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Þjálfi and Röskva

Þjálfi ok Röskva

A farmer's son and daughter whom Thor takes as servants after Þjálfi cracks a goat's bone. Þjálfi, swiftest of men, goes with Thor against Útgarða-Loki, Hrungnir and Geirröðr.

Þjálfi and Röskva are a farmer's children who become Thor's servants. Snorri tells how Gylfaginning 44. Thor and Loki stay a night with a farmer. Thor kills and cooks his goats and tells the family to throw the bones onto the hides. Þjálfi splits a thigh-bone for the marrow. In the morning Thor raises the goats with his hammer, and one is lame. The terrified farmer offers everything he has, and Thor takes the two children instead.

took of them in atonement their children, Thjálfi and Röskva, who then became his bond-servants; and they follow him ever since.Gylfaginning 44

Röskva is only named; she travels to Útgarðr but does nothing in the story Gylfaginning 45. Þjálfi is "swiftest-footed of all men" and carries Thor's bag Gylfaginning 45. At Útgarðr he loses three races to Hugi, who turns out to be thought itself Gylfaginning 46-47. He does better elsewhere. At Hrungnir's duel he tricks the giant into standing on his shield and fells the clay giant Mökkurkálfi Skáldskaparmál 17. In Eilífr's poem about Geirröðr he wades the flood clinging to Thor's shield-strap Skáldskaparmál 18. In Hárbarðsljóð Thor says the berserk women of Hlésey "drove off" Þjálfi Hárbarðsljóð 39, and a skald calls Thor "Röskva's Brother", which seems to mean Þjálfi was meant Skáldskaparmál 4.

The two sources disagree about the goat. In Hymiskviða, Loki is the one who lames it Hymiskviða 38.

In the sources

Quoted from the hosted translations; each line is checked against the text when the site is built. Select a reference to read it in context.

Thjálfi, the husbandman's son, was holding a thigh-bone of the goat, and split it with his knife and broke it for the marrow
Gylfaginning 44 Þjálfi breaks the rule Thor set and lames one of his goats.
took of them in atonement their children, Thjálfi and Röskva, who then became his bond-servants; and they follow him ever since
Gylfaginning 44 The children are handed over to Thor as compensation.
Hugi was so much ahead that he turned back to meet Thjálfi at the end of the course
Gylfaginning 46 At Útgarðr Þjálfi runs against Hugi, who is Thought itself, and loses.
Thjálfi struck at Mökkurkálfi, and he fell with little glory
Skáldskaparmál 17 Þjálfi kills the clay giant at Thor's duel with Hrungnir.

Where the sources disagree or fall silent

  • Hymiskviða blames the lame goat on Loki (Hymiskviða 38) and says Thor won 'both his children' from a wilderness-dweller (Hymiskviða 39), but does not name the children.
  • Hymiskviða says Thor left his goats at 'Egil's home' (Hymiskviða 7). Some scholars take Egil to be the children's father, but no source says so.

Myths with Þjálfi and Röskva

Thor in the hall of Geirröðr To save his own life Loki promises to bring Thor, unarmed, to the giant Geirröðr. A friendly giantess lends Thor a belt, gloves and staff; he survives a flooding river, a rising chair and a red-hot iron bar, and kills Geirröðr and his daughters. Thor's duel with Hrungnir A horse race with Odin brings the stone-headed giant Hrungnir drunk and boasting into Asgard. Thor challenges him to the first single combat of his life, kills him with Mjölnir, and carries a piece of the giant's whetstone in his skull for ever after. Thor's journey to Útgarða-Loki Thor travels east with Loki, Þjálfi and Röskva, sleeps in a giant's glove, and loses every contest in the hall of Útgarða-Loki: to fire, to thought, to the sea, to the World Serpent and to old age. Only at parting does he learn he was tricked.

Related

Thor Þórr The thunder god, strongest of the Æsir: son of Odin and Earth, husband of Sif, and with his hammer Mjöllnir the gods' defender against the giants, until he dies killing the World Serpent. Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr Tanngrisnir ok Tanngnjóstr The two he-goats that pull Thor's chariot. He can kill and eat them and raise them again with his hammer, if their bones are left whole. Útgarða-Loki The giant king of Útgarðr who beats Thor and his companions in a series of contests by illusion, then admits the truth: they nearly destroyed him. Hrungnir The strongest of the giants, with a head, heart and shield of stone. He races Odin into Ásgard, gets drunk there, and dies when Thor's hammer shatters his whetstone and his skull. Mökkurkálfi The clay giant, nine miles tall, built by the giants to stand with Hrungnir against Thor. He has a mare's heart, wets himself in fear, and falls to Thor's servant Þjálfi. Geirröðr A crafty giant who traps Loki and makes him lure Thor to his hall without hammer or belt. Thor, armed with gear borrowed from the giantess Gríðr, breaks his daughters' backs and kills him with a red-hot iron bar. Loki The giant-born trickster counted among the Æsir: father of Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent and Hel, contriver of Baldr's death, bound until Ragnarök.