Hrungnir at Grjótúnagarðar: Stone Against Thunder

“Thereupon the giants made at Grjottungard a man of clay, who was nine rasts tall and three rasts broad under the arms, but being unable to find a heart large enough to be suitable for him, they took the heart from a mare, but even this fluttered and trembled when Thor came.”

“Hrungner seized the flint-stone with both his hands and threw it against the hammer. They met in the air, and the flint-stone broke. One part fell to the earth, and from it have come the flint-mountains; the other part hit Thor’s head with such force that he fell forward to the ground. But the hammer Mjolner hit Hrungner right in the head, and crushed his skull in small pieces.”

In Skáldskaparmál, Anderson’s translation, Odin rides Sleipnir to Jötunheimr and meets the giant Hrungnir, who admires the horse but claims his own Gullfaxi is faster. Hrungnir chases Odin and rides straight through the gates of Ásgarðr. The gods invite him to drink, and he empties Thor’s bowls and boasts that he will carry off Valhöll and kill all the gods except Freyja and Sif. The gods call Thor, and Hrungnir, unarmed, challenges him to fight at the boundary of his land.

At Grjótúnagarðar the giants raise a clay giant, Mökkurkálfi, beside Hrungnir, who has a stone head, a stone shield and a flint-stone. Þjálfi tells him Thor will come from beneath, so he stands on his shield. The flint-stone and Mjöllnir meet in the air. Hrungnir dies, a splinter lodges in Thor’s head, and Hrungnir’s foot pins Thor until his young son Magni lifts it and is given Gullfaxi. The healing by Gróa has its own entry.

Hrungnir is a giant with a heart of stone, sharp and three-sided, and Anderson’s text says a rune has since been cut in that shape and called Hrungnir’s heart. The same text says the flint-mountains come from the broken stone. Snorri closes the tale with verses by the skald Þjóðólfr of Hvin that describe Thor’s journey to Grjótúnagarðar amid flame and a shaking earth.

Magni, who frees his father, is the son of Thor and the giantess Járnsaxa, and Odin objects that Thor gave the horse to the son of a giantess instead of to him. Grjótúnagarðar is the Old Norse form of the place name; Anderson writes Grjottungard.