jormungandr · Chapter 2 of 4
The Cat That Would Not Lift
A contest that was a disguise · One paw · An admission outside the walls
The joke was that he could not lift a cat. The truth was that he almost lifted the world.
In Snorri's telling, at Útgarða-Loki's hall, Thor is humiliated three times by contests that are not what they appear. The one that matters is the cat. Lift my cat off the floor, says the king, and it is offered as a child's task after Thor has failed at drinking. Thor gets one paw up. Only one, and the king is unimpressed. Afterwards, outside the walls, the king admits what everyone watching had really seen: the cat was the Midgard Serpent, and Thor had hauled so much of him up that his coil nearly cleared the sky. He had not failed. He had come terrifyingly close, at something that was never a cat.
- A disguise
- One paw lifted
- A confession after
Unlocks in-game at Mastery 2.
