Gifts of the Dwarves

Thor was married to Sif, the lovely goddess. Sif had beautiful, long, golden hair. It was something she took great pride of.

Loki, the mischievous fire-god, loved playing practical jokes on the gods. One night, Loki decided to cut off all Sif's hair.

What Loki didn't count on, was Thor's temper. When Thor found his wife weeping over the lost of her golden hair, the thunder-god caught Loki and threatened to beat and break every bone in Loki's body. Loki promised Thor to replaced Sif's beautiful hair with hair of gold.

Loki sought the master dwarven craftsmen, the sons of Ivaldi. The hair or wig was made out of finely spun gold. The magical property of the gold hair was that it was alive like real hair, which would grow naturally.

The sons of Ivaldi also created two other splendid gifts for the Aesir. They created the indestructible spear, called Gungnir, for Odin. They also created a magical ship for Freyr, which was called Skidbladnir. The remarkable thing about Skidbladnir was that it was a collapsible ship, which Freyr could fold up to a size smaller enough to carry in his pocket.

As Loki carried the gifts to the Aesir, Loki encountered another two dwarfs – Brokk and Eiti. Loki boasted of the gifts and craftsmanship of the sons of Ivaldi. Loki made a wager on his head that Brokk and Eiti and could not make better three gifts than those of the sons of Ivaldi. Brokk and Eiti agreed to the wagers.

First, Eiti placed a pig's hide in the forge, he told his brother to keep working on the bellows, until he completed the work. As they started working, a fly (Loki?) tried to distract Brokk from blowing air into the forge fire, by biting into Brokk's left arm. Brokk ignored the fly and continuously worked on the bellows. From the hide, bristles of gold sprout out and giving life to a wild boar. The boar was called Gullinbursti, "golden bristles". The boar had the ability to run faster than any horse, across the sky or over water. The gold bristle ensured that it was bright enough to see where it was going, even at the darkness night.

During the second piece of work, the fly landed this time on Brokk's neck, nibbling harder than before, but Brokk ignored the fly and kept working on the bellows. Eiti made a gold ring called the Draupnir. The ring had the ability to make eight other rings of the same size, every ninth night.

When they were working on a third item, the fly now landed between Brokk's eyes, and nibbled on his eyelid. Blood dripped into his eye, so Brokk quickly rubbed the blood out of his eye and swatted the fly away, before he continued to work the bellows. Eiti had placed a large piece of iron in the forge and creating hammer called Mjollnir. Eiti told Brokk that he nearly ruined this work. The only flaw of the hammer was that the handle was quite short.

The Mjollnir was the strongest weapon in the world. It would not fail to hit any target, either struck at or thrown at. If the hammer were thrown, it would always return to its hands, after striking its target.

Eiti sent his brother with the gifts to Asgard. Loki and Brokk gave the gifts to the Aesir. Odin, Thor and Freyr acted as judges over the gifts, to see which was the best of them all.

Loki gave the hair or wig of gold was given to Sif, to appease Thor's anger towards him. The collapsible ship, Skidbladnir, was given to Freyr, and Loki gave irresistible spear, (Gungnir), to Odin.

Brokk gave the boar with gold bristles (Gullinbursti) to Freyr, the gold ring (Draupnir) to Odin, and the Mjollnir to Thor.

The three judges found that the Mjollnir was the best gift, since it gave the person greatest chances against the giants at Ragnarok.

Losing the wagers, Loki tried to flee, but was caught by Thor. Odin decided that Loki losing his head was a bit drastic, so Brokk decided upon a different measure. Brokk sealed Loki's mouth shut with wire.