Norse myth in which Thor dresses as Freya

One morning Thor woke up to find that his hammer was missing.  Well, this was a problem because his hammer is the most powerful weapon in all of Asgard, and in the wrong hands, well that would just be terrible.  Thor asked Loki if he could help him find the hammer.  Loki agreed, he suspected he might know who did it anyway.  Loki went to the giants and asked about the Hammer.  Thrym, one of these giants said, "Yeah, I stole the hammer, and you guys aren't getting it back unless you send Freya to marry me."

When Loki returned he told everyone, "look I've got some bad news.  Thrym has the hammer and he won't give it back unless we send Freya to marry him."  Freya was like, "Oh hell no." and the other gods agreed, they had too much respect for her to do anything like that.  Just then Loki had a plan, "What if we dressed Thor as Freya and sent him instead?"

So, Thor put on a fancy wedding dress and a veil and went to meet the giant Thrym.  When he arrived Thrym was super jazzed to get exactly what he had asked for and immediately handed the hammer over to Thor (who he thought was Freya).  At that moment Thor tore off the gown and bludgeoned the giants to death.

At this point in the telling of the story my sister snorts with laughter.  I am glad that she shares in my delight with this particular myth.  It is a story I tell as I explain why I am working on a rather elaborate doily- to make a veil (the pattern of the doily was chosen because it resembled a spider web...because, oh what a tangled web we weave... and so on).  I wondered many times during the process of making Thor...is this worth it?  Now that I've finished I think I can safely say, yes.  Yes, I think it was worth the frustration, the cramped hands, and the frown lines that were etched on my face as I worked on this beloved project.