4 Bonkers Norse Mythology Moments They Left Out Of The Movies

4 Thor Almost Drowns In A River Of Pee

Like a good percentage of Norse mythology tales, this one begins with Loki being a dick to someone who never did anything to him, just for the heck of it. The story opens with Loki, disguised as a falcon, flying into a giant's private property and perching himself up on a wall. When the giant, named Geirrod, orders a servant to catch the "bird" loitering on his precious wall, Loki decides to stay there until the last possible second just to make the servant climb all the way up for nothing, probably planning to drop a turd on him too while he flies away.

But, as the Loki-bird flies away, the servant manages to grab him by the legs, and the price for Loki's pointless dickery is being thrown into a chest without any food for three months. Eventually, Loki convinces Geirrod to let him go by promising to lure Thor into this place without his hammer or the "power belt" that gives him super-strength (which sounds like something made up by a '90s action figure designer, but no, it's real). Of course, convincing Thor to do that wouldn't be as easy as just going up to him and saying, "Hey, let's go on a trip into dangerous giant territory without any weapons, for no particular reason!" Instead, Loki has to ... wait, no, that's exactly what he does. Another running theme in these stories: Thor is kind of a dumbass (and he doesn't even have Chris Hemsworth's looks to justify it). 

And this, dear reader, is where we come to the pee part. On their way to Geirrod's place, Thor and Loki have to cross a river that suddenly grows in volume (and, as we'll find out, in yellow-ness) when they're right in the middle of it. While struggling against the powerful currents, Thor looks up and sees the source of all that extra liquid: it's one of Geirrod's giant daughters, who's letting out a mighty stream of urine from her giant nether regions. Some sources, however, claim it wasn't pee -- it was a torrent of menstrual blood. And, yes, there are paintings about both versions of this scene. 

So how does Thor get out of this predicament? He grabs a rock from the bottom of the river and throws it at the "source" of the stinky waterfall, "blocking the flow." You may interpret that as you wish. Even then, he's still in serious danger of drowning in pee until he manages to grab on to a surprisingly resistant shrub and pull himself and Loki out of the river. Later, Thor uses some borrowed weapons to murder Geirrod and his daughters, and then both gods go home, presumably having had their "tall women" fetishes ruined while discovering some completely new ones. 

3 Loki Saves Asgard Via Self-Inflicted Ball Torture

Like his MCU counterpart, the mythical Loki does have some redeeming moments, such as the time he sacrificed his testicular integrity to save his fellow gods. It all starts when Loki gets another goddess kidnapped by a giant with his impudence, which results in a rescue mission where the giant is burned alive in the sky. The gods are celebrating this victory when the giant's pissed-off daughter, Skadi, shows up in full armor to kick every single ass in Asgard in revenge. 

The gods manage to calm Skadi's rage by promising her reparations for her father's death. As part of her settlement, Odin turns her dad's eyes into stars and she gets to marry any god she wants, although she's only able to pick them via their feet like she's in some Japanese dating show. She's aiming for Thor's brother Balder but ends up with the sea god Njord since he's probably the only Asgardian whose feet are in frequent contact with water.

But the third term of the settlement is the hardest one: making Skadi laugh, a feat that's considered impossible even when she hasn't just watched her dad turn into a giant fireball. After unsuccessful attempts by other gods (please picture Thor, Odin, and Heimdall doing a Three Stooges routine), they tell Loki that he's their last hope. Loki, ever the professional, simply ties one end of a rope to a goat's beard, ties the other to his testicles, and proceeds to have a game of tug of war with the animal. As both scream in pain, the giantess finally cracks up and starts laughing. 

And so, the day is saved by the most selfless act in Loki's millennia-old history. We're guessing the Disney+ show will adapt this scene during a climactic moment of heroic redemption sooner or later, perhaps with Owen Wilson in place of the goat. 

2 Odin Goes Incognito To Diss Thor

Odin is a fairly serious figure in the comics and movies, but originally, he was a bit of a trickster god (read: dick) himself. There are multiple stories about Odin pretending to be a regular person just to mess with people -- or even with his "favorite" son, like the time he verbally ripped Thor a new one in what was essentially an ancient rap battle. 

In a poem called The Lay of Harbard, Thor is on his way back to Asgard after some giant-killing adventure when he comes across a river (made of water this time) and asks a ferryman named Harbard, or "Greybeard," to take him to the other side. Instead, Harbard immediately starts talking sh*t about Thor's questionable fashion choices and says that he ain't ferrying no bum. 

What follows is paragraphs and paragraphs of Harbard ripping into Thor in needlessly nasty and personal ways (including insulting his wife and dead mother) while boasting about his own sexual prowess, like when he smoothly works in the fact that he once slept with seven sisters. Thor tries to defend his honor by talking about all the giants he has killed, but Harbard one-ups each of his feats by bragging about leading armies to victory, slaying mythical creatures with his amazing powers, and did he mention all the women he's screwed yet? At this point, it's pretty clear to the reader that this is definitely not a random ferryman speaking, especially if they're aware that "Harbard" is one of Odin's alternate names, but Thor doesn't catch any of the multiple hints because, again: dumbass. 

When Thor threatens Harbard with his hammer, the old man tells him to go fight his "wife's lover" at home instead. Thor is so angry and humiliated that he can't even fight, so he ends up walking all the way around the river to get to Asgard (the old man at least tells him which way that is). Yeah, Odin doesn't #@$% around, except on a literal sense. So he can't really complain about the time when ... 

1 Freyja Cheats On Odin With Multiple Dwarfs

In Marvel Comics, Freyja is another name for Frigga, Odin's wife and Thor's mom. In the original Norse myths, Freyja and Odin's wife Frigg are different goddesses who might have started as one, because it was way harder to keep track of all these characters when the writers couldn't just check Wikipedia. Freyja, however, is identified as Odin's beloved "concubine" in one particular story, which starts pretty normally and suddenly turns into a Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs porn parody.

One day, Freyja happens to walk past a cavern and sees some dwarfs heigh-ho-ing away on a beautiful gold necklace. Freyja is dazzled by the necklace and offers to buy it from the four diminutive workers, but they say that they couldn't possibly charge money to this fair maiden. Plus, they have no use for it, being literally surrounded by piles of gold and silver. Freyja says she's willing to do anything for the necklace. Or, as it turns out, anyone.  

The dwarfs straight up tell Freyja they'll give her the necklace if she spends a night pleasuring each of them, and she's so desperate for this piece of bling that she agrees. What she doesn't know is that Loki is watching the whole thing, and since she isn't his adoptive mother in this version, he's amused instead of hopelessly traumatized. Four nights later, Freyja walks away with her necklace "as if nothing happened," and Loki (who's probably suffering from serious hand cramps by now) runs off to tell Odin that the love of his life cheated on him with four tiny dudes. As for those dudes, we're guessing they went right back to making beautiful jewelry within convenient view of female passersby. 

Angered and distraught, Odin demands that Loki get him that necklace, despite the famously airtight security in Freyja's room. Loki has to pull off a whole Mission: Impossible caper that involves turning himself into a fly to even enter the room. Once Freyja realizes her necklace has been stolen, she comes to tell Odin about it and he, still hurt, tells her she'll never get it back. Unless that is, she manages to get two kings, each commanding 20 other kings, to fight each other for all eternity OR until a righteous Christian man comes and kills them both, in the process also bringing the light of Jesus Christ Our Savior into Iceland and Norway ... 

Okay, so this story was transcribed by Christian priests in the 14th century and they might have added that last part. We're gonna go ahead and assume the original tale ended with Odin reconciling with his beloved by joining her, the dwarfs, and possibly Loki's trained CBT goat in a massive festival of carnal pleasures. Then some giants stop by and pee and all of them. 

Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com. 

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