The children of Odin - Germanic Mythology

THE WITCH'S HEART 169
No one was in the hall. He came out of the hall and into a
great stone chamber and he saw no one there either. But in the
centre of the stone chamber there was a stone seat, and Thor went
to it and seated himself upon it.
No sooner was he seated than the chair flew upwards. Thor
would have been crushed against the stone roof only that he
held his staff up. So great was the power in the staff, so great
was the strength that the string around him gave, that the chair
was thrust downward. The stone chair crashed down upon the
stone floor.
There were horrible screams from under it. Thor lifted up the
seat and saw two ugly, broken bodies there. The Giant's
daughters, Gialp and Greip, had hidden themselves under the
chair to watch his death. But the stone that was to have
crushed him against the ceiling had crushed them against
the floor.
Thor strode out of that chamber with his teeth set hard. A
great fire was blazing in the hall, and standing beside that fire he
saw Gerriod, the long-armed Giant.
He held a tongs into the fire. As Thor came towards him he
lifted up the tongs and flung from it a blazing wedge of iron. It
whizzed straight towards Thor's forehead. Thor put up his
hands and caught the blazing wedge of iron between the mittens
that old Grid had given him. Quickly he hurled it back at
Gerriod. It struck the Giant on the forehead and went blazing
through him.