no so magnificently that her famous necklace burst right off her neck, and the whole hall of the gods trembled. Nobody asked her twice. But that left the problem sitting in the middle of the floor: no Freyja, no hammer; no hammer, and sooner or later the giants would come over the wall.
It was Heimdall, the watchman who sees everything, who had the idea — and it was such an idea that the gods sat in silence for a moment after he said it. Let Thor go to the wedding, said Heimdall. In the dress. As the bride. There was, history records, quite a long argument, in which Thor pointed out several times that he was Thor, and the gods pointed out several times that this was exactly the problem, and Loki settled it with one quiet sentence: 'Would you rather explain the dress, or explain to the giants why they may live in Asgard now?'
So they dressed him. Bridal linen from head to foot, and a veil, and keys jingling at his waist as brides wore then, and stones and jewels, and — the finishing touch — Freyja's own mended necklace at his throat. Loki, who was enjoying himself enormously by now, put on a maid's dress and declared he would come along as the bridesmaid, to do the talking. And off they went to giant-land in Thor's goat-cart, with the mountains cracking and the ground smoking under the wheels, which is not usual for brides, but nobody in the giants' country wanted to be the one to mention it.
Thrym was overjoyed. Bring in my bride, he cried; light the fires, set the tables, this is the finest day of my life! And the feast began — and very nearly ended, right there. Because the bride was hungry. Under her veil, the bride ate an entire ox. Then eight whole salmon. Then every single one of the sweet cakes that had been set out for the ladies, and washed it all down with three great barrels of mead. Thrym watched this with very round eyes. 'Never,' he said faintly, 'have I seen a bride so… hungry.' But the bridesmaid leaned in, quick as ever: 'She has not eaten for eight days,' said Loki sweetly, 'so great was her longing for you.' And Thrym straightened his collar and felt splendid.
Then the giant lifted a corner of the veil to steal a kiss — and staggered back the whole length of the hall. Her eyes! Why are her eyes like burning coals? The bridesmaid was ready. 'She has not slept for eight nights,' sighed Loki, 'so great was her longing for you.' And the giant king, feeling by now that he was the luckiest fellow in the nine worlds, called out for the holy hammer to be brought and laid in the bride's lap, to bless the marriage in the good old way.
Ah. Well. You know, and I know, and every listener for a thousand years has known what happens when you put Thor's hammer in Thor's lap. His fingers closed around the handle, and under the veil, his heart laughed. And the wedding was over rather quickly after that, and the giants' hall needed considerable tidying, and no giant ever again thought that stealing from the gods was a clever way to find a wife.
Thor drove home under the stars, with the hammer safe in his lap and the wind in the goats' horns, still wearing the dress — there had been no time to change, and, truth be told, it was rather a good dress. And in Asgard the gods laughed until the rafters rang, and none louder than Thor himself, in the end. For that is the thing about the strongest of the gods, and it is worth keeping under your pillow: he was mighty enough not to mind looking silly, and there is a kind of strength in that too, perhaps the best kind. Goodnight.