Thor Lift Cat

Thor replied: “I may as well have a try at yet more contests. But
I would have been surprised when I was back home with the Æsir
if such drinks had been reckoned so slight. And what game do you
want to offer me now?”

‘Then spoke Utgarda-Loki: “What the young lads here do,
though it may not seem of great significance, is lift up my cat off
the ground. But I would not know how to mention such a thing to
Thor of the Æsir if I had not previously seen that you are a much
less impressive person than I thought.”

‘Next a kind of grey cat ran out on to the hall floor, and it was
rather big. Thor went up and took hold with his hand down under
the middle of its belly and lifted it up. But the cat arched its back as
much as Thor stretched up his hand. And when Thor reached as
high up as the furthest he could, then the cat raised just one paw
and Thor was not able to perform this feat. Then spoke UtgardaLoki:

‘“This game went just as I expected: the cat is rather big, but
Thor is short and small in comparison with the big fellows here
with us.”

‘Then spoke Thor: “Small as you say I am, just let someone
come out and fight me! Now I am angry!”

‘Then Utgarda-Loki replied, looking round the benches, and
said: “I do not see anyone in here who will not think it demeaning
to fight with you.”

[...]

Then Utgarda-Loki appeared and had a table laid for them. There was
no lack of good cheer, food and drink. And when they had
finished eating then they set off. Utgarda-Loki went out with
them, and accompanied them on their road out of the castle. And
as they parted, Utgarda-Loki spoke to Thor and asked how he
thought his expedition had gone, and whether he had come up
against any person more powerful than himself. Thor said that he
could not claim that he had not suffered great loss of face in their
encounter.

‘“And moreover I know that you will say that I am a person of
little account, and it is that which irks me.”

‘Then spoke Utgarda-Loki: “Now you shall be told the truth,
now you have come outside the castle, which is that if I live and
can have my way you shall never again come into it. And I swear
by my faith that you never would have come into it if I had known
before that you had such great strength in you, and that you were
going to bring us so close to great disaster. But I have deceived you
by appearances, so that the first time when I discovered you in the
forest it was I that came and met you. And when you tried to undo
the knapsack I had fastened it with trick wire, and you could not
find where it had to be unfastened.

[...]

‘“It did not seem to me any less impressive either when you
lifted up the cat, and to tell you the truth everyone that was
watching was terrified when you raised one of its feet from the
ground. For that cat was not what it appeared to you: it was the
Midgard serpent which lies encircling all lands, and its length was
hardly enough for both its head and its tail to touch the ground.
And so far did you reach up that you were not far from the sky.
And that also was a great miracle with the wrestling when you
stood so long and fell no further than on to the knee of one leg
when you were fighting Elli [old age], for there never has been
anyone, and there never will be anyone, if they get so old that they
experience old age, that old age will not bring them all down. And
the truth I must tell you now is that we must part, and it will now
be better on both sides that you do not come to see me again. I
shall again next time defend my castle with similar tricks or with
others so that you will not get any power over me.”


- Prose Edda, Gylfaginning