Utgardhaloki was the ruler of the castle of Utgard, the capital of Jotunheim. One day, a party consisting of Thor, Loki and two children, Thialfi and Roskva, arrived. Utgardhaloki then offered his guests a challenge in crafts and cunning. The first to stand up was Loki, who claimed he excelled in eating. So the king summoned a giant called Logi.

There was a huge wooden trough placed on the floor filled with food. Each person started eating from each end of the trough, and when the food was gone, Logi and Loki met each other in the middle. However, the king declared Logi the winner because he had eaten bones and plates, whereas Loki had only eaten flesh, leaving the bare bones on his dish.

Thialfi then put himself to a test of running, being a very fast runner. Utgardhaloki called upon the young giant, Hugi, to race with Thialfi. In the first heat, Hugi barely managed to beat Thialfi. The two then engaged in a second heat, in which Hugi managed to beat Thialfi by a quarter of the course. They then proceeded with the third heat, in which Hugi beat Thialfi by half the course. Thialfi had lost.

Thor was up next for a drinking contest. The king passed him a horn, and bid him finish it in one drink if he could, or in two for most giants took two draughts to finish it. A third draught was needed for a poor drinker, and worse still for those who needed more. The horn did not seem very big, and Thor intended to finish it in one draught, but tried as he may, Thor soon ran out of breath and when he looked back at the horn, the water had scarcely dropped a little. His next two drinks made greater progress, but at the end of three drinks, the horn was not empty, and Thor would not drink any more.

Embarrassed, Thor requested another contest, which required Thor to lift the king's big grey cat. Thor thought it simple enough, and he strode forward and tried to lift the cat, but after much trying, he did not manage to lift the cat, but only managed to lift one paw from the floor. At this, Thor grey angry, and requested a fight.

Utgardhaloki, not wanting to look as if he were bullying Thor, called for an old nurse called Elli, whom he could have a wrestling match with. However hard Thor pushed, the firmer Elli stood, and finally Thor lost his footing and fell to one knee. Utgardhaloki broke up the fight and bade Thor retire for the night, as it was getting late.

The next morning, the party left the castle and once they were clear away from the castle, Utgardhaloki asked Thor how his expedition had been. Thor confessed that he had been ashamed of his littleness. It was then when the king told Thor what had really happened. He revealed to Thor that he had tricked him with illusions. He told Thor that he was the giant Skrymir, on their way to the castle, and that the sack he had passed to him had iron made by the trolls, and therefore would had been impossible to untie. As for the three blows Thor had given Skrymir, they had been taken by a mountain, in which three gorges had been formed.

Loki had competed against wildfire under the guise of Logi, which was swift and clean in its consumption of the food. Thialfi had raced against thought, and no man could have otherwise run as fast as that. When Thor drank from the horn, he was drinking from the sea, and he caused a drop in the sea level, which would be remembered by the ever rising and falling of the sea levels. The king's cat was Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent itself, and while lifting its paw Thor had put the world in danger. Lastly, Elli, the nurse, was old age, and no one could resist old age.

On hearing all this, Thor was furious and prepared to kill Utgardhaloki, only to find the king gone, together with his castle, leaving only an open meadow. He returned to Asgard, and told his tale to the Aesir.

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