Thor's Wedding Day: By Thialfi, the goat boy, as told to and translated by Bruce Coville
By Bruce Coville and Matthew Cogswell
4/5
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About this ebook
What could possibly make Thor--the massive and mighty god of thunder and protector of all his people--put on a bridal gown?
It all begins when the source of Thor's power, his beloved hammer, is stolen. Unfortunately for Thor, the plan to get it back requires that he dress in fancy finery and be packed off to marry the king of the giants. Luckily, Thialfi the goat boy--along with his snarky charges, Grinder and Gat-Tooth--have come along. Working behind the scenes, Thialfi just may be able to save the day . . . which is only fair, since it's his fault the hammer was stolen in the first place.
This book is a hilarious take on the only comedy in Norse mythology, complete with talking goats, cross-dressing gods, and the warm wit that has made Bruce Coville beloved by millions.
Bruce Coville
BRUCE COVILLE is the author of over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller My Teacher is an Alien, the Unicorn Chronicles series, and the much-beloved Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. His work has appeared in a dozen languages and won children's choice awards in a dozen states. Before becoming a full time writer Bruce was a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. He is also the creator of Full Cast Audio, an audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening and has produced over a hundred audiobooks, directing and/or acting in most of them. Bruce lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, illustrator and author Katherine Coville.
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Reviews for Thor's Wedding Day
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A fun story derived from a Norse myth. There's an afterword, with notes explaining the origins. The production is excellent. The story brings characters from other myths into the story with a fair amount of plausibility.It puts the gods in the right, in a way that they were not in the original myth, as far as I can remember.
Book preview
Thor's Wedding Day - Bruce Coville
Copyright © 2005 by Bruce Coville
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York, 10003
www.hmhco.com
Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Matthew Cogswell
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Coville, Bruce.
Thor’s wedding day/Bruce Coville.
p. cm.
Summary: Thialfi, the Norse thunder god’s goat boy, tells how he inadvertently helped the giant Thrym to steal Thor’s magic hammer, the lengths to which Thor must go to retrieve it, and his own assistance along the way.
I. Thor (Norse deity)—Juvenile fiction. [1. Thor (Norse deity)—Fiction. 2. Giants—Fiction. 3. Goats—Fiction. 4. Hammers—Fiction. 5. Loki (Norse deity)—Fiction. 6. Mythology, Norse—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C8344Tho 2005
[Fic]—dc22 2004029580
ISBN 978-0-15-201455-1
ISBN 978-0-15-205872-2 pb
eISBN 978-0-544-63539-5
v1.0315
For
Todd Hobin:
musician, artist, friend
1
Me and My Goats
When Thor was angry his bellow could shake the birds out of the trees. I know, because I saw it happen the morning he awoke to find his hammer missing.
I was in the goat yard, giving Gat-Tooth and Tooth-Grinder their morning feeding. I had been working for Thor for about three years at that time, providing service in return for a terrible mistake I had made while he and Loki were visiting my parents’ cottage.
Although my service was a kind of punishment, in some ways I think I had the better part of the bargain. After all, even the table scraps of the gods make for fine dining. Despite the hard work, I was as well fed as I had ever been in my life.
On the other hand, there were the goats.
Not only were they big—they had to be, to pull Thor’s cart—with shaggy coats and huge, curling horns, they were also ill-tempered. Gat, at least, was willing to teach me things, even if he did tend to nip me whenever I said anything he considered to be stupider than usual.
Grinder, on the other hand, said I was nothing but a foolish kid who would be gone before much more time had passed, and not useful for anything other than shoveling dung.
Which is why I can’t be bothered to talk to him,
he told Gat more than once—making sure that I was close enough to hear, of course.
You’d think they could be more polite to the person who carried away their dung each day. Without me it wouldn’t have taken long before they were up to their knees in their own droppings. But having watched things in Asgard, I had come to the conclusion that the more basic the job the less it is appreciated—no matter how important it is.
The real reason Grinder wouldn’t talk to me was simple: He was not willing to forgive me for that mistake I had made three years earlier.
In a way, I couldn’t blame him. He did still limp, which was a daily reminder of what I had done to him. On the other hand, I was starting to suspect he was exaggerating the limp, just to bother me.
I tried to make it up to him by being as kind and helpful as I could, but Grinder was having none of that. A goat, once offended, is not easily won over.
Anyway, I was currying down Gat—I always did him first, and why not?—when the first shout of rage came thundering from inside Thor’s house. You should understand that Bilskirnir had 540 rooms, so it took a mighty shout indeed to reach all the way to where we stood.
(I had once asked the goats why anyone needed 540 rooms. Grinder had not answered, of course. Gat simply said, It’s to give the mortals who work for him something to clean.
)
Uh-oh,
said Grinder now, speaking to Gat, not me, naturally. Sounds as if His Royal Thunderosity woke up on the wrong side of the stall this morning.
Gat’s answer was lost in another bellow.
This time we could make out the word: Hammer!
What could be wrong with his hammer?
wondered Gat. The thing is unbreakable. Work that brush a little harder, Thialfi. My back itches this morning. Ahhhh!
As I brushed Gat, I thought about Thor’s hammer, which was known as Mjollnir. (The gods had a habit of naming not just people and animals but things.) The hammer was sacred, and most precious to Thor. In fact, there were times when I thought he loved it more than anything in Asgard—including his wife, Sif, who was so beautiful it made my heart ache just to watch her walk by.
Not that he didn’t have reason to love Mjollnir. It was the most powerful weapon the gods had against the fierce giants who were their great enemies. These giants were called Jotuns, and Thor was never happier than when he was using his hammer to bash in their skulls. All the gods agreed that Mjollnir was the key to Asgard’s safety.
A third bellow, and a cluster of birds fell from the nearby tree. The startled creatures barely managed to stretch their wings before they hit the ground.
WHERE IS MY HAMMER?
Oh my,
muttered Grinder. This is not good. This is not good at all.
A moment later, Thor came raging into the goat yard. His red beard was shooting off sparks, and the ends of it were curling and uncurling with the energy of his anger. A small thundercloud had formed over his head. Since he was nearly seven feet tall and bulging with muscles, the sight of him in such a fury was enough to make my knees buckle.
Thialfi!
he roared. What have you done with Mjollnir?
I ducked behind Gat-Tooth for shelter. Nothing, my lord,
I answered, barely able to force the words past the dryness in my throat. I haven’t seen it. Or touched it.
I didn’t point out that this was a silly question to begin with. Mjollnir was so heavy that even most of the gods couldn’t lift it. So I certainly couldn’t have moved the thing.
Thor, what in the name of the nine worlds is bothering you this morning?
asked a sleepy voice. Glancing to my right, I saw the lean but handsome face of Loki peering over the stone fence that surrounds the goat yard. Like Thor, the god of mischief had red hair. But