The Jötnar

The jötnar are not, in the sources, monsters. Norse myth presents them as older than the Æsir and frequently related to them — Thor's own mother, Jörð, is reckoned one of them in some accounts. The quarrel reads as territorial rather than moral: two families with a claim on the same world. Thor is described killing a great many of them and still travelling to Jötunheim as a guest, drinking at their tables, and being outwitted there more than once. The Norse seem to have liked that about him. The strongest thing alive could still be made a fool of by a clever host.