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The Children of Odin
THE CHILDREN OF ODIN
The Book of Northern Myths
By Padraic Colum
Illustrated by Willy Pogany
Master storyteller Padraic Colum's rich, musical voice captures all the
magic and majesty of the Norse sagas in his retellings of the adventures
of the gods and goddesses who lived in the Northern paradise of Asgard
before the dawn of history.
Here are the matchless tales of All-Father Odin, who crosses the Rainbow
Bridge to walk among men in Midgard and sacrifices his right eye to
drink from the Well of Wisdom; of Thor, whose mighty hammer defends
Asgard; of Loki, whose mischievous cunning leads him to treachery
against the gods; of giants, dragons, dwarfs and Valkyries; and of the
terrible last battle that destroyed their world.
These ancient stories from Northern Europe, which make up one of the
great myth cycles of Western civilization, spring to life in _The
Children of Odin_. This classic volume, first published in 1920 and
reissued in 1962, is now available for the first time in paperback,
illustrated with the original line drawings by Willy Pogany, to inspire
a new generation of readers.
* * * * *
The late Padraic Colum was a poet, playwright, founder of the _Irish
Review_ and a leader of the Irish Renaissance, but he is perhaps best
known today for his outstanding books for children. He was awarded the
Regina Medal in 1961 for his "distinguished contribution to children's
literature," honoring works like _The Children's Homer_, _The Golden
Fleece_ (a Newbery Honor Book), _The Arabian Nights_, _The King of
Ireland's Son_ and _Roofs of Gold_.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
THE CHILDREN OF ODIN
The Book of Northern Myths
by
PADRAIC COLUM
illustrated by
Willy Pogany
Collier Books
Macmillan Publishing Company
New York
Collier Macmillan Publishers
London
Copyright Macmillan Publishing Company, a division of
Macmillan, Inc., 1920; copyright renewed by
Padraic Colum and Macmillan Publishing Company 1948
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the Publisher.
Macmillan Publishing Company
866 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022
Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc.
_The Children of Odin_ is also published in a
hardcover edition by Macmillan Publishing Company.
First Collier Books edition 1984
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Colum, Padraic, 1881-1972.
The children of Odin.
Summary: A retelling of the Norse sagas about Odin,
Freya, Thor, Loki and the other gods and goddesses who
lived in Asgard before the dawn of history.
1. Mythology, Norse--Juvenile literature.
[1. Mythology, Norse] I. Pogany, Willy, 1882-1955, ill.
II. Title.
BL860.C63 1984b 293'.13 83-20368
ISBN 0-02-042100-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PART I _The Dwellers in Asgard_
1. Far Away and Long Ago 3
2. The Building of the Wall 6
3. Iduna and Her Apples: How Loki Put the
Gods in Danger 13
4. Sif's Golden Hair: How Loki Wrought
Mischief in Asgard 27
5. How Brock Brought Judgment on Loki 34
6. How Freya Gained Her Necklace and How
Her Loved One Was Lost to Her 44
7. How Frey Won Gerda, the Giant Maiden,
and How He Lost His Magic Sword 51
8. Heimdall and Little Hnossa: How All
Things Came to Be 62
9. The All-Father's Forebodings: How He
Leaves Asgard 69
PART II _Odin the Wanderer_
1. Odin Goes to Mimir's Well: His Sacrifice
for Wisdom 77
2. Odin Faces an Evil Man 82
3. Odin Wins for Men the Magic Mead 90
4. Odin Tells to Vidar, His Silent Son, the
Secret of His Doings 99
5. Thor and Loki in the Giants' City 102
6. How Thor and Loki Befooled Thrym the
Giant 116
7. Ægir's Feast: How Thor Triumphed 124
8. The Dwarf's Hoard, and the Curse that
It Brought 136
PART III _The Witch's Heart_
1. Foreboding in Asgard 151
2. Loki the Betrayer 155
3. Loki Against the Æsir 164
4. The Valkyrie 169
5. The Children of Loki 174
6. Baldur's Doom 180
7. Loki's Punishment 193
PART IV _The Sword of the Volsungs and the
Twilight of the Gods_
1. Sigurd's Youth 199
2. The Sword Gram and the Dragon Fafnir 208
3. The Dragon's Blood 215
4. The Story of Sigmund and Signy 223
5. The Story of Sigmund and Sinfiotli 233
6. The Story of the Vengeance of the
Volsungs and of the Death of Sinfiotli 239
7. Brynhild in the House of Flame 245
8. Sigurd at the House of the Nibelungs 250
9. How Brynhild Was Won for Gunnar 255
10. The Death of Sigurd 260
11. The Twilight of the Gods 265
PART I
THE DWELLERS IN ASGARD
[Illustration]
FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO
Once there was another Sun and another Moon; a different Sun and a
different Moon from the ones we see now. Sol was the name of that Sun
and Mani was the name of that Moon. But always behind Sol and Mani
wolves went, a wolf behind each. The wolves caught on them at last and
they devoured Sol and Mani. And then the world was in darkness and cold.
In those times the Gods lived, Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and
Heimdall, Vidar and Vali, as well as Loki, the doer of good and the doer
of evil. And the beautiful Goddesses were living then, Frigga, Freya,
Nanna, Iduna, and Sif. But in the days when the Sun and Moon were
destroyed the Gods were destroyed too--all the Gods except Baldur who
had died before that time, Vidar and Vali, the sons of Odin, and Modi
and Magni, the sons of Thor.
At that time, too, there were men and women in the world. But before the
Sun and the Moon were devoured and before the Gods were destroyed,
terrible things happened in the world. Snow fell on the four corners of
the earth and kept on falling for three seasons. Winds came and blew
everything away. And the people of the world who had lived on in spite
of the snow and the cold and the winds fought each other, brother
killing brother, until all the people were destroyed.
Also there was another earth at that time, an earth green and beautiful.
But the terrible winds that blew leveled down forests and hills and
dwellings. Then fire came and burnt the earth. There was darkness, for
the Sun and the Moon were devoured. The Gods had met with their doom.
And the time in which all these things happened was called Ragnarök, the
Twilight of the Gods.
Then a new Sun and a new Moon appeared and went traveling through the
heavens; they were more lovely than Sol and Mani, and no wolves followed
behind them in chase. The earth became green and beautiful again, and in
a deep forest that the fire had not burnt a woman and a man wakened up.
They had been hidden there by Odin and left to sleep during Ragnarök,
the Twilight of the Gods.
Lif was the woman's name, and Lifthrasir was the man's. They moved
through the world, and their children and their children's children made
people for the new earth. And of the Gods were left Vidar and Vali, the
sons of Odin, and Modi and Magni, the sons of Thor; on the new earth
Vidar and Vali found tablets that the older Gods had written on and had
left there for them, tablets telling of all that had happened before
Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
And the people who lived after Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, were
not troubled, as the people in the older days were troubled, by the
terrible beings who had brought destruction upon the world and upon men
and women, and who from the beginning had waged war upon the Gods.
[Illustration]
THE BUILDING OF THE WALL
Always there had been war between the Giants and the Gods--between the
Giants who would have destroyed the world and the race of men, and the
Gods who would have protected the race of men and would have made the
world more beautiful.
There are many stories to be told about the Gods, but the first one that
should be told to you is the one about the building of their City.
The Gods had made their way up to the top of a high mountain and there
they decided to build a great City for themselves that the Giants could
never overthrow. The City they would call "Asgard," which means the
Place of the Gods. They would build it on a beautiful plain that was on
the top of that high mountain. And they wanted to raise round their
City the highest and strongest wall that had ever been built.
Now one day when they were beginning to build their halls and their
palaces a strange being came to them. Odin, the Father of the Gods, went
and spoke to him. "What dost thou want on the Mountain of the Gods?" he
asked the Stranger.
"I know what is in the mind of the Gods," the Stranger said. "They would
build a City here. I cannot build palaces, but I can build great walls
that can never be overthrown. Let me build the wall round your City."
"How long will it take you to build a wall that will go round our City?"
said the Father of the Gods.
"A year, O Odin," said the Stranger.
Now Odin knew that if a great wall could be built around it the Gods
would not have to spend all their time defending their City, Asgard,
from the Giants, and he knew that if Asgard were protected, he himself
could go amongst men and teach them and help them. He thought that no
payment the Stranger could ask would be too much for the building of
that wall.
That day the Stranger came to the Council of the Gods, and he swore that
in a year he would have the great wall built. Then Odin made oath that
the Gods would give him what he asked in payment if the wall was
finished to the last stone in a year from that day.
The Stranger went away and came back on the morrow. It was the first day
of Summer when he started work. He brought no one to help him except a
great horse.
Now the Gods thought that this horse would do no more than drag blocks
of stone for the building of the wall. But the horse did more than this.
He set the stones in their places and mortared them together. And day
and night and by light and dark the horse worked, and soon a great wall
was rising round the palaces that the Gods themselves were building.
"What reward will the Stranger ask for the work he is doing for us?" the
Gods asked one another.
Odin went to the Stranger. "We marvel at the work you and your horse are
doing for us," he said. "No one can doubt that the great wall of Asgard
will be built up by the first day of Summer. What reward do you claim?
We would have it ready for you."
The Stranger turned from the work he was doing, leaving the great horse
to pile up the blocks of stone. "O Father of the Gods," he said, "O
Odin, the reward I shall ask for my work is the Sun and the Moon, and
Freya, who watches over the flowers and grasses, for my wife."
Now when Odin heard this he was terribly angered, for the price the
Stranger asked for his work was beyond all prices. He went amongst the
other Gods who were then building their shining palaces within the great
wall and he told them what reward the Stranger had asked. The Gods said,
"Without the Sun and the Moon the world will wither away." And the
Goddesses said, "Without Freya all will be gloom in Asgard."
They would have let the wall remain unbuilt rather than let the Stranger
have the reward he claimed for building it. But one who was in the
company of the Gods spoke. He was Loki, a being who only half belonged
to the Gods; his father was the Wind Giant. "Let the Stranger build the
wall round Asgard," Loki said, "and I will find a way to make him give
up the hard bargain he has made with the Gods. Go to him and tell him
that the wall must be finished by the first day of Summer, and that if
it is not finished to the last stone on that day the price he asks will
not be given to him."
The Gods went to the Stranger and they told him that if the last stone
was not laid on the wall on the first day of the Summer not Sol or Mani,
the Sun and the Moon, nor Freya would be given him. And now they knew
that the Stranger was one of the Giants.
The Giant and his great horse piled up the wall more quickly than
before. At night, while the Giant slept, the horse worked on and on,
hauling up stones and laying them on the wall with his great forefeet.
And day by day the wall around Asgard grew higher and higher.
But the Gods had no joy in seeing that great wall rising higher and
higher around their palaces. The Giant and his horse would finish the
work by the first day of Summer, and then he would take the Sun and the
Moon, Sol and Mani, and Freya away with him.
But Loki was not disturbed. He kept telling the Gods that he would find
a way to prevent him from finishing his work, and thus he would make the
Giant forfeit the terrible price he had led Odin to promise him.
It was three days to Summer time. All the wall was finished except the
gateway. Over the gateway a stone was still to be placed. And the Giant,
before he went to sleep, bade his horse haul up a great block of stone
so that they might put it above the gateway in the morning, and so
finish the work two full days before Summer.
It happened to be a beautiful moonlit night. Svadilfare, the Giant's
great horse, was hauling the largest stone he ever hauled when he saw a
little mare come galloping toward him. The great horse had never seen so
pretty a little mare and he looked at her with surprise.
"Svadilfare, slave," said the little mare to him and went frisking past.
Svadilfare put down the stone he was hauling and called to the little
mare. She came back to him. "Why do you call me 'Svadilfare, slave'?"
said the great horse.
"Because you have to work night and day for your master," said the
little mare. "He keeps you working, working, working, and never lets you
enjoy yourself. You dare not leave that stone down and come and play
with me."
"Who told you I dare not do it?" said Svadilfare.
"I know you daren't do it," said the little mare, and she kicked up her
heels and ran across the moonlit meadow.
Now the truth is that Svadilfare was tired of working day and night.
When he saw the little mare go galloping off he became suddenly
discontented. He left the stone he was hauling on the ground. He looked
round and he saw the little mare looking back at him. He galloped after
her.
He did not catch up on the little mare. She went on swiftly before him.
On she went over the moonlit meadow, turning and looking back now and
again at the great Svadilfare, who came heavily after her. Down the
mountainside the mare went, and Svadilfare, who now rejoiced in his
liberty and in the freshness of the wind and in the smell of the
flowers, still followed her. With the morning's light they came near a
cave and the little mare went into it. They went through the cave. Then
Svadilfare caught up on the little mare and the two went wandering
together, the little mare telling Svadilfare stories of the Dwarfs and
the Elves.
They came to a grove and they stayed together in it, the little mare
playing so nicely with him that the great horse forgot all about time
passing. And while they were in the grove the Giant was going up and
down, searching for his great horse.
He had come to the wall in the morning, expecting to put the stone over
the gateway and so finish his work. But the stone that was to be lifted
up was not near him. He called for Svadilfare, but his great horse did
not come. He went to search for him, and he searched all down the
mountainside and he searched as far across the earth as the realm of the
Giants. But he did not find Svadilfare.
The Gods saw the first day of Summer come and the gateway of the wall
stand unfinished. They said to each other that if it were not finished
by the evening they need not give Sol and Mani to the Giant, nor the
maiden Freya to be his wife. The hours of the summer day went past and
the Giant did not raise the stone over the gateway. In the evening he
came before them.
"Your work is not finished," Odin said. "You forced us to a hard
bargain and now we need not keep it with you. You shall not be given Sol
and Mani nor the maiden Freya."
"Only the wall I have built is so strong I would tear it down," said the
Giant. He tried to throw down one of the palaces, but the Gods laid
hands on him and thrust him outside the wall he had built. "Go, and
trouble Asgard no more," Odin commanded.
Then Loki returned to Asgard. He told the Gods how he had transformed
himself into a little mare and had led away Svadilfare, the Giant's
great horse. And the Gods sat in their golden palaces behind the great
wall and rejoiced that their City was now secure, and that no enemy
could ever enter it or overthrow it. But Odin, the Father of the Gods,
as he sat upon his throne was sad in his heart, sad that the Gods had
got their wall built by a trick; that oaths had been broken, and that a
blow had been struck in injustice in Asgard.
[Illustration]
IDUNA AND HER APPLES: HOW LOKI PUT THE GODS IN DANGER
In Asgard there was a garden, and in that garden there grew a tree, and
on that tree there grew shining apples. Thou knowst, O well-loved one,
that every day that passes makes us older and brings us to that day when
we will be bent and feeble, gray-headed and weak-eyed. But those shining
apples that grew in Asgard--they who ate of them every day grew never a
day older, for the eating of the apples kept old age away.
Iduna, the Goddess, tended the tree on which the shining apples grew.
None would grow on the tree unless she was there to tend it. No one but
Iduna might pluck the shining apples. Each morning she plucked them and
left them in her basket and every day the Gods and Goddesses came to her
garden that they might eat the shining apples and so stay for ever
young.
Iduna never went from her garden. All day and every day she stayed in
the garden or in her golden house beside it, and all day and every day
she listened to Bragi, her husband, tell a story that never had an end.
Ah, but a time came when Iduna and her apples were lost to Asgard, and
the Gods and Goddesses felt old age approach them. How all that happened
shall be told thee, O well beloved.
Odin, the Father of the Gods, often went into the land of men to watch
over their doings. Once he took Loki with him, Loki, the doer of good
and the doer of evil. For a long time they went traveling through the
world of men. At last they came near Jötunheim, the realm of the Giants.
It was a bleak and empty region. There were no growing things there, not
even trees with berries. There were no birds, there were no animals. As
Odin, the Father of the Gods, and Loki, the doer of good and the doer of
evil, went through this region hunger came upon them. But in all the
land around they saw nothing that they could eat.
Loki, running here and running there, came at last upon a herd of wild
cattle. Creeping up on them, he caught hold of a young bull and killed
him. Then he cut up the flesh into strips of meat. He lighted a fire and
put the meat on spits to roast. While the meat was being cooked, Odin,
the Father of the Gods, a little way off, sat thinking on the things he
had seen in the world of men.
Loki made himself busy putting more and more logs on the fire. At last
he called to Odin, and the Father of the Gods came and sat down near the
fire to eat the meal.
But when the meat was taken off the cooking-spits and when Odin went to
cut it, he found that it was still raw. He smiled at Loki for thinking
the meat was cooked, and Loki, troubled that he had made a mistake, put
the meat back, and put more logs upon the fire. Again Loki took the meat
off the cooking-spits and called Odin to the meal.
Odin, when he took the meat that Loki brought him, found that it was as
raw as if it had never been put upon the fire. "Is this a trick of
yours, Loki?" he said.
Loki was so angry at the meat being uncooked that Odin saw he was
playing no tricks. In his hunger he raged at the meat and he raged at
the fire. Again he put the meat on the cooking-spits and put more logs
on the fire. Every hour he would take up the meat, sure that it was now
cooked, and every time he took it off Odin would find that the meat was
as raw as the first time they took it off the fire.
Now Odin knew that the meat must be under some enchantment by the
Giants. He stood up and went on his way, hungry but strong. Loki,
however, would not leave the meat that he had put back on the fire. He
would make it be cooked, he declared, and he would not leave that place
hungry.
The dawn came and he took up the meat again. As he was lifting it off
the fire he heard a whirr of wings above his head. Looking up, he saw a
mighty eagle, the largest eagle that ever appeared in the sky. The eagle
circled round and round and came above Loki's head. "Canst thou not cook
thy food?" the eagle screamed to him.
"I cannot cook it," said Loki.
"I will cook it for thee, if thou wilt give me a share," screamed the
eagle.
"Come, then, and cook it for me," said Loki.
The eagle circled round until he was above the fire. Then flapping his
great wings over it, he made the fire blaze and blaze. A heat that Loki
had never felt before came from the burning logs. In a minute he drew
the meat from the spits and found it was well cooked.
"My share, my share, give me my share," the eagle screamed at him. He
flew down, and seizing on a large piece of meat instantly devoured it.
He seized on another piece. Piece after piece he devoured until it
looked as if Loki would be left with no meat for his meal.
As the eagle seized on the last piece Loki became angry indeed. Taking
up the spit on which the meat had been cooked, he struck at the eagle.
There was a clang as if he had struck some metal. The wood of the spit
did not come away. It stuck to the breast of the eagle. But Loki did not
let go his hold on the spit. Suddenly the eagle rose up in the air.
Loki, who held to the spit that was fastened to the eagle's breast, was
drawn up with him.
Before he knew what had happened Loki was miles and miles up in the air
and the eagle was flying with him toward Jötunheim, the Realm of the
Giants. And the eagle was screaming out, "Loki, friend Loki, I have thee
at last. It was thou who didst cheat my brother of his reward for
building the wall round Asgard. But, Loki, I have thee at last. Know now
that Thiassi the Giant has captured thee, O Loki, most cunning of the
dwellers in Asgard."
Thus the eagle screamed as he went flying with Loki toward Jötunheim,
the Realm of the Giants. They passed over the river that divides
Jötunheim from Midgard, the World of Men. And now Loki saw a terrible
place beneath him, a land of ice and rock. Great mountains were there:
they were lighted by neither sun nor moon, but by columns of fire thrown
up now and again through cracks in the earth or out of the peaks of the
mountains.
Over a great iceberg the eagle hovered. Suddenly he shook the spit from
his breast and Loki fell down on the ice. The eagle screamed out to him,
"Thou art in my power at last, O thou most cunning of all the Dwellers
in Asgard." The eagle left Loki there and flew within a crack in the
mountain.
Miserable indeed was Loki upon that iceberg. The cold was deadly. He
could not die there, for he was one of the Dwellers in Asgard and death
might not come to him that way. He might not die, but he felt bound to
that iceberg with chains of cold.
After a day his captor came to him, not as an eagle this time, but in
his own form, Thiassi the Giant.
"Wouldst thou leave thine iceberg, Loki," he said, "and return to thy
pleasant place in Asgard? Thou dost delight in Asgard, although only by
one-half dost thou belong to the Gods. Thy father, Loki, was the Wind
Giant."
"O that I might leave this iceberg," Loki said, with the tears freezing
on his face.
"Thou mayst leave it when thou showest thyself ready to pay thy ransom
to me," said Thiassi. "Thou wilt have to get me the shining apples that
Iduna keeps in her basket."
"I cannot get Iduna's apples for thee, Thiassi," said Loki.
"Then stay upon the iceberg," said Thiassi the Giant. He went away and
left Loki there with the terrible winds buffeting him as with blows of a
hammer.
When Thiassi came again and spoke to him about his ransom, Loki said,
"There is no way of getting the shining apples from Iduna."
"There must be some way, O cunning Loki," said the Giant.
"Iduna, although she guards well the shining apples, is simple-minded,"
said Loki. "It may be that I shall be able to get her to go outside the
wall of Asgard. If she goes she will bring her shining apples with her,
for she never lets them go out of her hand except when she gives them to
the Gods and Goddesses to eat."
"Make it so that she will go beyond the wall of Asgard," said the Giant.
"If she goes outside of the wall I shall get the apples from her. Swear
by the World-Tree that thou wilt lure Iduna beyond the wall of Asgard.
Swear it, Loki, and I shall let thee go."
"I swear it by Ygdrassil, the World-Tree, that I will lure Iduna beyond
the wall of Asgard if thou wilt take me off this iceberg," said Loki.
Then Thiassi changed himself into a mighty eagle, and taking Loki in his
talons, he flew with him over the stream that divides Jötunheim, the
Realm of the Giants, from Midgard, the World of Men. He left Loki on the
ground of Midgard, and Loki then went on his way to Asgard.
Now Odin had already returned and he had told the Dwellers in Asgard of
Loki's attempt to cook the enchanted meat. All laughed to think that
Loki had been left hungry for all his cunning. Then when he came into
Asgard looking so famished, they thought it was because Loki had had
nothing to eat. They laughed at him more and more. But they brought him
into the Feast Hall and they gave him the best of food with wine out of
Odin's wine cup. When the feast was over the Dwellers in Asgard went to
Iduna's garden as was their wont.
There sat Iduna in the golden house that opened on her garden. Had she
been in the world of men, every one who saw her would have remembered
their own innocence, seeing one who was so fair and good. She had eyes
blue as the blue sky, and she smiled as if she were remembering lovely
things she had seen or heard. The basket of shining apples was beside
her.
To each God and Goddess Iduna gave a shining apple. Each one ate the
apple given, rejoicing to think that they would never become a day
older. Then Odin, the Father of the Gods, said the runes that were
always said in praise of Iduna, and the Dwellers in Asgard went out of
Iduna's garden, each one going to his or her own shining house.
All went except Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil. Loki sat in
the garden, watching fair and simple Iduna. After a while she spoke to
him and said, "Why dost thou still stay here, wise Loki?"
"To look well on thine apples," Loki said. "I am wondering if the apples
I saw yesterday are really as shining as the apples that are in thy
basket."
"There are no apples in the world as shining as mine," said Iduna.
"The apples I saw were more shining," said Loki. "Aye, and they smelled
better, Iduna."
Iduna was troubled at what Loki, whom she deemed so wise, told her. Her
eyes filled with tears that there might be more shining apples in the
world than hers. "O Loki," she said, "it cannot be. No apples are more
shining, and none smell so sweet, as the apples I pluck off the tree in
my garden."
"Go, then, and see," said Loki. "Just outside Asgard is the tree that
has the apples I saw. Thou, Iduna, dost never leave thy garden, and so
thou dost not know what grows in the world. Go outside of Asgard and
see."
"I will go, Loki," said Iduna, the fair and simple.
Iduna went outside the wall of Asgard. She went to the place Loki had
told her that the apples grew in. But as she looked this way and that
way, Iduna heard a whirr of wings above her. Looking up, she saw a
mighty eagle, the largest eagle that had ever appeared in the sky.
She drew back toward the gate of Asgard. Then the great eagle swooped
down; Iduna felt herself lifted up, and then she was being carried away
from Asgard, away, away; away over Midgard where men lived, away toward
the rocks and snows of Jötunheim. Across the river that flows between
the World of Men and the Realm of the Giants Iduna was borne. Then the
eagle flew into a cleft in a mountain and Iduna was left in a cavernous
hall lighted up by columns of fire that burst up from the earth.
The eagle loosened his grip on Iduna and she sank down on the ground of
the cavern. The wings and the feathers fell from him and she saw her
captor as a terrible Giant.
"Oh, why have you carried me off from Asgard and brought me to this
place?" Iduna cried.
"That I might eat your shining apples, Iduna," said Thiassi the Giant.
"That will never be, for I will not give them to you," said Iduna.
"Give me the apples to eat, and I shall carry you back to Asgard."
"No, no, that cannot be. I have been trusted with the shining apples
that I might give them to the Gods only."
"Then I shall take the apples from you," said Thiassi the Giant.
He took the basket out of her hands and opened it. But when he touched
the apples they shriveled under his hands. He left them in the basket
and he set the basket down, for he knew now that the apples would be no
good to him unless Iduna gave them to him with her own hands.
"You must stay with me here until you give me the shining apples," he
said to her.
Then was poor Iduna frightened: she was frightened of the strange cave
and frightened of the fire that kept bursting up out of the earth and
she was frightened of the terrible Giant. But above all she was
frightened to think of the evil that would fall upon the Dwellers in
Asgard if she were not there to give them the shining apples to eat.
The Giant came to her again. But still Iduna would not give him the
shining apples. And there in the cave she stayed, the Giant troubling
her every day. And she grew more and more fearful as she saw in her
dreams the Dwellers in Asgard go to her garden--go there, and not being
given the shining apples, feel and see a change coming over themselves
and over each other.
It was as Iduna saw it in her dreams. Every day the Dwellers in Asgard
went to her garden--Odin and Thor, Hödur and Baldur, Tyr and Heimdall,
Vidar and Vali, with Frigga, Freya, Nanna, and Sif. There was no one to
pluck the apples of their tree. And a change began to come over the Gods
and Goddesses.
They no longer walked lightly; their shoulders became bent; their eyes
no longer were as bright as dewdrops. And when they looked upon one
another they saw the change. Age was coming upon the Dwellers in Asgard.
They knew that the time would come when Frigga would be gray and old;
when Sif's golden hair would fade; when Odin would no longer have his
clear wisdom, and when Thor would not have strength enough to raise and
fling his thunderbolts. And the Dwellers in Asgard were saddened by this
knowledge, and it seemed to them that all brightness had gone from their
shining City.
Where was Iduna whose apples would give back youth and strength and
beauty to the Dwellers in Asgard? The Gods had searched for her through
the World of Men. No trace of her did they find. But now Odin, searching
through his wisdom, saw a means to get knowledge of where Iduna was
hidden.
He summoned his two ravens, Hugin and Munin, his two ravens that flew
through the earth and through the Realm of the Giants and that knew all
things that were past and all things that were to come. He summoned
Hugin and Munin and they came, and one sat on his right shoulder and one
sat on his left shoulder and they told him deep secrets: they told him
of Thiassi and of his desire for the shining apples that the Dwellers in
Asgard ate, and of Loki's deception of Iduna, the fair and simple.
What Odin learnt from his ravens was told in the Council of the Gods.
Then Thor the Strong went to Loki and laid hands upon him. When Loki
found himself in the grip of the strong God, he said, "What wouldst thou
with me, O Thor?"
"I would hurl thee into a chasm in the ground and strike thee with my
thunder," said the strong God. "It was thou who didst bring it about
that Iduna went from Asgard."
"O Thor," said Loki, "do not crush me with thy thunder. Let me stay in
Asgard. I will strive to win Iduna back."
"The judgment of the Gods," said Thor, "is that thou, the cunning one,
shouldst go to Jötunheim, and by thy craft win Iduna back from the
Giants. Go or else I shall hurl thee into a chasm and crush thee with my
thunder."
"I will go," said Loki.
From Frigga, the wife of Odin, Loki borrowed the dress of falcon
feathers that she owned. He clad himself in it, and flew to Jötunheim in
the form of a falcon.
He searched through Jötunheim until he found Thiassi's daughter, Skadi.
He flew before Skadi and he let the Giant maid catch him and hold him as
a pet. One day the Giant maid carried him into the cave where Iduna, the
fair and simple, was held.
When Loki saw Iduna there he knew that part of his quest was ended. Now
he had to get Iduna out of Jötunheim and away to Asgard. He stayed no
more with the Giant maid, but flew up into the high rocks of the cave.
Skadi wept for the flight of her pet, but she ceased to search and to
call and went away from the cave.
Then Loki, the doer of good and the doer of evil, flew to where Iduna
was sitting and spoke to her. Iduna, when she knew that one of the
Dwellers in Asgard was near, wept with joy.
Loki told her what she was to do. By the power of a spell that was given
him he was able to change her into the form of a sparrow. But before she
did this she took the shining apples out of her basket and flung them
into places where the Giant would never find them.
Skadi, coming back to the cave, saw the falcon fly out with the sparrow
beside him. She cried out to her father and the Giant knew that the
falcon was Loki and the sparrow was Iduna. He changed himself into the
form of a mighty eagle. By this time sparrow and falcon were out of
sight, but Thiassi, knowing that he could make better flight than they,
flew toward Asgard.
Soon he saw them. They flew with all the power they had, but the great
wings of the eagle brought him nearer and nearer to them. The Dwellers
in Asgard, standing on the wall, saw the falcon and the sparrow with the
great eagle pursuing them. They knew who they were--Loki and Iduna with
Thiassi in pursuit.
As they watched the eagle winging nearer and nearer, the Dwellers in
Asgard were fearful that the falcon and the sparrow would be caught upon
and that Iduna would be taken again by Thiassi. They lighted great fires
upon the wall, knowing that Loki would find a way through the fires,
bringing Iduna with him, but that Thiassi would not find a way.
The falcon and the sparrow flew toward the fires. Loki went between the
flames and brought Iduna with him. And Thiassi, coming up to the fires
and finding no way through, beat his wings against the flames. He fell
down from the wall and the death that came to him afterwards was laid to
Loki.
Thus Iduna was brought back to Asgard. Once again she sat in the golden
house that opened to her garden, once again she plucked the shining
apples off the tree she tended, and once again she gave them to the
Dwellers in Asgard. And the Dwellers in Asgard walked lightly again, and
brightness came into their eyes and into their cheeks; age no more
approached them; youth came back; light and joy were again in Asgard.
[Illustration]
SIF'S GOLDEN HAIR: HOW LOKI WROUGHT MISCHIEF IN ASGARD
All who dwelt in Asgard, the Æsir and the Asyniur, who were the Gods and
the Goddesses, and the Vanir, who were the friends of the Gods and the
Goddesses, were wroth with Loki. It was no wonder they were wroth with
him, for he had let the Giant Thiassi carry off Iduna and her golden
apples. Still, it must be told that the show they made of their wrath
made Loki ready to do more mischief in Asgard.
One day he saw a chance to do mischief that made his heart rejoice. Sif,
the wife of Thor, was lying asleep outside her house. Her beautiful
golden hair flowed all round her. Loki knew how much Thor loved that
shining hair, and how greatly Sif prized it because of Thor's love.
Here was his chance to do a great mischief. Smilingly, he took out his
shears and he cut off the shining hair, every strand and every tress.
She did not waken while her treasure was being taken from her. But Loki
left Sif's head cropped and bare.
Thor was away from Asgard. Coming back to the City of the Gods, he went
into his house. Sif, his wife, was not there to welcome him. He called
to Sif, but no glad answer came from her. To the palaces of all the Gods
and Goddesses Thor went, but in none of them did he find Sif, his
golden-haired wife.
When he was coming back to his house he heard his name whispered. He
stopped, and then a figure stole out from behind a stone. A veil covered
her head, and Thor scarce knew that this was Sif, his wife. As he went
to her she sobbed and sobbed. "O Thor, my husband," she said, "do not
look upon me. I am ashamed that you should see me. I shall go from
Asgard and from the company of the Gods and Goddesses, and I shall go
down to Svartheim and live amongst the Dwarfs. I cannot bear that any of
the Dwellers in Asgard should look upon me now."
"O Sif," cried Thor, "what has happened to change you?"
"I have lost the hair of my head," said Sif, "I have lost the beautiful
golden hair that you, Thor, loved. You will not love me any more, and so
I must go away, down to Svartheim and to the company of the Dwarfs. They
are as ugly as I am now."
Then she took the veil off her head and Thor saw that all her beautiful
hair was gone. She stood before him, shamed and sorrowful, and he grew
into a mighty rage. "Who was it did this to you, Sif?" he said. "I am
Thor, the strongest of all the Dwellers in Asgard, and I shall see to it
that all the powers the Gods possess will be used to get your fairness
back. Come with me, Sif." And taking his wife's hand in his, Thor went
off to the Council House where the Gods and the Goddesses were.
Sif covered her head with her veil, for she would not have the Gods and
Goddesses look upon her shorn head. But from the anger in Thor's eyes
all saw that the wrong done to Sif was great indeed. Then Thor told of
the cutting of her beautiful hair. A whisper went round the Council
House. "It was Loki did this--no one else in Asgard would have done a
deed so shameful," one said to the other.
"Loki it was who did it," said Thor. "He has hidden himself, but I shall
find him and I will slay him."
"Nay, not so, Thor," said Odin, the Father of the Gods. "Nay, no Dweller
in Asgard may slay another. I shall summon Loki to come before us here.
It is for you to make him (and remember that Loki is cunning and able to
do many things) bring back to Sif the beauty of her golden hair."
Then the call of Odin, the call that all in Asgard have to harken to,
went through the City of the Gods. Loki heard it, and he had to come
from his hiding-place and enter the house where the Gods held their
Council. And when he looked on Thor and saw the rage that was in his
eyes, and when he looked on Odin and saw the sternness in the face of
the Father of the Gods, he knew that he would have to make amends for
the shameful wrong he had done to Sif.
Said Odin, "There is a thing that you, Loki, have to do: Restore to Sif
the beauty of her hair."
Loki looked at Odin, Loki looked at Thor, and he saw that what was said
would have to be done. His quick mind searched to find a way of
restoring to Sif the beauty of her golden hair.
"I shall do as you command, Odin All-Father," he said.
But before we tell you of what Loki did to restore the beauty of Sif's
golden hair, we must tell you of the other beings besides the Gods and
the Goddesses who were in the world at the time. First, there was the
Vanir. When the Gods who were called the Æsir came to the mountain on
which they built Asgard, they found other beings there. These were not
wicked and ugly like the Giants; they were beautiful and friendly; the
Vanir they were named.
Although they were beautiful and friendly the Vanir had no thought of
making the world more beautiful or more happy. In that way they differed
from the Æsir who had such a thought. The Æsir made peace with them, and
they lived together in friendship, and the Vanir came to do things that
helped the Æsir to make the world more beautiful and more happy. Freya,
whom the Giant wanted to take away with the Sun and the Moon as a reward
for the building of the wall round Asgard, was of the Vanir. The other
beings of the Vanir were Frey, who was the brother of Freya, and Niörd,
who was their father.
On the earth below there were other beings--the dainty Elves, who danced
and fluttered about, attending to the trees and flowers and grasses. The
Vanir were permitted to rule over the Elves. Then below the earth, in
caves and hollows, there was another race, the Dwarfs or Gnomes, little,
twisted creatures, who were both wicked and ugly, but who were the best
craftsmen in the world.
In the days when neither the Æsir nor the Vanir were friendly to him
Loki used to go down to Svartheim, the Dwarfs' dwelling below the earth.
And now that he was commanded to restore to Sif the beauty of her hair,
Loki thought of help he might get from the Dwarfs.
Down, down, through the winding passages in the earth he went, and he
came at last to where the Dwarfs who were most friendly to him were
working in their forges. All the Dwarfs were master-smiths, and when he
came upon his friends he found them working hammer and tongs, beating
metals into many shapes. He watched them for a while and took note of
the things they were making. One was a spear, so well balanced and made
that it would hit whatever mark it was thrown at no matter how bad the
aim the thrower had. The other was a boat that could sail on any sea,
but that could be folded up so that it would go into one's pocket. The
spear was called Gungnir and the boat was called Skidbladnir.
Loki made himself very agreeable to the Dwarfs, praising their work and
promising them things that only the Dwellers in Asgard could give,
things that the Dwarfs longed to possess. He talked to them till the
little, ugly folk thought that they would come to own Asgard and all
that was in it.
At last Loki said to them, "Have you got a bar of fine gold that you can
hammer into threads--into threads so fine that they will be like the
hair of Sif, Thor's wife? Only the Dwarfs could make a thing so
wonderful. Ah, there is the bar of gold. Hammer it into those fine
threads, and the Gods themselves will be jealous of your work."
Flattered by Loki's speeches, the Dwarfs who were in the forge took up
the bar of fine gold and flung it into the fire. Then taking it out and
putting it upon their anvil they worked on the bar with their tiny
hammers until they beat it into threads that were as fine as the hairs
of one's head. But that was not enough. They had to be as fine as the
hairs on Sif's head, and these were finer than anything else. They
worked on the threads, over and over again, until they were as fine as
the hairs on Sif's head. The threads were as bright as sunlight, and
when Loki took up the mass of worked gold it flowed from his raised hand
down on the ground. It was so fine that it could be put into his palm,
and it was so light that a bird might not feel its weight.
Then Loki praised the Dwarfs more and more, and he made more and more
promises to them. He charmed them all, although they were an unfriendly
and a suspicious folk. And before he left them he asked them for the
spear and the boat he had seen them make, the spear Gungnir and the
boat Skidbladnir. The Dwarfs gave him these things, though in a while
after they wondered at themselves for giving them.
Back to Asgard Loki went. He walked into the Council House where the
Dwellers in Asgard were gathered. He met the stern look in Odin's eyes
and the rageful look in Thor's eyes with smiling good humor. "Off with
thy veil, O Sif," he said. And when poor Sif took off her veil he put
upon her shorn head the wonderful mass of gold he held in his palm. Over
her shoulders the gold fell, fine, soft, and shining as her own hair.
And the Æsir and the Asyniur, the Gods and the Goddesses, and the Van
and Vana, when they saw Sif's head covered again with the shining web,
laughed and clapped their hands in gladness. And the shining web held to
Sif's head as if indeed it had roots and was growing there.
[Illustration]
HOW BROCK BROUGHT JUDGMENT ON LOKI
It was then that Loki, with the wish of making the Æsir and the Vanir
friendly to him once more, brought out the wonderful things he had
gained from the Dwarfs--the spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir. The
Æsir and the Vanir marveled at things so wonderful. Loki gave the spear
as a gift to Odin, and to Frey, who was chief of the Vanir, he gave the
boat Skidbladnir.
All Asgard rejoiced that things so wonderful and so helpful had been
brought to them. And Loki, who had made a great show in giving these
gifts, said boastingly:
"None but the Dwarfs who work for me could make such things. There are
other Dwarfs, but they are as unhandy as they are misshapen. The Dwarfs
who are my servants are the only ones who can make such wonders."
Now Loki in his boastfulness had said a foolish thing. There were other
Dwarfs besides those who had worked for him, and one of these was there
in Asgard. All unknown to Loki he stood in the shadow of Odin's seat,
listening to what was being said. Now he went over to Loki, his little,
unshapely form trembling with rage--Brock, the most spiteful of all the
Dwarfs.
"Ha, Loki, you boaster," he roared, "you lie in your words. Sindri, my
brother, who would scorn to serve you, is the best smith in Svartheim."
The Æsir and the Vanir laughed to see Loki outfaced by Brock the Dwarf
in the middle of his boastfulness. As they laughed Loki grew angry.
"Be silent, Dwarf," he said, "your brother will know about smith's work
when he goes to the Dwarfs who are my friends, and learns something from
them."
"He learn from the Dwarfs who are your friends! My brother Sindri learn
from the Dwarfs who are your friends!" Brock roared, in a greater rage
than before. "The things you have brought out of Svartheim would not be
noticed by the Æsir and the Vanir if they were put beside the things
that my brother Sindri can make."
"Sometime we will try your brother Sindri and see what he can do," said
Loki.
"Try now, try now," Brock shouted. "I'll wager my head against yours,
Loki, that his work will make the Dwellers in Asgard laugh at your
boasting."
"I will take your wager," said Loki. "My head against yours. And glad
will I be to see that ugly head of yours off your misshapen shoulders."
"The Æsir will judge whether my brother's work is not the best that ever
came out of Svartheim. And they will see to it that you will pay your
wager, Loki, the head off your shoulders. Will ye not sit in judgment, O
Dwellers in Asgard?"
"We will sit in judgment," said the Æsir. Then, still full of rage,
Brock the Dwarf went down to Svartheim, and to the place where his
brother Sindri worked.
There was Sindri in his glowing forge, working with bellows and anvil
and hammers beside him, and around him masses of metal--gold and silver,
copper and iron. Brock told his tale, how he had wagered his head
against Loki's that Sindri could make things more wonderful than the
spear and the boat that Loki had brought into Asgard.
"You were right in what you said, my brother," said Sindri, "and you
shall not lose your head to Loki. But the two of us must work at what I
am going to forge. It will be your work to keep the fire so that it will
neither blaze up nor die down for a single instant. If you can keep the
fire as I tell you, we will forge a wonder. Now, brother, keep your
hands upon the bellows, and keep the fire under your control."
Then into the fire Sindri threw, not a piece of metal, but a pig's skin.
Brock kept his hands on the bellows, working it so that the fire neither
died down nor blazed up for a single instant. And in the glowing fire
the pigskin swelled itself into a strange shape.
But Brock was not left to work the bellows in peace. In to the forge
flew a gadfly. It lighted on Brock's hands and stung them. The Dwarf
screamed with pain, but his hands still held the bellows, working it to
keep the fire steady, for he knew that the gadfly was Loki, and that
Loki was striving to spoil Sindri's work. Again the gadfly stung his
hands, but Brock, although his hands felt as if they were pierced with
hot irons, still worked the bellows so that the fire did not blaze up or
die down for a single instant.
Sindri came and looked into the fire. Over the shape that was rising
there he said words of magic. The gadfly had flown away, and Sindri bade
his brother cease working. He took out the thing that had been shaped in
the fire, and he worked over it with his hammer. It was a wonder
indeed--a boar, all golden, that could fly through the air, and that
shed light from its bristles as it flew. Brock forgot the pain in his
hands and screamed with joy. "This is the greatest of wonders," he said.
"The Dwellers in Asgard will have to give the judgment against Loki. I
shall have Loki's head!"
But Sindri said, "The boar Golden Bristle may not be judged as great a
wonder as the spear Gungnir or the boat Skidbladnir. We must make
something more wonderful still. Work the bellows as before, brother, and
do not let the fire die down or blaze up for a single instant."
Then Sindri took up a piece of gold that was so bright it lightened up
the dark cavern that the Dwarfs worked in. He threw the piece of gold
into the fire. Then he went to make ready something else and left Brock
to work the bellows.
The gadfly flew in again. Brock did not know it was there until it
lighted on the back of his neck. It stung him till Brock felt the pain
was wrenching him apart. But still he kept his hands on the bellows,
working it so that the fire neither blazed up nor died down for a single
instant. When Sindri came to look into the fire, Brock was not able to
speak for pain.
Again Sindri said magic words over the gold that was being smelted in
the fire. He took it out of the glow and worked it over on the
main-anvil. Then in a while he showed Brock something that looked like
the circle of their sun. "A splendid armring, my brother," he said. "An
armring for a God's right arm. And this ring has hidden wonders. Every
ninth night eight rings like itself will drop from this armring, for
this is Draupnir, the Ring of Increase."
"To Odin, the Father of the Gods, the ring shall be given," said Brock.
"And Odin will have to declare that nothing so wonderful or so
profitable to the Gods was ever brought into Asgard. O Loki, cunning
Loki, I shall have thy head in spite of thy tricks."
"Be not too hasty, brother," said Sindri. "What we have done so far is
good. But better still must be the thing that will make the Dwellers in
Asgard give the judgment that delivers Loki's head to thee. Work as
before, brother, and do not let the fire blaze up or die down for a
single instant."
This time Sindri threw into the fire a bar of iron. Then he went away to
fetch the hammer that would shape it. Brock worked the bellows as
before, but only his hands were steady, for every other part of him was
trembling with expectation of the gadfly's sting.
He saw the gadfly dart into the forge. He screamed as it flew round and
round him, searching out a place where it might sting him most
fearfully. It lighted down on his forehead, just between his eyes. The
first sting it gave took the sight from his eyes. It stung again and
Brock felt the blood flowing down. Darkness filled the cave. Brock tried
to keep his hands steady on the bellows, but he did not know whether the
fire was blazing up or dying down. He shouted and Sindri hurried up.
Sindri said the magic words over the thing that was in the fire. Then he
drew it out. "An instant more," he said, "and the work would have been
perfect. But because you let the fire die down for an instant the work
is not as good as it might have been made." He took what was shaped in
the fire to the main-anvil and worked over it. Then when Brock's
eyesight came back to him he saw a great hammer, a hammer all of iron.
The handle did not seem to be long enough to balance the head. This was
because the fire had died down for an instant while it was being formed.
"The hammer is Miölnir," said Sindri, "and it is the greatest of the
things that I am able to make. All in Asgard must rejoice to see this
hammer. Thor only will be able to wield it. Now I am not afraid of the
judgment that the Dwellers in Asgard will give."
"The Dwellers in Asgard will have to give judgment for us," Brock cried
out. "They will have to give judgment for us, and the head of Loki, my
tormentor, will be given me."
"No more wonderful or more profitable gifts than these have ever been
brought into Asgard," Sindri said. "Thy head is saved, and thou wilt be
able to take the head of Loki who was insolent to us. Bring it here, and
we will throw it into the fire in the forge."
The Æsir and the Vanir were seated in the Council House of Asgard when a
train of Dwarfs appeared before them. Brock came at the head of the
train, and he was followed by a band of Dwarfs carrying things of great
weight. Brock and his attendants stood round the throne of Odin, and
hearkened to the words of the Father of the Gods.
"We know why you have come into Asgard from out of Svartheim," Odin
said. "You have brought things wonderful and profitable to the Dwellers
in Asgard. Let what you have brought be seen, Brock. If they are more
wonderful and more useful than the things Loki has brought out of
Svartheim, the spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir, we will give
judgment for you."
Then Brock commanded the Dwarfs who waited on him to show the Dwellers
in Asgard the first of the wonders that Sindri had made. They brought
out the boar, Golden Bristle. Round and round the Council House the boar
flew, leaving a track of brightness. The Dwellers in Asgard said one to
the other that this was a wonder indeed. But none would say that the
boar was a better thing to have in Asgard than the spear that would hit
the mark no matter how badly it was flung, or the boat Skidbladnir that
would sail on any sea, and that could be folded up so small that it
would fit in any one's pocket: none would say that Golden Bristle was
better than these wonders.
To Frey, who was Chief of the Vanir, Brock gave the wondrous boar.
Then the attending Dwarfs showed the armring that was as bright as the
circle of the Sun. All admired the noble ring. And when it was told how
every ninth night this ring dropped eight rings of gold that were like
itself, the Dwellers in Asgard spoke aloud, all saying that Draupnir,
the Ring of Increase, was a wonder indeed. Hearing their voices raised,
Brock looked triumphantly at Loki who was standing there with his lips
drawn closely together.
To Odin, the Father of the Gods, Brock gave the noble armring.
Then he commanded the attending Dwarfs to lay before Thor the hammer
Miölnir. Thor took the hammer up and swung it around his head. As he did
so he uttered a great cry. And the eyes of the Dwellers in Asgard
lightened up when they saw Thor with the hammer Miölnir in his hands;
their eyes lightened up and from their lips came the cry, "This is a
wonder, a wonder indeed! With this hammer in his hand none can withstand
Thor, our Champion. No greater thing has ever come into Asgard than the
hammer Miölnir."
Then Odin, the Father of the Gods, spoke from his throne, giving
judgment. "The hammer Miölnir that the Dwarf Brock has brought into
Asgard is a thing wonderful indeed and profitable to the Gods. In
Thor's hands it can crush mountains, and hurl the Giant race from the
ramparts of Asgard. Sindri the Dwarf has forged a greater thing than the
spear Gungnir and the boat Skidbladnir. There can be no other judgment."
Brock looked at Loki, showing his gnarled teeth. "Now, Loki, yield your
head, yield your head," he cried.
"Do not ask such a thing," said Odin. "Put any other penalty on Loki for
mocking you and tormenting you. Make him yield to you the greatest thing
that it is in his power to give."
"Not so, not so," screamed Brock. "You Dwellers in Asgard would shield
one another. But what of me? Loki would have taken my head had I lost
the wager. Loki has lost his head to me. Let him kneel down now till I
cut it off."
Loki came forward, smiling with closed lips. "I kneel before you,
Dwarf," he said. "Take off my head. But be careful. Do not touch my
neck. I did not bargain that you should touch my neck. If you do, I
shall call upon the Dwellers in Asgard to punish you."
Brock drew back with a snarl. "Is this the judgment of the Gods?" he
asked.
"The bargain you made, Brock," said Odin, "was an evil one, and all its
evil consequences you must bear."
Brock, in a rage, looked upon Loki, and he saw that his lips were
smiling. He stamped his feet and raged. Then he went up to Loki and
said, "I may not take your head, but I can do something with your lips
that mock me."
"What would you do, Dwarf?" asked Thor.
"Sew Loki's lips together," said Brock, "so that he can do no more
mischief with his talk. You Dwellers in Asgard cannot forbid me to do
this. Down, Loki, on your knees before me."
Loki looked round on the Dwellers in Asgard and he saw that their
judgment was that he must kneel before the Dwarf. He knelt down with a
frown upon his brow. "Draw your lips together, Loki," said Brock. Loki
drew his lips together while his eyes flashed fire. With an awl that he
took from his belt Brock pierced Loki's lips. He took out a thong and
tightened them together. Then in triumph the Dwarf looked on Loki.
"O Loki," he said, "you boasted that the Dwarfs who worked for you were
better craftsmen than Sindri, my brother. Your words have been shown to
be lies. And now you cannot boast for a while."
Then Brock the Dwarf, with great majesty, walked out of the Council
House of Asgard, and the attending Dwarfs marched behind him in
procession. Down the passages in the earth the Dwarfs went, singing the
song of Brock's triumph over Loki. And in Svartheim it was told forever
after how Sindri and Brock had prevailed.
In Asgard, now that Loki's lips were closed, there was peace and a
respite from mischief. No one amongst the Æsir or the Vanir were sorry
when Loki had to walk about in silence with his head bent low.
[Illustration]
HOW FREYA GAINED HER NECKLACE AND HOW HER LOVED ONE WAS LOST TO HER
Yes, Loki went through Asgard silent and with head bent, and the
Dwellers in Asgard said one unto the other, "This will teach Loki to
work no more mischief." They did not know that what Loki had done had
sown the seeds of mischief and that these seeds were to sprout up and
bring sorrow to the beautiful Vana Freya, to Freya whom the Giant wanted
to carry off with the Sun and the Moon as payment for his building the
wall around Asgard.
Freya had looked upon the wonders that Loki had brought into Asgard--the
golden threads that were Sif's hair, and Frey's boar that shed light
from its bristles as it flew. The gleam of these golden things dazzled
her, and made her dream in the day time and the night time of the
wonders that she herself might possess. And often she thought, "What
wonderful things the Three Giant Women would give me if I could bring
myself to go to them on their mountaintop."
Long ere this, when the wall around their City was not yet built, and
when the Gods had set up only the court with their twelve seats and the
Hall that was for Odin and the Hall that was for the Goddesses, there
had come into Asgard Three Giant Women.
They came after the Gods had set up a forge and had begun to work metal
for their buildings. The metal they worked was pure gold. With gold they
built Gladsheim, the Hall of Odin, and with gold they made all their
dishes and household ware. Then was the Age of Gold, and the Gods did
not grudge gold to anyone. Happy were the Gods then, and no shadow nor
foreboding lay on Asgard.
But after the Three Giant Women came the Gods began to value gold and to
hoard it. They played with it no more. And the happy innocence of their
first days departed from them.
At last the Three were banished from Asgard. The Gods turned their
thoughts from the hoarding of gold, and they built up their City, and
they made themselves strong.
And now Freya, the lovely Vanir bride, thought upon the Giant Women and
on the wonderful things of gold they had flashed through their hands.
But not to Odur, her husband, did she speak her thoughts; for Odur, more
than any of the other dwellers in Asgard, was wont to think on the days
of happy innocence, before gold came to be hoarded and valued. Odur
would not have Freya go near the mountaintop where the Three had their
high seat.
But Freya did not cease to think upon them and upon the things of gold
they had. "Why should Odur know I went to them?" she said to herself.
"No one will tell him. And what difference will it make if I go to them
and gain some lovely thing for myself? I shall not love Odur the less
because I go my own way for once."
Then one day she left their palace, leaving Odur, her husband, playing
with their little child Hnossa. She left the palace and went down to the
Earth. There she stayed for a while, tending the flowers that were her
charge. After a while she asked the Elves to tell her where the mountain
was on which the Three Giant Women stayed.
The Elves were frightened and would not tell her, although she was queen
over them. She left them and stole down into the caves of the Dwarfs. It
was they who showed her the way to the seat of the Giant Women, but
before they showed her the way they made her feel shame and misery.
"We will show you the way if you stay with us here," said one of the
Dwarfs.
"For how long would you have me stay?" said Freya.
"Until the cocks in Svartheim crow," said the Dwarfs, closing round her.
"We want to know what the company of one of the Vanir is like." "I will
stay," Freya said.
Then one of the Dwarfs reached up and put his arms round her neck and
kissed her with his ugly mouth. Freya tried to break away from them, but
the Dwarfs held her. "You cannot go away from us now until the cocks of
Svartheim crow," they said.
Then one and then another of the Dwarfs pressed up to her and kissed
her. They made her sit down beside them on the heaps of skins they had.
When she wept they screamed at her and beat her. One, when she would not
kiss him on the mouth, bit her hands. So Freya stayed with the Dwarfs
until the cocks of Svartheim crew.
They showed her the mountain on the top of which the Three banished from
Asgard had their abode. The Giant Women sat overlooking the World of
Men. "What would you have from us, wife of Odur?" one who was called
Gulveig said to her.
"Alas! Now that I have found you I know that I should ask you for
nought," Freya said.
"Speak, Vana," said the second of the Giant Women.
The third said nothing, but she held up in her hands a necklace of gold
most curiously fashioned. "How bright it is!" Freya said. "There is
shadow where you sit, women, but the necklace you hold makes brightness
now. Oh, how I should joy to wear it!"
"It is the necklace Brisingamen," said the one who was called Gulveig.
"It is yours to wear, wife of Odur," said the one who held it in her
hands.
Freya took the shining necklace and clasped it round her throat. She
could not bring herself to thank the Giant Women, for she saw that
there was evil in their eyes. She made reverence to them, however, and
she went from the mountain on which they sat overlooking the World of
Men.
In a while she looked down and saw Brisingamen and her misery went from
her. It was the most beautiful thing ever made by hands. None of the
Asyniur and none other of the Vanir possessed a thing so beautiful. It
made her more and more lovely, and Odur, she thought, would forgive her
when he saw how beautiful and how happy Brisingamen made her.
She rose up from amongst the flowers and took leave of the slight Elves
and she made her way into Asgard. All who greeted her looked long and
with wonder upon the necklace that she wore. And into the eyes of the
Goddesses there came a look of longing when they saw Brisingamen.
But Freya hardly stopped to speak to anyone. As swiftly as she could she
made her way to her own palace. She would show herself to Odur and win
his forgiveness. She entered her shining palace and called to him. No
answer came. Her child, the little Hnossa, was on the floor, playing.
Her mother took her in her arms, but the child, when she looked on
Brisingamen, turned away crying.
Freya left Hnossa down and searched again for Odur. He was not in any
part of their palace. She went into the houses of all who dwelt in
Asgard, asking for tidings of him. None knew where he had gone to. At
last Freya went back to their palace and waited and waited for Odur to
return. But Odur did not come.
One came to her. It was a Goddess, Odin's wife, the queenly Frigga. "You
are waiting for Odur, your husband," Frigga said. "Ah, let me tell you
Odur will not come to you here. He went, when for the sake of a shining
thing you did what would make him unhappy. Odur has gone from Asgard and
no one knows where to search for him."
"I will seek him outside of Asgard," Freya said. She wept no more, but
she took the little child Hnossa and put her in Frigga's arms. Then she
mounted her car that was drawn by two cats, and journeyed down from
Asgard to Midgard, the Earth, to search for Odur her husband.
Year in and year out, and over all the Earth, Freya went searching and
calling for the lost Odur. She went as far as the bounds of the Earth,
where she could look over to Jötunheim, where dwelt the Giant who would
have carried her off with the Sun and the Moon as payment for the
building of the wall around Asgard. But in no place, from the end of the
Rainbow Bifröst, that stretched from Asgard to the Earth, to the
boundary of Jötunheim, did she find a trace of her husband Odur.
At last she turned her car toward Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge that
stretched from Midgard, the Earth, to Asgard, the Dwelling of the Gods.
Heimdall, the Watcher for the Gods, guarded the Rainbow Bridge. To him
Freya went with a half hope fluttering in her heart.
"O Heimdall," she cried, "O Heimdall, Watcher for the Gods, speak and
tell me if you know where Odur is."
"Odur is in every place where the searcher has not come; Odur is in
every place that the searcher has left; those who seek him will never
find Odur," said Heimdall, the Watcher for the Gods.
Then Freya stood on Bifröst and wept. Frigga, the queenly Goddess, heard
the sound of her weeping, and came out of Asgard to comfort her.
"Ah, what comfort can you give me, Frigga?" cried Freya. "What comfort
can you give me when Odur will never be found by one who searches for
him?"
"Behold how your daughter, the child Hnossa, has grown," said Frigga.
Freya looked up and saw a beautiful maiden standing on Bifröst, the
Rainbow Bridge. She was young, more youthful than any of the Vanir or
the Asyniur, and her face and her form were so lovely that all hearts
became melted when they looked upon her.
And Freya was comforted in her loss. She followed Frigga across Bifröst,
the Rainbow Bridge, and came once again into the City of the Gods. In
her own palace in Asgard Freya dwelt with Hnossa, her child.
Still she wore round her neck Brisingamen, the necklace that lost her
Odur. But now she wore it, not for its splendor, but as a sign of the
wrong she had done. She weeps, and her tears become golden drops as they
fall on the earth. And by poets who know her story she is called The
Beautiful Lady in Tears.
[Illustration]
HOW FREY WON GERDA, THE GIANT MAIDEN, AND HOW HE LOST HIS MAGIC SWORD
Frey, chief of the Vanir, longed to have sight of his sister who had
been from Asgard for so long. (You must know that this happened during
the time when Freya was wandering through the world, seeking her
husband, the lost Odur.) Now there was in Asgard a place from which one
could overlook the world and have a glimpse of all who wandered there.
That place was Hlidskjalf, Odin's lofty Watch-Tower.
High up into the blue of the air that Tower went. Frey came to it and he
knew that Odin All-Father was not upon Hlidskjalf. Only the two wolves,
Geri and Freki, that crouched beside Odin's seat at the banquet, were
there, and they stood in the way of Frey's entrance to the Tower. But
Frey spoke to Geri and Freki in the language of the Gods, and Odin's
wolves had to let him pass.
But, as he went up the steps within the Tower, Frey, chief of the Vanir,
knew that he was doing a fateful thing. For none of the High Gods, not
even Thor, the Defender of Asgard, nor Baldur, the Best-Beloved of the
Gods, had ever climbed to the top of that Tower and seated themselves
upon the All-Father's seat. "But if I could see my sister once I should
be contented," said Frey to himself, "and no harm can come to me if I
look out on the world."
He came to the top of Hlidskjalf. He seated himself on Odin's lofty
seat. He looked out on the world. He saw Midgard, the World of Men, with
its houses and towns, its farms and people. Beyond Midgard he saw
Jötunheim, the Realm of the Giants, terrible with its dark mountains and
its masses of snow and ice. He saw Freya as she went upon her
wanderings, and he marked that her face was turned toward Asgard and
that her steps were leading toward the City of the Gods. "I have
contented myself by looking from Hlidskjalf," said Frey to himself, "and
no harm has come to me."
But even as he spoke his gaze was drawn to a dwelling that stood in the
middle of the ice and snow of Jötunheim. Long he gazed upon that
dwelling without knowing why he looked that way. Then the door of the
house was opened and a Giant maiden stood within the doorway. Frey gazed
and gazed on her. So great was the beauty of her face that it was like
starlight in that dark land. She looked from the doorway of the house,
and then turned and went within, shutting the door.
Frey sat on Odin's high seat for long. Then he went down the steps of
the Tower and passed by the two wolves, Geri and Freki, that looked
threateningly upon him. He went through Asgard, but he found no one to
please him in the City of the Gods. That night sleep did not come to
him, for his thoughts were fixed upon the loveliness of the Giant maid
he had looked upon. And when morning came he was filled with loneliness
because he thought himself so far from her. He went to Hlidskjalf again,
thinking to climb the Tower and have sight of her once more. But now the
two wolves, Geri and Freki, bared their teeth at him and would not let
him pass, although he spoke to them again in the language of the Gods.
He went and spoke to wise Niörd, his father. "She whom you have seen, my
son," said Niörd, "is Gerda, the daughter of the Giant Gymer. You must
give over thinking of her. Your love for her would be an ill thing for
you."
"Why should it be an ill thing for me?" Frey asked.
"Because you would have to give that which you prize most for the sake
of coming to her."
"That which I prize most," said Frey, "is my magic sword."
"You will have to give your magic sword," said his father, the wise
Niörd.
"I will give it," said Frey, loosening his magic sword from his belt.
"Bethink thee, my son," said Niörd. "If thou givest thy sword, what
weapon wilt thou have on the day of Ragnarök, when the Giants will make
war upon the Gods?"
Frey did not speak, but he thought the day of Ragnarök was far off. "I
cannot live without Gerda," he said, as he turned away.
There was one in Asgard who was called Skirnir. He was a venturesome
being who never cared what he said or did. To no one else but Skirnir
could Frey bring himself to tell of the trouble that had fallen on
him--the trouble that was the punishment for his placing himself on the
seat of the All-Father.
Skirnir laughed when he heard Frey's tale. "Thou, a Van, in love with a
maid of Jötunheim! This is fun indeed! Will ye make a marriage of it?"
"Would that I might even speak to her or send a message of love to her,"
said Frey. "But I may not leave my watch over the Elves."
"And if I should take a message to Gerda," said Skirnir the Venturesome,
"what would my reward be?"
"My boat Skidbladnir or my boar Golden Bristle," said Frey.
"No, no," said Skirnir. "I want something to go by my side. I want
something to use in my hand. Give me the magic sword you own."
Frey thought upon what his father said, that he would be left weaponless
on the day of Ragnarök, when the Giants would make war upon the Gods and
when Asgard would be endangered. He thought upon this, and drew back
from Skirnir, and for a while he remained in thought. And all the time
thick-set Skirnir was laughing at him out of his wide mouth and his blue
eyes. Then Frey said to himself, "The day of Ragnarök is far off, and I
cannot live without Gerda."
He drew the magic sword from his belt and he placed it in Skirnir's
hand. "I give you my sword, Skirnir," he said. "Take my message to
Gerda, Gymer's daughter. Show her this gold and these precious jewels,
and say I love her, and that I claim her love."
"I shall bring the maid to you," said Skirnir the Venturesome.
"But how wilt thou get to Jötunheim?" said Frey, suddenly remembering
how dark the Giants' land was and how terrible were the approaches to
it.
"Oh, with a good horse and a good sword one can get anywhere," said
Skirnir. "My horse is a mighty horse, and you have given me your sword
of magic. Tomorrow I shall make the journey."
Skirnir rode across Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge, laughing out of his
wide mouth and his blue eyes at Heimdall, the Warder of the Bridge to
Asgard. His mighty horse trod the earth of Midgard, and swam the river
that divides Midgard, the World of Men, from Jötunheim, the Realm of the
Giants. He rode on heedlessly and recklessly, as he did all things. Then
out of the iron forests came the monstrous wolves of Jötunheim, to tear
and devour him and his mighty horse. It was well for Skirnir that he had
in his belt Frey's magic sword. Its edge slew and its gleam frighted
the monstrous beasts. On and on Skirnir rode on his mighty horse. Then
he came to a wall of fire. No other horse but his mighty horse could go
through it. Skirnir rode through the fire and came to the dale in which
was Gymer's dwelling.
And now he was before the house that Frey had seen Gerda enter on the
day when he had climbed Hlidskjalf, Odin's Watch-Tower. The mighty
hounds that guarded Gymer's dwelling came and bayed around him. But the
gleam of the magic sword kept them away. Skirnir backed his horse to the
door, and made his horse's hooves strike against it.
Gymer was in the feast hall drinking with his Giant friends, and he did
not hear the baying of the hounds nor the clatter that Skirnir made
before the door. But Gerda sat spinning with her maidens in the hall.
"Who comes to Gymer's door?" she said.
"A warrior upon a mighty horse," said one of the maidens.
"Even though he be an enemy and one who slew my brother, yet shall we
open the door to him and give him a cup of Gymer's mead," said Gerda.
One of the maidens opened the door and Skirnir entered Gymer's dwelling.
He knew Gerda amongst her maidens. He went to her and showed her the
rich gold and the precious jewels that he had brought from Frey. "These
are for you, fairest Gerda," he said, "if you will give your love to
Frey, the Chief of the Vanir."
"Show your gold and jewels to other maidens," said Gerda. "Gold and
jewels will never bring me to give my love."
Then Skirnir the Venturesome, the heedless of his words, drew the magic
sword from his belt and held it above her. "Give your love to Frey, who
has given me this sword," he said, "or meet your death by the edge of
it."
Gerda, Gymer's daughter, only laughed at the reckless Skirnir, "Make the
daughters of men fearful by the sharpness of Frey's sword," she said,
"but do not try to frighten a Giant's daughter with it."
Then Skirnir the Reckless, the heedless of his words, made the magic
sword flash before her eyes, while he cried out in a terrible voice,
saying a spell over her:
Gerda, I will curse thee;
Yes, with this magic
Blade I shall touch thee;
Such is its power
That, like a thistle,
Withered 'twill leave thee,
Like a thistle the wind
Strips from the roof.
Hearing these terrible words and the strange hissings of the magic
sword, Gerda threw herself on the ground, crying out for pity. But
Skirnir stood above her, and the magic sword flashed and hissed over
her. Skirnir sang:
More ugly I'll leave thee
Than maid ever was;
Thou wilt be mocked at
By men and by Giants;
A Dwarf only will wed thee;
Now on this instant
With this blade I shall touch thee,
And leave thee bespelled.
She lifted herself on her knees and cried out to Skirnir to spare her
from the spell of the magic sword.
"Only if thou wilt give thy love to Frey," said Skirnir.
"I will give my love to him," said Gerda. "Now put up thy magic sword
and drink a cup of mead and depart from Gymer's dwelling."
"I will not drink a cup of your mead nor shall I depart from Gymer's
dwelling until you yourself say that you will meet and speak with Frey."
"I will meet and speak with him," said Gerda.
"When will you meet and speak with him?" asked Skirnir.
"In the wood of Barri nine nights from this. Let him come and meet me
there."
Then Skirnir put up his magic sword and drank the cup of mead that Gerda
gave him. He rode from Gymer's house, laughing aloud at having won Gerda
for Frey, and so making the magic sword his own for ever.
Skirnir the Venturesome, the heedless of his words, riding across
Bifröst on his mighty horse, found Frey standing waiting for him beside
Heimdall, the Warder of the Bridge to Asgard.
"What news dost thou bring me?" cried Frey. "Speak, Skirnir, before thou
dost dismount from thine horse."
"In nine nights from this thou mayst meet Gerda in Barri Wood," said
Skirnir. He looked at him, laughing out of his wide mouth and his blue
eyes. But Frey turned away, saying to himself:
Long is one day;
Long, long two.
Can I live through
Nine long days?
Long indeed were these days for Frey. But the ninth day came, and in the
evening Frey went to Barri Wood. And there he met Gerda, the Giant maid.
She was as fair as when he had seen her before the door of Gymer's
house. And when she saw Frey, so tall and noble looking, the Giant's
daughter was glad that Skirnir the Venturesome had made her promise to
come to Barri Wood. They gave each other rings of gold. It was settled
that the Giant maid should come as a bride to Asgard.
Gerda came, but another Giant maid came also. This is how that came to
be:
All the Dwellers in Asgard were standing before the great gate, waiting
to welcome the bride of Frey. There appeared a Giant maid who was not
Gerda; all in armor was she.
"I am Skadi," she said, "the daughter of Thiassi. My father met his
death at the hands of the Dwellers in Asgard. I claim a recompense."
"What recompense would you have, maiden?" asked Odin, smiling to see a
Giant maid standing so boldly in Asgard.
"A husband from amongst you, even as Gerda. And I myself must be let
choose him."
All laughed aloud at the words of Skadi. Then said Odin, laughing, "We
will let you choose a husband from amongst us, but you must choose him
by his feet."
"I will choose him whatever way you will," said Skadi fixing her eyes on
Baldur, the most beautiful of all the Dwellers in Asgard.
They put a bandage round her eyes, and the Æsir and the Vanir seat in a
half circle around. As she went by she stooped over each and laid hands
upon their feet. At last she came to one whose feet were so finely
formed that she felt sure it was Baldur. She stood up and said:
"This is the one that Skadi chooses for her husband."
Then the Æsir and the Vanir laughed more and more. They took the bandage
off her eyes and she saw, not Baldur the Beautiful, but Niörd, the
father of Frey. But as Skadi looked more and more on Niörd she became
more and more contented with her choice; for Niörd was strong, and he
was noble looking.
These two, Niörd and Skadi, went first to live in Niörd's palace by the
sea; but the coming of the sea mew would waken Skadi too early in the
morning, and she drew her husband to the mountaintop where she was more
at home. He would not live long away from the sound of the sea. Back and
forward, between the mountain and the sea, Skadi and Niörd went. But
Gerda stayed in Asgard with Frey, her husband, and the Æsir and the
Vanir came to love greatly Gerda, the Giant maid.
[Illustration]
HEIMDALL AND LITTLE HNOSSA: HOW ALL THINGS CAME TO BE
Hnossa, the child of Freya and the lost Odur, was the youngest of all
the Dwellers in Asgard. And because it had been prophesied that the
child would bring her father and her mother together, little Hnossa was
often taken without the City of the Gods to stand by Bifröst, the
Rainbow Bridge, so that she might greet Odur if his steps turned toward
Asgard.
In all the palaces of the City of the Gods little Hnossa was made
welcome: in Fensalir, the Halls of Mists, where Frigga, the wife of Odin
All-Father, sat spinning with golden threads; in Breidablik, where
Baldur, the Well Beloved, lived with his fair wife, the young Nanna; in
Bilskirnir, the Winding House, where Thor and Sif lived; and in Odin's
own palace Valaskjalf, that was all roofed over with silver shields.
The greatest of all the palaces was Gladsheim, that was built by the
golden-leaved wood, Glasir. Here the banquets of the Gods were held.
Often little Hnossa looked within and saw Odin All-Father seated at the
banquet table, with a mantle of blue over him and a shining helmet
shaped like an eagle upon his head. Odin would sit there, not eating at
all, but drinking the wine of the Gods, and taking the food off the
table and giving it to Geri and Freki, the two wolves that crouched
beside his seat.
She loved to go outside the great gate and stay beside Heimdall, the
Warder of the Rainbow Bridge. There, when there was no one crossing that
she might watch, she would sit beside Heimdall and listen to the wonders
that he spoke of.
Heimdall held in his hands the horn that was called the Gialarhorn. He
would sound it to let the Dwellers in Asgard know that one was crossing
the Rainbow Bridge. And Heimdall told little Hnossa how he had trained
himself to hear the grasses grow, and how he could see all around him
for a hundred miles. He could see in the night as well as the day. He
never slept. He had nine mothers, he told Hnossa, and he fed on the
strength of the earth and the cold sea.
As she sat beside him day after day, Heimdall would tell little Hnossa
how all things began. He had lived from the beginning of time and he
knew all things. "Before Asgard was built," he said, "and before Odin
lived, earth and sea and sky were all mixed together: what was then was
the Chasm of Chasms. In the North there was Niflheim, the Place of
Deadly Cold. In the South there was Muspelheim, the Land of Fire. In
Niflheim there was a cauldron called Hveigelmer that poured out twelve
rivers that flowed into the Chasm of Chasms.
"Ginnungagap, the Chasm of Chasms, filled up with ice, for the waters of
the rivers froze as they poured into it. From Muspelheim came clouds of
fire that turned the ice into thick mists. The mists fell down again in
drops of dew, and from these drops were formed Ymir, the Ancient Giant.
"Ymir, the Ancient Giant, traveled along by the twelve rivers until he
came to where another living form was standing in the mists. This was a
Giant Cow. Audhumla was the name of that cow. Ymir lay down beside her
and drank her milk, and on the milk she gave him he lived. Other beings
were formed out of the dew that fell to the ground. They were the
Daughters of the Frost, and Ymir, the Ancient Giant, married one, and
their children were the Giants.
"One day Ymir saw Audhumla breathe upon a cliff of ice and lick with her
tongue the place she breathed on. As her tongue went over and over the
place he saw that a figure was being formed. It was not like a Giant's
form; it was more shapely and more beautiful. A head appeared in the
cliff and golden hair fell over the ice. As Ymir looked upon the being
that was being formed he hated him for his beauty.
"Audhumla, the Giant Cow, went on licking the place where she had
breathed. At last a man completely formed stepped from the cliff. Ymir,
the Ancient Giant, hated him so much that he would have slain him then
and there. But he knew that if he did this, Audhumla would feed him no
more with her milk.
"Bur was the name of the man who was formed in the ice cliff, Bur, the
first of the heroes. He, too, lived on the milk of Audhumla. He married
a daughter of the Ancient Giant and he had a son. But Ymir and Ymir's
sons hated Bur, and the time came at last when they were able to kill
him.
"And now there was war between Ymir and Ymir's sons and the son and
son's sons of Bur. Odin was the son of Bur's son. Odin brought all his
brothers together, and they were able to destroy Ymir and all his
brood--all except one. So huge was Ymir that when he was slain his blood
poured out in such a mighty flood that his sons were all drowned in it,
all except Bergelmir, who was in a boat with his wife when the flood
came, and who floated away on the flood to the place that we now call
Jötunheim, the Realm of the Giants.
"Now Odin and his sons took the body of Ymir--the vastest body that ever
was--and they flung it into the Chasm of Chasms, filling up all the
hollow places with it. They dug the bones out of the body and they piled
them up as the mountains. They took the teeth out and they made them
into the rocks. They took the hair of Ymir and they made it into the
forests of trees. They took his eyebrows and formed them into the place
where Men now dwell, Midgard. And out of Ymir's hollow skull they made
the sky.
"And Odin and his sons and brothers did more than this. They took the
sparks and the clouds of flame that blew from Muspelheim, and they made
them into the sun and the moon and all the stars that are in the sky.
Odin found a dusky Giantess named Night whose son was called Day, and he
gave both of them horses to drive across the sky. Night drove a horse
that is named Hrimfaxe, Frosty Mane, and Day drove a horse that is named
Skinfaxe, Shining Mane. From Hrimfaxe's bit fall the drops that make the
dew upon the earth.
"Then Odin and his sons made a race of men and women and gave them
Midgard to live in. Ugly Dwarfs had grown up and had spread themselves
over the earth. These Odin made go live in the hollow places beneath the
earth. The Elves he let stay on the earth, but he gave them the tasks of
tending the streams and the grasses and the flowers. And with the Vanir
he made peace after a war had been waged, taking Niörd from them for a
hostage.
"Bergelmir, the Giant who escaped drowning in Ymir's blood, had sons and
daughters in Jötunheim. They hated Odin and his sons and strove against
them. When Odin lighted up the world with the sun and the moon they were
very wroth, and they found two of the fiercest of the mighty wolves of
Jötunheim and set them to follow them. And still the sun and the moon,
Sol and Mani, are followed by the wolves of Jötunheim."
Such wonders did Heimdall with the Golden Teeth tell Hnossa, the
youngest of the Dwellers in Asgard. Often the child stayed with him by
the Rainbow Bridge, and saw the Gods pass to and from Midgard: Thor,
with his crown of stars, with the great hammer Miölnir in his hands,
with the gloves of iron that he used when he grasped Miölnir; Thor in
his chariot drawn by two goats and wearing the belt that doubled his
strength; Frigga, with her dress of falcon feathers, flying swiftly as a
bird; Odin All-Father himself, riding upon Sleipner, his eight-legged
steed, clad all in golden armor, with his golden helmet, shaped like an
eagle, upon his head, and with his spear Gungnir in his hand.
Heimdall kept his horn in the branch of a great tree. This tree was
called Ygdrassil, he told little Hnossa, and it was a wonder to Gods and
Men. "No one knows of a time when Ygdrassil was not growing, and all are
afraid to speak of the time when it will be destroyed.
"Ygdrassil has three roots. One goes deep under Midgard, another goes
deep under Jötunheim, and the third grows above Asgard. Over Odin's hall
a branch of Ygdrassil grows, and it is called the Peace Bough.
"You see Ygdrassil, little Hnossa, but you do not know all the wonders
of it. Far up in its branches four stags graze; they shake from their
horns the water that falls as rain upon the earth. On the topmost branch
of Ygdrassil, the branch that is so high that the Gods themselves can
hardly see it, there is an eagle that knows all things. Upon the beak of
this eagle a hawk is perched, a hawk that sees what the eyes of the
eagle may not see.
"The root of Ygdrassil that is in Midgard goes deep down to the place
of the dead. Here there is an evil dragon named Nidhögg that gnaws
constantly at the root, striving to destroy Ygdrassil, the Tree of
trees. And Ratatösk, the Squirrel of Mischief--behold him now!--runs up
and down Ygdrassil, making trouble between the eagle above and the
dragon below. He goes to tell the dragon how the eagle is bent upon
tearing him to pieces and he goes back to tell the eagle how the dragon
plans to devour him. The stories that he brings to Nidhögg make that
evil dragon more fierce to destroy Ygdrassil, the Tree of trees, so that
he may come upon the eagle and devour him.
"There are two wells by the roots of Ygdrassil, and one is above and one
is below. One is beside the root that grows in Jötunheim. This is a Well
of Knowledge, and it is guarded by old Mimir the Wise. Whoever drinks
out of this well knows of all the things that will come to be. The other
well is by the root that grows above Asgard. No one may drink out of
this well. The three sisters that are the holy Norns guard it, and they
take the white water from it to water Ygdrassil, that the Tree of Life
may keep green and strong. This well, little Hnossa, is called Urda's
Well."
And little Hnossa heard that by Urda's Well there were two beautiful
white swans. They made a music that the Dwellers in Asgard often heard.
But Hnossa was too young to hear the music that was made by the swans of
Urda's Well.
[Illustration]
THE ALL-FATHER'S FOREBODINGS: HOW HE LEAVES ASGARD
Two ravens had Odin All-Father; Hugin and Munin were their names; they
flew through all the worlds every day, and coming back to Asgard they
would light on Odin's shoulders and tell him of all the things they had
seen and heard. And once a day passed without the ravens coming back.
Then Odin, standing on the Watch-Tower Hlidskjalf, said to himself:
I fear me for Hugin,
Lest he come not back,
But I watch more for Munin.
A day passed and the ravens flew back. They sat, one on each of his
shoulders. Then did the All-Father go into the Council Hall that was
beside Glasir, the wood that had leaves of gold, and harken to what
Hugin and Munin had to tell him.
They told him only of shadows and forebodings. Odin All-Father did not
speak to the Dwellers in Asgard of the things they told him. But Frigga,
his Queen, saw in his eyes the shadows and forebodings of things to
come. And when he spoke to her about these things she said, "Do not
strive against what must take place. Let us go to the holy Norns who sit
by Urda's Well and see if the shadows and the forebodings will remain
when you have looked into their eyes."
And so it came that Odin and the Gods left Asgard and came to Urda's
Well, where, under the great root of Ygdrassil, the three Norns sat,
with the two fair swans below them. Odin went, and Tyr, the great
swordsman, and Baldur, the most beautiful and the Best-Beloved of the
Gods, and Thor, with his Hammer.
A Rainbow Bridge went from Asgard, the City of the Gods, to Midgard, the
World of Men. But another Rainbow Bridge, more beautiful and more
tremulous still, went from Asgard to that root of Ygdrassil under which
was Urda's Well. This Rainbow Bridge was seldom seen by men. And where
the ends of the two rainbows came together Heimdall stood, Heimdall with
the Golden Teeth, the Watcher for the Gods, and the Keeper of the Way to
Urda's Well.
"Open the gate, Heimdall," said the All-Father, "open the gate, for
today the Gods would visit the holy Norns."
Without a word Heimdall opened wide the gate that led to that bridge
more colored and more tremulous than any rainbow seen from earth. Then
did Odin and Tyr and Baldur step out on the bridge. Thor followed, but
before his foot was placed on the bridge, Heimdall laid his hand upon
him.
"The others may go, but you may not go that way, Thor," said Heimdall.
"What? Would you, Heimdall, hold me back?" said Thor.
"Yes, for I am Keeper of the Way to the Norns," said Heimdall. "You with
the mighty hammer you carry are too weighty for this way. The bridge I
guard would break under you, Thor with the hammer."
"Nevertheless I will go visit the Norns with Odin and my comrades," said
Thor.
"But not this way, Thor," said Heimdall. "I will not let the bridge be
broken under the weight of you and your hammer. Leave your hammer here
with me if you would go this way."
"No, no," said Thor. "I will not leave in any one's charge the hammer
that defends Asgard. And I may not be turned back from going with Odin
and my comrades."
"There is another way to Urda's Well," said Heimdall. "Behold these two
great Cloud Rivers, Körmt and Ermt. Canst thou wade through them? They
are cold and suffocating, but they will bring thee to Urda's Well, where
sit the three holy Norns."
Thor looked out on the two great rolling rivers of cloud. It was a bad
way for one to go, cold and suffocating. Yet if he went that way he
could keep on his shoulder the hammer which he would not leave in
another's charge. He stept out into the Cloud River that flowed by the
Rainbow Bridge, and with his hammer upon his shoulder he went struggling
on to the other river.
Odin, Tyr, and Baldur were beside Urda's Well when Thor came struggling
out of the Cloud River, wet and choking, but with his hammer still upon
his shoulder. There stood Tyr, upright and handsome, leaning on his
sword that was inscribed all over with magic runes; there stood Baldur,
smiling, with his head bent as he listened to the murmur of the two fair
swans; and there stood Odin All-Father, clad in his blue cloak fringed
with golden stars, without the eagle-helmet upon his head, and with no
spear in his hands.
The three Norns, Urda, Verdandi, and Skulda, sat beside the well that
was in the hollow of the great root of Ygdrassil. Urda was ancient and
with white hair, and Verdandi was beautiful, while Skulda could hardly
be seen, for she sat far back, and her hair fell over her face and eyes.
Urda, Verdandi, and Skulda; they knew the whole of the Past, the whole
of the Present, and the whole of the Future. Odin, looking on them, saw
into the eyes of Skulda even. Long, long he stood looking on the Norns
with the eyes of a God, while the others listened to the murmur of the
swans and the falling of the leaves of Ygdrassil into Urda's Well.
Looking into their eyes, Odin saw the shadows and forebodings that Hugin
and Munin told him of take shape and substance. And now others came
across the Rainbow Bridge. They were Frigga and Sif and Nanna, the
wives of Odin and Thor and Baldur. Frigga looked upon the Norns. As she
did, she turned a glance of love and sadness upon Baldur, her son, and
then she drew back and placed her hand upon Nanna's head.
Odin turned from gazing on the Norns, and looked upon Frigga, his
queenly wife. "I would leave Asgard for a while, wife of Odin," he said.
"Yea," said Frigga. "Much has to be done in Midgard, the World of Men."
"I would change what knowledge I have into wisdom," said Odin, "so that
the things that are to happen will be changed into the best that may
be."
"You would go to Mimir's Well," said Frigga.
"I would go to Mimir's Well," said Odin.
"My husband, go," said Frigga.
Then they went back over that Rainbow Bridge that is more beautiful and
more tremulous than the one that men see from the earth; they went back
over the Rainbow Bridge, the Æsir and the Asyniur, Odin and Frigga,
Baldur and Nanna, Tyr, with his sword, and Sif beside Tyr. As for Thor,
he went struggling through the Cloud Rivers Körmt and Ermt, his hammer
Miölnir upon his shoulder.
Little Hnossa, the youngest of the Dwellers in Asgard, was there,
standing beside Heimdall, the Watcher for the Gods and the Keeper of the
Bridge to Urda's Well, when Odin All-Father and Frigga, his Queen, went
through the great gate with heads bent. "Tomorrow," Hnossa heard Odin
say, "tomorrow I shall be Vegtam the Wanderer upon the ways of Midgard
and Jötunheim."
PART II
ODIN THE WANDERER
[Illustration]
ODIN GOES TO MIMIR'S WELL: HIS SACRIFICE FOR WISDOM
And so Odin, no longer riding on Sleipner, his eight-legged steed; no
longer wearing his golden armor and his eagle-helmet, and without even
his spear in his hand, traveled through Midgard, the World of Men, and
made his way toward Jötunheim, the Realm of the Giants.
No longer was he called Odin All-Father, but Vegtam the Wanderer. He
wore a cloak of dark blue and he carried a traveler's staff in his
hands. And now, as he went toward Mimir's Well, which was near to
Jötunheim, he came upon a Giant riding on a great Stag.
Odin seemed a man to men and a giant to giants. He went beside the
Giant on the great Stag and the two talked together. "Who art thou, O
brother?" Odin asked the Giant.
"I am Vafthrudner, the wisest of the Giants," said the one who was
riding on the Stag. Odin knew him then. Vafthrudner was indeed the
wisest of the Giants, and many went to strive to gain wisdom from him.
But those who went to him had to answer the riddles Vafthrudner asked,
and if they failed to answer the Giant took their heads off.
"I am Vegtam the Wanderer," Odin said, "and I know who thou art, O
Vafthrudner. I would strive to learn something from thee."
The Giant laughed, showing his teeth. "Ho, ho," he said, "I am ready for
a game with thee. Dost thou know the stakes? My head to thee if I cannot
answer any question thou wilt ask. And if thou canst not answer any
question that I may ask, then thy head goes to me. Ho, ho, ho. And now
let us begin."
"I am ready," Odin said.
"Then tell me," said Vafthrudner, "tell me the name of the river that
divides Asgard from Jötunheim?"
"Ifling is the name of that river," said Odin. "Ifling that is dead
cold, yet never frozen."
"Thou hast answered rightly, O Wanderer," said the Giant. "But thou hast
still to answer other questions. What are the names of the horses that
Day and Night drive across the sky?"
"Skinfaxe and Hrimfaxe," Odin answered. Vafthrudner was startled to
hear one say the names that were known only to the Gods and to the
wisest of the Giants. There was only one question now that he might ask
before it came to the stranger's turn to ask him questions.
"Tell me," said Vafthrudner, "what is the name of the plain on which the
last battle will be fought?"
"The Plain of Vigard," said Odin, "the plain that is a hundred miles
long and a hundred miles across."
It was now Odin's turn to ask Vafthrudner questions. "What will be the
last words that Odin will whisper into the ear of Baldur, his dear son?"
he asked.
Very startled was the Giant Vafthrudner at that question. He sprang to
the ground and looked at the stranger keenly.
"Only Odin knows what his last words to Baldur will be," he said, "and
only Odin would have asked that question. Thou art Odin, O Wanderer, and
thy question I cannot answer."
"Then," said Odin, "if thou wouldst keep thy head, answer me this: what
price will Mimir ask for a draught from the Well of Wisdom that he
guards?"
"He will ask thy right eye as a price, O Odin," said Vafthrudner.
"Will he ask no less a price than that?" said Odin.
"He will ask no less a price. Many have come to him for a draught from
the Well of Wisdom, but no one yet has given the price Mimir asks. I
have answered thy question, O Odin. Now give up thy claim to my head and
let me go on my way."
"I give up my claim to thy head," said Odin. Then Vafthrudner, the
wisest of the Giants, went on his way, riding on his great Stag.
It was a terrible price that Mimir would ask for a draught from the Well
of Wisdom, and very troubled was Odin All-Father when it was revealed to
him. His right eye! For all time to be without the sight of his right
eye! Almost he would have turned back to Asgard, giving up his quest for
wisdom.
He went on, turning neither to Asgard nor to Mimir's Well. And when he
went toward the South he saw Muspelheim, where stood Surtur with the
Flaming Sword, a terrible figure, who would one day join the Giants in
their war against the Gods. And when he turned North he heard the
roaring of the cauldron Hvergelmer as it poured itself out of Niflheim,
the place of darkness and dread. And Odin knew that the world must not
be left between Surtur, who would destroy it with fire, and Niflheim,
that would gather it back to Darkness and Nothingness. He, the eldest of
the Gods, would have to win the wisdom that would help to save the
world.
And so, with his face stern in front of his loss and pain, Odin
All-Father turned and went toward Mimir's Well. It was under the great
root of Ygdrassil--the root that grew out of Jötunheim. And there sat
Mimir, the Guardian of the Well of Wisdom, with his deep eyes bent upon
the deep water. And Mimir, who had drunk every day from the Well of
Wisdom, knew who it was that stood before him.
"Hail, Odin, Eldest of the Gods," he said.
Then Odin made reverence to Mimir, the wisest of the world's beings. "I
would drink from your well, Mimir," he said.
"There is a price to be paid. All who have come here to drink have
shrunk from paying that price. Will you, Eldest of the Gods, pay it?"
"I will not shrink from the price that has to be paid, Mimir," said Odin
All-Father.
"Then drink," said Mimir. He filled up a great horn with water from the
well and gave it to Odin.
Odin took the horn in both his hands and drank and drank. And as he
drank all the future became clear to him. He saw all the sorrows and
troubles that would fall upon Men and Gods. But he saw, too, why the
sorrows and troubles had to fall, and he saw how they might be borne so
that Gods and Men, by being noble in the days of sorrow and trouble,
would leave in the world a force that one day, a day that was far off
indeed, would destroy the evil that brought terror and sorrow and
despair into the world.
Then when he had drunk out of the great horn that Mimir had given him,
he put his hand to his face and he plucked out his right eye. Terrible
was the pain that Odin All-Father endured. But he made no groan nor
moan. He bowed his head and put his cloak before his face, as Mimir took
the eye and let it sink deep, deep into the water of the Well of Wisdom.
And there the Eye of Odin stayed, shining up through the water, a sign
to all who came to that place of the price that the Father of the Gods
had paid for his wisdom.
[Illustration]
ODIN FACES AN EVIL MAN
Once, when his wisdom was less great, Odin had lived in the world of
men. Frigga, his Queen, was with him then; they had lived on a bleak
island, and they were known as Grimner the Fisherman and his wife.
Always Odin and Frigga were watching over the sons of men, watching to
know which ones they would foster and train so that they might have the
strength and spirit to save the world from the power of the Giants. And
while they were staying on the bleak island, Odin and Frigga saw the
sons of King Hrauding, and both thought that in them the spirit of
heroes could be fostered. Odin and Frigga made plans to bring the
children to them, so that they might be under their care and training.
One day the boys went fishing. A storm came and drove their boat on the
rocks of the island where Odin and Frigga lived.
They brought them to their hut, Odin and Frigga, and they told them they
would care for them and train them through the winter and that in the
spring they would build a boat that would carry them back to their
father's country. "We shall see," said Odin to Frigga that night, "we
shall see which of the two can be formed into the noblest hero."
He said that because Frigga favored one of the boys and he favored the
other. Frigga thought well of the elder boy, Agnar, who had a gentle
voice and quiet and kindly ways. But Odin thought more of the younger
boy. Geirrod, his name was, and he was strong and passionate, with a
high and a loud voice.
Odin took Geirrod into his charge, and he showed him how to fish and
hunt. He made the boy even bolder than he was by making him leap from
rock to rock, and by letting him climb the highest cliffs and jump
across the widest chasms. He would bring him to the den of the bear and
make him fight for his life with the spear he had made for him. Agnar
went to the chase, too, and showed his skill and boldness. But Geirrod
overcame him in nearly every trial. "What a hero Geirrod will be," Odin
would often say.
Agnar stayed often with Frigga. He would stay beside her while she spun,
listening to the tales she told, and asking such questions as brought
him more and more wisdom. And Agnar heard of Asgard and of the Dwellers
in Asgard and of how they protected Midgard, the World of Men, from the
Giants of Jötunheim. Agnar, though he did not speak out, said in his own
mind that he would give all his life and all his strength and all his
thought to helping the work of the Gods.
Spring came and Odin built a boat for Geirrod and Agnar. They could go
back now to their own country. And before they set out Odin told Geirrod
that one day he would come to visit him. "And do not be too proud to
receive a Fisherman in your hall, Geirrod," said Odin. "A King should
give welcome to the poorest who comes to his hall."
"I will be a hero, no doubt of that," Geirrod answered. "And I would be
a King, too, only Agnar Little-good was born before me."
Agnar bade goodby to Frigga and to Odin, thanking them for the care they
had taken of Geirrod and himself. He looked into Frigga's eyes, and he
told her that he would strive to learn how he might fight the battle for
the Gods.
The two went into the boat and they rowed away. They came near to King
Hrauding's realm. They saw the castle overlooking the sea. Then Geirrod
did a terrible thing. He turned the boat back toward the sea, and he
cast the oars away. Then, for he was well fit to swim the roughest sea
and climb the highest cliffs, he plunged into the water and struck out
toward the shore. And Agnar, left without oars, went drifting out to
sea.
Geirrod climbed the high cliffs and came to his father's castle.
King Hrauding, who had given up both of his sons for lost, was rejoiced
to see him. Geirrod told of Agnar that he had fallen out of the boat on
their way back and that he had been drowned. King Hrauding, who had
thought both of his sons were gone from him, was glad enough that one
had come safe. He put Geirrod beside him on the throne, and when he died
Geirrod was made King over the people.
And now Odin, having drunk from Mimir's Well, went through the kingdoms
of men, judging Kings and simple people according to the wisdom he had
gained. He came at last to the kingdom that Geirrod ruled over. Odin
thought that of all the Kings he had judged to be noble, Geirrod would
assuredly be the noblest.
He went to the King's house as a Wanderer, blind of one eye, wearing a
cloak of dark blue and with a wanderer's staff in his hands. As he drew
near the King's house men on dark horses came riding behind him. The
first of the men did not turn his horse as he came near the Wanderer,
but rode on, nearly trampling him to the ground.
As they came before the King's house the men on the dark horses shouted
for servants. Only one servant was in the stable. He came out and took
the horse of the first man. Then the others called upon the Wanderer to
tend their horses. He had to hold the stirrups for some of them to
dismount.
Odin knew who the first man was. He was Geirrod the King. And he knew
who the man who served in the stable was. He was Agnar, Geirrod's
brother. By the wisdom he had gained he knew that Agnar had come back to
his father's kingdom in the guise of a servant, and he knew that
Geirrod did not know who this servant was.
They went into the stable together. Agnar took bread and broke it and
gave some to the Wanderer. He gave him, too, straw to seat himself on.
But in a while Odin said, "I would seat myself at the fire in the King's
hall and eat my supper of meat."
"Nay, stay here," Agnar said. "I will give you more bread and a wrap to
cover yourself with. Do not go to the door of the King's house, for the
King is angry today and he might repulse you."
"How?" said Odin. "A King turn away a Wanderer who comes to his door! It
cannot be that he would do it!"
"Today he is angry," Agnar said. Again he begged him not to go to the
door of the King's house. But Odin rose up from the straw on which he
was seated and went to the door.
A porter, hunchbacked and with long arms, stood at the door. "I am a
Wanderer, and I would have rest and food in the King's hall," Odin said.
"Not in this King's hall," said the hunchbacked porter. He would have
barred the door to Odin, but the voice of the King called him away. Odin
then strode into the hall and saw the King at table with his friends,
all dark-bearded, and cruel-looking men. And when Odin looked on them he
knew that the boy whom he had trained in nobility had become a King over
robbers.
"Since you have come into the hall where we eat, sing to us, Wanderer,"
shouted one of the dark men. "Aye, I will sing to you," said Odin. Then
he stood between two of the stone pillars in the hall and he sang a song
reproaching the King for having fallen into an evil way of life, and
denouncing all for following the cruel ways of robbers.
"Seize him," said the King, when Odin's song was finished. The dark men
threw themselves upon Odin and put chains around him and bound him
between the stone pillars of the hall. "He came into this hall for
warmth, and warmth he shall have," said Geirrod. He called upon his
servants to heap up wood around him. They did this. Then the King, with
his own hand, put a blazing torch to the wood and the fagots blazed up
around the Wanderer.
The fagots burned round and round him. But the fire did not burn the
flesh of Odin All-Father. The King and the King's friends stood round,
watching with delight the fires blaze round a living man. The fagots all
burned away, and Odin was left standing there with his terrible gaze
fixed upon the men who were so hard and cruel.
They went to sleep, leaving him chained to the pillars of the hall. Odin
could have broken the chains and pulled down the pillars, but he wanted
to see what else would happen in this King's house. The servants were
ordered not to bring food or drink to him, but at dawn, when there was
no one near, Agnar came to him with a horn of ale and gave it to him to
drink.
The next evening when the King came back from his robberies, and when he
and his friends, sitting down at the tables, had eaten like wolves, he
ordered the fagots to be placed around Odin. And again they stood
around, watching in delight the fire playing around a living man. And
as before Odin stood there, unhurt by the fire, and his steady and
terrible gaze made the King hate him more and more. And all day he was
kept in chains, and the servants were forbidden to bring him food or
drink. None knew that a horn of ale was brought to him at dawn.
And night after night, for eight nights, this went on. Then, on the
ninth night, when the fires around him had been lighted, Odin lifted up
his voice and began to sing a song.
His song became louder and louder, and the King and the King's friends
and the servants of the thing's house had to stand still and harken to
it. Odin sang about Geirrod, the King; how the Gods had protected him,
giving him strength and skill, and how instead of making a noble use of
that strength and skill he had made himself like one of the wild beasts.
Then he sang of how the vengeance of the Gods was about to fall on this
ignoble King.
The flames died down and Geirrod and his friends saw before them, not a
friendless Wanderer, but one who looked more kingly than any King of the
earth. The chains fell down from his body and he advanced toward the
evil company. Then Geirrod rushed upon him with his sword in hand to
kill him. The sword struck him, but Odin remained unhurt.
Thy life runs out,
The Gods they are wroth with thee;
Draw near if thou canst;
Odin thou shalt see.
So Odin sang, and, in fear of his terrible gaze, Geirrod and his company
shrank away. And as they shrank away they were changed into beasts, into
the wolves that range the forests.
And Agnar came forward, and him Odin declared to be King. All the folk
were glad when Agnar came to rule over them, for they had been oppressed
by Geirrod in his cruel reign. And Agnar was not only kind, but he was
strong and victorious in his rule.
[Illustration]
ODIN WINS FOR MEN THE MAGIC MEAD
It was the Dwarfs who brewed the Magic Mead, and it was the Giants who
hid it away. But it was Odin who brought it from the place where it was
hidden and gave it to the sons of men. Those who drank of the Magic Mead
became very wise, and not only that but they could put their wisdom into
such beautiful words that every one who heard would love and remember
it.
The Dwarfs brewed the Magic Mead through cruelty and villainy. They made
it out of the blood of a man. The man was Kvasir the Poet. He had
wisdom, and he had such beautiful words with it, that what he said was
loved and remembered by all. The Dwarfs brought Kvasir down into their
caverns and they killed him there. "Now," they said, "we have Kvasir's
blood and Kvasir's wisdom. No one else will have his wisdom but us."
They poured the blood into three jars and they mixed it with honey, and
from it they brewed the Magic Mead.
Having killed a man the Dwarfs became more and more bold. They came out
of their caverns and went up and down through Midgard, the World of Men.
They went into Jötunheim, and began to play their evil tricks on the
most harmless of the Giants.
They came upon one Giant who was very simple. Gilling was his name. They
persuaded Gilling to row them out to sea in a boat. Then the two most
cunning of the Dwarfs, Galar and Fialar, steered the boat on to a rock.
The boat split. Gilling, who could not swim, was drowned. The Dwarfs
clambered up on pieces of the boat and came safely ashore. They were so
delighted with their evil tricks that they wanted to play some more of
them.
Galar and Fialar then thought of a new piece of mischief they might do.
They led their band of Dwarfs to Gilling's house and screamed out to his
wife that Gilling was dead. The Giant's wife began to weep and lament.
At last she rushed out of the house weeping and clapping her hands. Now
Galar and Fialar had clambered up on the lintel of the house, and as she
came running out they cast a millstone on her head. It struck her and
Gilling's wife fell down dead. More and more the Dwarfs were delighted
at the destruction they were making.
They were so insolent now that they made up songs and sang them, songs
that were all a boast of how they had killed Kvasir the Poet, and
Gilling the Giant, and Gilling's wife. They stayed around Jötunheim,
tormenting all whom they were able to torment, and flattering themselves
that they were great and strong. They stayed too long, however. Suttung,
Gilling's brother, tracked them down and captured them.
Suttung was not harmless and simple like Gilling, his brother. He was
cunning and he was covetous. Once they were in his hands the Dwarfs had
no chance of making an escape. He took them and left them on a rock in
the sea, a rock that the tide would cover.
The Giant stood up in the water taller than the rock, and the tide as it
came in did not rise above his knees. He stood there watching the Dwarfs
as the water rose up round them and they became more and more terrified.
"Oh, take us off the rock, good Suttung," they cried out to him. "Take
us off the rock and we will give you gold and jewels. Take us off the
rock and we will give you a necklace as beautiful as Brisingamen." So
they cried out to him, but the Giant Suttung only laughed at them. He
had no need of gold or jewels.
Then Fialar and Galar cried out: "Take us off the rock and we will give
you the jars of the Magic Mead we have brewed."
"The Magic Mead," said Suttung. "This is something that no one else has.
It would be well to get it, for it might help us in the battle against
the Gods. Yes, I will get the Magic Mead from them."
He took the band of Dwarfs off the rock, but he held Galar and Fialar,
their chiefs, while the others went into their caverns and brought up
the jars of the Magic Mead. Suttung took the Mead and brought it to a
cavern in a mountain near his dwelling. And thus it happened that the
Magic Mead, brewed by the Dwarfs through cruelty and villainy, came into
the hands of the Giants. And the story now tells how Odin, the Eldest of
the Gods, at that time in the world as Vegtam the Wanderer, took the
Magic Mead out of Suttung's possession and brought it into the world of
men.
Now, Suttung had a daughter named Gunnlöd, and she by her goodness and
her beauty was like Gerda and Skadi, the Giant maids whom the Dwellers
in Asgard favored. Suttung, that he might have a guardian for the Magic
Mead, enchanted Gunnlöd, turning her from a beautiful Giant maiden into
a witch with long teeth and sharp nails. He shut her into the cavern
where the jars of the Magic Mead were hidden.
Odin heard of the death of Kvasir whom he honored above all men. The
Dwarfs who slew him he had closed up in their caverns so that they were
never again able to come out into the World of Men. And then he set out
to get the Magic Mead that he might give it to men, so that, tasting it,
they would have wisdom, and words would be at their command that would
make wisdom loved and remembered.
How Odin won the Magic Mead out of the rock-covered cavern where Suttung
had hidden it, and how he broke the enchantment that lay upon Gunnlöd,
Suttung's daughter, is a story often told around the hearths of men.
Nine strong thralls were mowing in a field as a Wanderer went by clad in
a dark blue cloak and carrying a wanderer's staff in his hand. One of
the thralls spoke to the Wanderer: "Tell them in the house of Baugi up
yonder that I can mow no more until a whetstone to sharpen my scythe is
sent to me." "Here is a whetstone," said the Wanderer, and he took one
from his belt. The thrall who had spoken whetted his scythe with it and
began to mow. The grass went down before his scythe as if the wind had
cut it. "Give us the whetstone, give us the whetstone," cried the other
thralls. The Wanderer threw the whetstone amongst them, leaving them
quarreling over it, and went on his way.
The Wanderer came to the house of Baugi, the brother of Suttung. He
rested in Baugi's house, and at supper time he was given food at the
great table. And while he was eating with the Giant a Messenger from the
field came in.
"Baugi," said the Messenger, "your nine thralls are all dead. They
killed each other with their scythes, fighting in the field about a
whetstone. There are no thralls now to do your work."
"What shall I do, what shall I do?" said Baugi the Giant. "My fields
will not be mown now, and I shall have no hay to feed my cattle and my
horses in the winter."
"I might work for you," said the Wanderer.
"One man's work is no use to me," said the Giant, "I must have the work
of nine men."
"I shall do the work of nine men," said the Wanderer, "give me a trial,
and see."
The next day Vegtam the Wanderer went into Baugi's field. He did as much
work as the nine thralls had done in a day.
"Stay with me for the season," said Baugi, "and I shall give you a full
reward."
So Vegtam stayed at the Giant's house and worked in the Giant's fields,
and when all the work of the season was done Baugi said to him:
"Speak now and tell me what reward I am to give you."
"The only reward I shall ask of you," said Vegtam, "is a draught of the
Magic Mead."
"The Magic Mead?" said Baugi. "I do not know where it is nor how to get
it."
"Your brother Suttung has it. Go to him and claim a draught of the Magic
Mead for me."
Baugi went to Suttung. But when he heard what he had come for, the Giant
Suttung turned on his brother in a rage.
"A draught of the Magic Mead?" he said. "To no one will I give a draught
of the Magic Mead. Have I not enchanted my daughter Gunnlöd, so that she
may watch over it? And you tell me that a Wanderer who has done the work
of nine men for you asks a draught of the Magic Mead for his fee! O
Giant as foolish as Gilling! O oaf of a Giant! Who could have done such
work for you, and who would demand such a fee from you, but one of our
enemies, the Æsir? Go from me now and never come to me again with talk
of the Magic Mead."
Baugi went back to his house and told the Wanderer that Suttung would
yield none of the Magic Mead. "I hold you to your bargain," said Vegtam
the Wanderer, "and you will have to get me the fee I asked. Come with me
now and help me to get it."
He made Baugi bring him to the place where the Magic Mead was hidden.
The place was a cavern in the mountain. In front of that cavern was a
great mass of stone.
"We cannot move that stone nor get through it," said Baugi. "I cannot
help you to your fee."
The Wanderer drew an auger from his belt. "This will bore through the
rock if there is strength behind it. You have the strength, Giant. Begin
now and bore."
Baugi took the auger in his hands and bored with all his strength, and
the Wanderer stood by leaning on his staff, calm and majestic in his
cloak of blue.
"I have made a deep, deep hole. It goes through the rock," Baugi said,
at last.
The Wanderer went to the hole and blew into it. The dust of the rock
flew back into their faces.
"So that is your boasted strength, Giant," he said. "You have not bored
half-way through the rock. Work again."
Then Baugi took the auger again and he bored deeper and deeper into the
rock. And he blew into it, and lo! His breath went through. Then he
looked at the Wanderer to see what he would do; his eyes had become
fierce and he held the auger in his hand as if it were a stabbing
knife.
"Look up to the head of the rock," said the Wanderer. As Baugi looked up
the Wanderer changed himself into a snake and glided into the hole in
the rock. And Baugi struck at him with the auger, hoping to kill him,
but the snake slipped through.
Behind the mighty rock there was a hollow place all lighted up by the
shining crystals in the rock. And within the hollow place there was an
ill-looking witch, with long teeth and sharp nails. But she sat there
rocking herself and letting tears fall from her eyes. "O youth and
beauty," she sang, "O sight of men and women, sad, sad for me it is that
you are shut away, and that I have only this closed-in cavern and this
horrible form."
A snake glided across the floor. "Oh, that you were deadly and that you
might slay me," cried the witch. The snake glided past her. Then she
heard a voice speak softly: "Gunnlöd, Gunnlöd!" She looked round, and
there standing behind her was a majestic man, clad in a cloak of dark
blue, Odin, the Eldest of the Gods.
"You have come to take the Magic Mead that my father has set me here to
guard," she cried. "You shall not have it. Rather shall I spill it out
on the thirsty earth of the cavern."
"Gunnlöd," he said, and he came to her. She looked at him and she felt
the red blood of youth come back into her cheeks. She put her hands with
their sharp nails over her breast, and she felt the nails drive into her
flesh. "Save me from all this ugliness," she cried.
"I will save you," Odin said. He went to her. He took her hands and
held them. He kissed her on the mouth. All the marks of ill favor went
from her. She was no longer bent, but tall and shapely. Her eyes became
wide and deep blue. Her mouth became red and her hands soft and
beautiful. She became as fair as Gerda, the Giant maid whom Frey had
wed.
They stayed looking at each other, then they sat down side by side and
talked softly to each other, Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, and Gunnlöd,
the beautiful Giant maiden.
She gave him the three jars of the Magic Mead and she told him she would
go out of the cavern with him. Three days passed and still they were
together. Then Odin by his wisdom found hidden paths and passages that
led out of the cavern and he brought Gunnlöd out into the light of the
day.
And he brought with him the jars of the Magic Mead, the Mead whose taste
gives wisdom, and wisdom in such beautiful words that all love and
remember it. And Gunnlöd, who had tasted a little of the Magic Mead,
wandered through the world singing of the beauty and the might of Odin,
and of her love for him.
[Illustration]
ODIN TELLS TO VIDAR, HIS SILENT SON, THE SECRET OF HIS DOINGS
It was not only to Giants and Men that Odin showed himself in the days
when he went through Jötunheim and Midgard as Vegtam the Wanderer. He
met and he spoke with the Gods also, with one who lived far away from
Asgard and with others who came to Midgard and to Jötunheim.
The one who lived far away from Asgard was Vidar, Odin's silent son. Far
within a wilderness, with branches and tall grass growing around him,
Vidar sat. And near by him a horse grazed with a saddle upon it, a horse
that was ever ready for the speedy journey.
And Odin, now Vegtam the Wanderer, came into that silent place and spoke
to Vidar, the Silent God.
"O Vidar," he said, "strangest of all my sons; God who will live when
all of us have passed away; God who will bring the memory of the
Dwellers of Asgard into a world that will know not their power; O Vidar,
well do I know why there grazes near by thee the horse ever ready for
the speedy journey: it is that thou mayst spring upon it and ride
unchecked, a son speeding to avenge his father.
"To you only, O Vidar the Silent One, will I speak of the secrets of my
doings. Who but you can know why I, Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, hung
on the tree Ygdrassil nine days and nine nights, mine own spear
transfixing me? I hung upon that windy tree that I might learn the
wisdom that would give me power in the nine worlds. On the ninth night
the Runes of Wisdom appeared before mine eyes, and slipping down from
the tree I took them to myself.
"And I shall tell why my ravens fly to thee, carrying in their beaks
scraps of leather. It is that thou mayst make for thyself a sandal; with
that sandal on thou mayst put thy foot on the lower jaw of a mighty wolf
and rend him. All the shoemakers of the earth throw on the ground scraps
of the leather they use so that thou mayst be able to make the sandal
for thy wolf-rending foot.
"And I have counseled the dwellers on earth to cut off the fingernails
and the toenails of their dead, lest from those fingernails and toenails
the Giants make for themselves the ship Naglfar in which they will sail
from the North on the day of Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
"More, Vidar, I will tell to thee. I, living amongst men, have wed the
daughter of a hero. My son shall live as a mortal amongst mortals. Sigi
his name shall be. From him shall spring heroes who will fill Valhalla,
my own hall in Asgard, with heroes against the day of our strife with
the Giants and with Surtur of the Flaming Sword."
For long Odin stayed in that silent place communing with his silent son,
with Vidar, who with his brother would live beyond the lives of the
Dwellers of Asgard and who would bring into another day and another
world the memory of the Æsir and the Vanir. For long Odin spoke with
him, and then he went across the wilderness where the grass and the
bushes grew and where that horse grazed in readiness for the sudden
journey. He went toward the seashore where the Æsir and the Vanir were
now gathered for the feast that old Ægir, the Giant King of the Sea, had
offered them.
[Illustration:]
THOR AND LOKI IN THE GIANTS' CITY
All but a few of the Dwellers of Asgard had come to the feast offered by
Ægir the Old, the Giant King of the Sea. Frigga, the queenly wife of
Odin, was there, and Frey and Freya; Iduna, who guarded the Apples of
Youth, and Bragi, her husband; Tyr, the great swordsman, and Niörd, the
God of the Sea, Skadi, who wedded Niörd and whose hatred for Loki was
fierce, and Sif, whose golden hair was once shorn off by Loki the
mischievous. Thor and Loki were there. The Dwellers of Asgard, gathered
together in the hall of Ægir, waited for Odin.
Before Odin came Loki made the company merry by the tales that he told
in mockery of Thor. Loki long since had his lips unloosed from the thong
that the Dwarf Brock had sewn them with. And Thor had forgotten the
wrong that he had done to Sif. Loki had been with Thor in his
wanderings through Jötunheim, and about these wanderings he now told
mocking tales.
He told how he had seen Thor in his chariot of brass drawn by two goats
go across Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge. None of the Æsir or the Vanir
knew on what adventure Thor was bent. But Loki followed him and Thor
kept him in his company.
As they traveled on in the brass chariot drawn by the two goats, Thor
told Loki of the adventure on which he was bent. He would go into
Jötunheim, even into Utgard, the Giants' City, and he would try his
strength against the Giants. He was not afraid of aught that might
happen, for he carried Miölnir, his hammer, with him.
Their way was through Midgard, the World of Men. Once, as they were
traveling on, night came upon them as they were hungry and in need of
shelter. They saw a peasant's hut and they drove the chariot toward it.
Unyoking the goats and leaving them standing in a hollow beside the
chariot, the two, looking not like Dwellers in Asgard, but like men
traveling through the country, knocked at the door of the hut and asked
for food and shelter.
They could have shelter, the peasant and his wife told them, but they
could not have food. There was little in that place, and what little
there had been they had eaten for supper. The peasant showed them the
inside of the hut: it was poor and bare, and there was nothing there to
give anyone. In the morning, the peasant said, he would go down to the
river and catch some fish for a meal.
"We can't wait until morning, we must eat now," said Thor, "and I think
I can provide a good meal for us all." He went over to where his goats
stood in the hollow beside the chariot of brass, and, striking them with
his hammer, he left them lifeless on the ground. He skinned the goats
then, and taking up the bones very carefully, he left them down on the
skins. Skins and bones he lifted up and bringing them into the house he
left them in a hole above the peasant's fireplace. "No one," said he in
a commanding voice, "must touch the bones that I leave here."
Then he brought the meat into the house. Soon it was cooked and laid
smoking on the table. The peasant and his wife and his son sat round the
board with Thor and Loki. They had not eaten plentifully for many days,
and now the man and the woman fed themselves well.
Thialfi was the name of the peasant's son. He was a growing lad and had
an appetite that had not been satisfied for long. While the meat was on
the table his father and mother had kept him going here and there,
carrying water, putting fagots on the fire, and holding a blazing stick
so that those at the table might see to eat. There was not much left for
him when he was able to sit down, for Thor and Loki had great appetites,
and the lad's father and mother had eaten to make up for days of want.
So Thialfi got little out of that plentiful feast.
When the meal was finished they lay down on the benches. Thor, because
he had made a long journey that day, slept very soundly. Thialfi lay
down on a bench, too, but his thoughts were still upon the food. When
all were asleep, he thought, he would take one of the bones that were
in the skins above him, and break and gnaw it.
So in the dead of the night the lad stood up on the bench and took down
the goatskins that Thor had left so carefully there. He took out a bone,
broke it, and gnawed it for the marrow. Loki was awake and saw him do
this, but he, relishing mischief as much as ever, did nothing to stay
the lad.
He put the bone he had broken back in the skins and he left the skins
back in the hole above the fireplace. Then he went to sleep on the
bench.
In the morning, as soon as they were up, the first thing Thor did was to
take the skins out of the hole. He carried them carefully out to the
hollow where he had left the goats standing. He put each goatskin down
with the bones in it. He struck each with his hammer, and the goats
sprang up alive, horns and hoofs and all.
But one was not as he had been before. He limped badly. Thor examined
the leg and found out that one bone was broken. In terrible anger he
turned on the peasant, his wife, and his son. "A bone of this goat has
been broken under your roof," he shouted. "For that I shall destroy your
house and leave you all dead under it." Thialfi wept. Then he came
forward and touched the knees of Thor. "I did not know what harm I did,"
he said. "I broke the bone."
Thor had his hammer lifted up to crush him into the earth. But he could
not bring it down on the weeping boy. He let his hammer rest on the
ground again. "You will have to do much service for me for having lamed
my goat," he said. "Come with me."
And so the lad Thialfi went off with Thor and Loki. Thor took in his
powerful hands the shafts of the chariot of brass and he dragged it into
a lonely mountain hollow where neither men nor Giants came. And they
left the goats in a great, empty forest to stay resting there until Thor
called to them again.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi went across from Midgard into
Jötunheim. Because of Miölnir, the great hammer that he carried, Thor
felt safe in the Realm of the Giants. And Loki, who trusted in his own
cunning, felt safe, too. The lad Thialfi trusted in Thor so much that he
had no fear. They were long in making the journey, and while they were
traveling Thor and Loki trained Thialfi to be a quick and a strong lad.
One day they came out on a moor. All day they crossed it, and at night
it still stretched far before them. A great wind was blowing, night was
falling, and they saw no shelter near. In the dusk they saw a shape that
looked to be a mountain and they went toward it, hoping to find some
shelter in a cave.
Then Loki saw a lower shape that looked as if it might be a shelter.
They walked around it, Loki and Thor and the lad Thialfi. It was a
house, but a house most oddly shaped. The entrance was a long, wide hall
that had no doorway. When they entered this hall they found five long
and narrow chambers running off it. "It is an odd place, but it is the
best shelter we can get," Loki said. "You and I, Thor, will take the
two longest rooms, and the lad Thialfi can take one of the little
rooms."
They entered their chambers and they lay down to sleep. But from the
mountain outside there came a noise that was like moaning forests and
falling cataracts. The chamber where each one slept was shaken by the
noise. Neither Thor nor Loki nor the lad Thialfi slept that night.
In the morning they left the five-chambered house and turned their faces
toward the mountain. It was not a mountain at all, but a Giant. He was
lying on the ground when they saw him, but just then he rolled over and
sat up. "Little men, little men," he shouted to them, "have you passed
by a glove of mine on your way?" He stood up and looked all around him.
"Ho, I see my glove now," he said. Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi
stood still as the Giant came toward them. He leaned over and picked up
the five-roomed shelter they had slept in. He put it on his hand. It was
really his glove!
Thor gripped his hammer, and Loki and the lad Thialfi stood behind him.
But the Giant seemed good-humored enough. "Where might ye be bound for,
little men?" said he.
"To Utgard in Jötunheim," Thor replied boldly.
"Oh, to that place," said the Giant. "Come, then, I shall be with ye so
far. You can call me Skyrmir."
"Can you give us breakfast?" said Thor. He spoke crossly, for he did not
want it to appear that there was any reason to be afraid of the Giant.
"I can give you breakfast," said Skyrmir, "but I don't want to stop to
eat now. We'll sit down as soon as I have an appetite. Come along now.
Here is my wallet to carry. It has my provisions in it."
He gave Thor his wallet. Thor put it on his back and put Thialfi sitting
upon it. On and on the Giant strode and Thor and Loki were barely able
to keep up with him. It was midday before he showed any signs of halting
to take breakfast.
They came to an enormous tree. Under it Skyrmir sat down. "I'll sleep
before I eat," he said, "but you can open my wallet, my little men, and
make your meal out of it." Saying this, he stretched himself out, and in
a few minutes Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi heard the same sounds as
kept them awake the night before, sounds that were like forests moaning
and cataracts falling. It was Skyrmir's snoring.
Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi were too hungry now to be disturbed by
these tremendous noises. Thor tried to open the wallet, but he found it
was not easy to undo the knots. Then Loki tried to open it. In spite of
all Loki's cunning he could not undo the knots. Then Thor took the
wallet from him and tried to break the knots by main strength. Not even
Thor's strength could break them. He threw the wallet down in his rage.
The snoring of Skyrmir became louder and louder. Thor stood up in his
rage. He grasped Miölnir and flung it at the head of the sleeping Giant.
The hammer struck him on the head. But Skyrmir only stirred in his
sleep. "Did a leaf fall on my head?" he said.
He turned round on the other side and went to sleep again. The hammer
came back to Thor's hand. As soon as Skyrmir snored he flung it again,
aiming at the Giant's forehead. It struck there. The Giant opened his
eyes. "Has an acorn fallen on my forehead?" he said.
Again he went to sleep. But now Thor, terribly roused, stood over his
head with the hammer held in his hands. He struck him on the forehead.
It was the greatest blow that Thor had ever dealt.
"A bird is pecking at my forehead--there is no chance to sleep here,"
said Skyrmir, sitting up. "And you, little men, did you have breakfast
yet? Toss over my wallet to me and I shall give you some provision." The
lad Thialfi brought him the wallet. Skyrmir opened it, took out his
provisions, and gave a share to Thor and Loki and the lad Thialfi. Thor
would not take provision from him, but Loki and the lad Thialfi took it
and ate. When the meal was finished Skyrmir rose up and said, "Time for
us to be going toward Utgard."
As they went on their way Skyrmir talked to Loki. "I always feel very
small when I go into Utgard," he said. "You see, I'm such a small and a
weak fellow and the folk who live there are so big and powerful. But you
and your friends will be welcomed in Utgard. They will be sure to make
little pets of you."
And then he left them and they went into Utgard, the City of the Giants.
Giants were going up and down in the streets. They were not so huge as
Skyrmir would have them believe, Loki noticed.
Utgard was the Asgard of the Giants. But in its buildings there was not
a line of the beauty that there was in the palaces of the Gods,
Gladsheim and Breidablik or Fensalir. Huge but shapeless the buildings
arose, like mountains or icebergs. O beautiful Asgard with the dome
above it of the deepest blue! Asgard with the clouds around it heaped up
like mountains of diamonds! Asgard with its Rainbow Bridge and its
glittering gates! O beautiful Asgard, could it be indeed that these
Giants would one day overthrow you?
Thor and Loki with the lad Thialfi went to the palace of the King. The
hammer that Thor gripped would, they knew, make them safe even there.
They passed between rows of Giant guards and came to the King's seat.
"We know you, Thor and Loki," said the Giant King, "and we know that
Thor has come to Utgard to try his strength against the Giants. We shall
have a contest tomorrow. Today there are sports for our boys. If your
young servant should like to try his swiftness against our youths, let
him enter the race today."
Now Thialfi was the best runner in Midgard and all the time he had been
with them Loki and Thor had trained him in quickness. And so Thialfi was
not fearful of racing against the Giants' youths.
The King called on one named Hugi and placed him against Thialfi. The
pair started together. Thialfi sped off. Loki and Thor watched the race
anxiously, for they thought it would be well for them if they had a
triumph over the dwellers in Utgard in the first contest. But they saw
Hugi leave Thialfi behind. They saw the Giant youth reach the winning
post, circle round it, and come back to the starting place before
Thialfi had reached the end of the course.
Thialfi, who did not know how it was that he had been beaten, asked that
he be let run the race with Hugi again. The pair started off once more,
and this time it did not seem to Thor and Loki that Hugi had left the
starting place at all--he was back there almost as soon as the race had
started.
They came back from the racing ground to the palace. The Giant King and
his friends with Thor and Loki sat down to the supper table. "Tomorrow,"
said the King, "we shall have our great contest when Asa Thor will show
us his power. Have you of Asgard ever heard of one who would enter a
contest in eating? We might have a contest in eating at this supper
board if we could get one who would match himself with Logi here. He can
eat more than anyone in Jötunheim."
"And I," said Loki, "can eat more than any two in Jötunheim. I will
match myself against your Logi."
"Good!" said the Giant King. And all the Giants present said, "Good!
This will be a sight worth seeing."
Then they put scores of plates along one side of the table, each plate
filled with meat. Loki began at one end and Logi began at the other.
They started to eat, moving toward each other as each cleared a plate.
Plate after plate was emptied, and Thor standing by with the Giants was
amazed to see how much Loki ate. But Logi on the other side was leaving
plate after plate emptied. At last the two stood together with scores of
plates on each side of them. "He has not defeated me," cried Loki. "I
have cleared as many plates as your champion, O King of the Giants."
"But you have not cleared them so well," said the King.
"Loki has eaten all the meat that was upon them," said Thor.
"But Logi has eaten the bones with the meat," said the Giant King. "Look
and see if it be not so."
Thor went to the plates. Where Loki had eaten, the bones were left on
the plates. Where Logi had eaten, nothing was left: bones as well as
meat were consumed, and all the plates were left bare.
"We are beaten," said Thor to Loki.
"Tomorrow, Thor," said Loki, "you must show all your strength or the
Giants will cease to dread the might of the Dwellers in Asgard."
"Be not afraid," said Thor. "No one in Jötunheim will triumph over me."
The next day Thor and Loki came into the great hall of Utgard. The Giant
King was there with a throng of his friends. Thor marched into the hall
with Miölnir, his great hammer, in his hands. "Our young men have been
drinking out of this horn," said the King, "and they want to know if
you, Asa Thor, would drink out of it a morning draught. But I must tell
you that they think that no one of the Æsir could empty the horn at one
draught."
"Give it to me," said Thor. "There is no horn you can hand me that I
cannot empty at a draught."
A great horn, brimmed and flowing, was brought over to him. Handing
Miölnir to Loki and bidding him stand so that he might keep the hammer
in sight, Thor raised the horn to his mouth. He drank and drank. He felt
sure there was not a drop left in the horn as he laid it on the ground.
"There," he gasped, "your Giant horn is drained."
The Giants looked within the horn and laughed. "Drained, Asa Thor!" said
the Giant King. "Look into the horn again. You have hardly drunk below
the brim."
And Thor looked into it and saw that the horn was not half emptied. In a
mighty rage he lifted it to his lips again. He drank and drank and
drank. Then, satisfied that he had emptied it to the bottom, he left the
horn on the ground and walked over to the other side of the hall.
"Thor thinks he has drained the horn," said one of the Giants, lifting
it up. "But see, friends, what remains in it."
Thor strode back and looked again into the horn. It was still half
filled. He turned round to see that all the Giants were laughing at him.
"Asa Thor, Asa Thor," said the Giant King, "we know not how you are
going to deal with us in the next feat, but you certainly are not able
to drink against the Giants."
Said Thor: "I can lift up and set down any being in your hall."
As he said this a great iron-colored cat bounded into the hall and stood
before Thor, her back arched and her fur bristling.
"Then lift the cat off the ground," said the Giant King.
Thor strode to the cat, determined to lift her up and fling her amongst
the mocking Giants. He put his hands to the cat, but he could not raise
her. Up, up went Thor's arms, up, up, as high as they could go. The
cat's arched back went up to the roof, but her feet were never taken off
the ground. And as he heaved and heaved with all his might he heard the
laughter of the Giants all round him.
He turned away, his eyes flaming with anger. "I am not wont to try to
lift cats," he said. "Bring me one to wrestle with, and I swear you
shall see me overthrow him."
"Here is one for you to wrestle with, Asa Thor," said the King. Thor
looked round and saw an old woman hobbling toward him. She was
blear-eyed and toothless. "This is Ellie, my ancient nurse," said the
Giant King. "She is the one we would have you wrestle with."
"Thor does not wrestle with old women. I will lay my hands on your
tallest Giants instead."
"Ellie has come where you are," said the Giant King. "Now it is she who
will lay hands upon you."
The old woman hobbled toward Thor, her eyes gleaming under her falling
fringes of gray hair. Thor stood, unable to move as the hag came toward
him. She laid her hands upon his arms. Her feet began to trip at his. He
tried to cast her from him. Then he found that her feet and her hands
were as strong against his as bands and stakes of iron.
Then began a wrestling match in earnest between Thor and the ancient
crone Ellie. Round and round the hall they wrestled, and Thor was not
able to bend the old woman backward nor sideways. Instead he became
less and less able under her terrible grasp. She forced him down, down,
and at last he could only save himself from being left prone on the
ground by throwing himself down on one knee and holding the hag by the
shoulders. She tried to force him down on the ground, but she could not
do that. Then she broke from him, hobbled to the door and went out of
the hall.
Thor rose up and took the hammer from Loki's hands. Without a word he
went out of the hall and along the ways and toward the gate of the
Giants' City. He spoke no word to Loki nor to the lad Thialfi who went
with him for the seven weeks that they journeyed through Jötunheim.
[Illustration]
HOW THOR AND LOKI BEFOOLED THRYM THE GIANT
Loki told another tale about Thor--about Thor and Thrym, a stupid Giant
who had cunning streaks in him. Loki and Thor had been in this Giant's
house. He had made a feast for them and Thor had been unwatchful.
Then when they were far from Jötunheim Thor missed Miölnir, missed the
hammer that was the defence of Asgard and the help of the Gods. He could
not remember how or where he had mislaid it. Loki's thoughts went toward
Thrym, that stupid Giant who yet had cunning streaks in him. Thor, who
had lost the hammer that he had sworn never to let out of his sight, did
not know what to do.
But Loki thought it would be worth while to see if Thrym knew anything
about it. He went first to Asgard. He hurried across the Rainbow Bridge
and passed Heimdall without speaking to him. To none of the Dwellers in
Asgard whom he met did he dare relate the tidings of Thor's loss. He
spoke to none until he came to Frigga's palace.
To Frigga he said, "You must lend me your falcon dress until I fly to
Thrym's dwelling and find out if he knows where Miölnir is."
"If every feather was silver I would give it to you to go on such an
errand," Frigga said.
So Loki put on the falcon dress and flew to Jötunheim and came near
Thrym's dwelling. He found the Giant upon a hillside putting golden and
silver collars upon the necks of his hounds. Loki in the plumage of a
falcon perched on the rock above him, watching the Giant with falcon
eyes.
And while he was there he heard the Giant speak boastful words. "I put
collars of silver and gold on you now, my hounds," said he, "but soon we
Giants will have the gold of Asgard to deck our hounds and our steeds,
yea, even the necklace of Freya to put upon you, the best of my hounds.
For Miölnir, the defence of Asgard, is in Thrym's holding."
Then Loki spoke to him. "Yea, we know that Miölnir is in thy possession,
O Thrym," said he, "but know thou that the eyes of the watchful Gods are
upon thee."
"Ha, Loki, Shape-changer," said Thrym, "you are there! But all your
watching will not help you to find Miölnir. I have buried Thor's hammer
eight miles deep in the earth. Find it if you can. It is below the caves
of the Dwarfs."
"It is useless for us to search for Thor's hammer," said Loki; "eh
Thrym?"
"It is useless for you to search for it," said the Giant sulkily.
"But what a recompense you would gain if you restored Thor's hammer to
the Dwellers in Asgard," Loki said.
"No, cunning Loki, I will never restore it, not for any recompense,"
said Thrym.
"Yet bethink thee, Thrym," said Loki. "Is there nought in Asgard you
would like to own? No treasure, no possession? Odin's ring or Frey's
ship, Skidbladnir?"
"No, no," said Thrym. "Only one thing could the Dwellers in Asgard offer
me that I would take in exchange for Miölnir, Thor's hammer."
"And what would that be, Thrym?" said Loki, flying toward him.
"She whom many Giants have striven to gain--Freya, for my wife," said
Thrym.
Loki watched Thrym for long with his falcon eyes. He saw that the Giant
would not alter his demand. "I will tell the Dwellers in Asgard of your
demand," he said at last, and he flew away.
Loki knew that the Dwellers in Asgard would never let Freya be taken
from them to become the wife of Thrym, the stupidest of the Giants. He
flew back.
By this time all the Dwellers in Asgard had heard of the loss of
Miölnir, the help of the Gods. Heimdall shouted to him as he crossed the
Rainbow Bridge to ask what tidings he brought back. But Loki did not
stop to speak to the Warden of the Bridge but went straight to the hall
where the Gods sat in Council.
To the Æsir and the Vanir he told Thrym's demand. None would agree to
let the beautiful Freya go live in Jötunheim as a wife to the stupidest
of the Giants. All in the Council were cast down. The Gods would never
again be able to help mortal men, for now that Miölnir was in the
Giants' hands all their strength would have to be used in the defence of
Asgard.
So they sat in the Council with looks downcast. But cunning Loki said,
"I have thought of a trick that may win back the hammer from stupid
Thrym. Let us pretend to send Freya to Jötunheim as a bride for him. But
let one of the Gods go in Freya's veil and dress."
"Which of the Gods would bring himself to do so shameful a thing?" said
those in the Council.
"Oh, he who lost the hammer, Thor, should be prepared to do as much to
win it back," said Loki.
"Thor, Thor! Let Thor win back the hammer from Thrym by Loki's trick,"
said the Æsir and the Vanir. They left it to Loki to arrange how Thor
should go to Jötunheim as a bride for Thrym.
Loki left the Council of the Gods and came to where he had left Thor.
"There is but one way to win the hammer back, Thor," he said, "and the
Gods in Council have decreed that you shall take it."
"What is the way?" said Thor. "But no matter what it is, tell me of it
and I shall do as thou dost say."
"Then," said laughing Loki, "I am to take you to Jötunheim as a bride
for Thrym. Thou art to go in bridal dress and veil, in Freya's veil and
bridal dress."
"What! I dress in woman's garb?" shouted Thor.
"Yea, Thor, and wear a veil over your head and a garland of flowers upon
it."
"I--I wear a garland of flowers?"
"And rings upon thy fingers. And a bunch of housekeeper's keys in thy
girdle."
"Cease thy mockery, Loki," said Thor roughly, "or I shall shake thee."
"It is no mockery. Thou wilt have to do this to win Miölnir back for the
defence of Asgard. Thrym will take no other recompense than Freya. I
would mock him by bringing thee to him in Freya's veil and dress. When
thou art in his hall and he asks thee to join hands with him, say thou
wilt not until he puts Miölnir into thy hands. Then when thy mighty
hammer is in thy holding thou canst deal with him and with all in his
hall. And I shall be with thee as thy bridesmaid! O sweet, sweet maiden
Thor!"
"Loki," said Thor, "thou didst devise all this to mock me. I in a bridal
dress! I with a bride's veil upon me! The Dwellers in Asgard will never
cease to laugh at me."
"Yea," said Loki, "but there will never be laughter again in Asgard
unless thou art able to bring back the hammer that thine unwatchfulness
lost."
"True," said Thor unhappily, "and is this, thinkst thou, Loki, the only
way to win back Miölnir from Thrym?"
"It is the only way, O Thor," said the cunning Loki.
So Thor and Loki set out for Jötunheim and the dwelling of Thrym. A
messenger had gone before them to tell Thrym that Freya was coming with
her bridesmaid; that the wedding-feast was to be prepared and the guests
gathered and that Miölnir was to be at hand so that it might be given
over to the Dwellers in Asgard. Thrym and his Giant mother hastened to
have everything in readiness.
Thor and Loki came to the Giant's house in the dress of a bride and a
bridesmaid. A veil was over Thor's head hiding his beard and his fierce
eyes. A red-embroidered robe he wore and at his side hung a girdle of
housekeeper's keys. Loki was veiled, too. The hall of Thrym's great
house was swept and garnished and great tables were laid for the feast.
And Thrym's mother was going from one guest to another, vaunting that
her son was getting one of the beauteous Dwellers in Asgard for his
bride, Freya, whom so many of the Giants had tried to win.
When Thor and Loki stepped across the threshold Thrym went to welcome
them. He wanted to raise the veil of his bride and give her a kiss. Loki
quickly laid his hand on the Giant's shoulder.
"Forbear," he whispered. "Do not raise her veil. We Dwellers in Asgard
are reserved and bashful. Freya would be much offended to be kissed
before this company."
"Aye, aye," said Thrym's old mother. "Do not raise thy bride's veil,
son. These Dwellers in Asgard are more refined in their ways than we,
the Giants." Then the old woman took Thor by the hand and led him to the
table.
The size and the girth of the bride did not surprise the huge Giants who
were in the wedding company. They stared at Thor and Loki, but they
could see nothing of their faces and little of their forms because of
their veils.
Thor sat at the table with Thrym on one side of him and Loki on the
other. Then the feast began. Thor, not noticing that what he did was
unbecoming to a refined maiden, ate eight salmon right away. Loki nudged
him and pressed his foot, but he did not heed Loki. After the salmon he
ate a whole ox.
"These maids of Asgard," said the Giants to each other, "they may be
refined, as Thrym's mother says, but their appetites are lusty enough."
"No wonder she eats, poor thing," said Loki to Thrym. "It is eight days
since we left Asgard. And Freya never ate upon the way, so anxious was
she to see Thrym and to come to his house."
"Poor darling, poor darling," said the Giant. "What she has eaten is
little after all."
Thor nodded his head toward the mead vat. Thrym ordered his servants to
bring a measure to his bride. The servants were kept coming with
measures to Thor. While the Giants watched, and while Loki nudged and
nodded, he drank three barrels of mead.
"Oh," said the Giants to Thrym's mother, "we are not so sorry that we
failed to win a bride from Asgard."
And now a piece of the veil slipped aside and Thor's eyes were seen for
an instant. "Oh, how does it come that Freya has such glaring eyes?"
said Thrym.
"Poor thing, poor thing," said Loki, "no wonder her eyes are glaring and
staring. She has not slept for eight nights, so anxious was she to come
to you and to your house, Thrym. But now the time has come for you to
join hands with your bride. First, put into her hands the hammer Miölnir
that she may know the great recompense that the Giants have given for
her coming."
Then Thrym, the stupidest of the Giants, rose up and brought Miölnir,
the defence of Asgard, into the feasting hall. Thor could hardly
restrain himself from springing up and seizing it from the Giant. But
Loki was able to keep him still. Thrym brought over the hammer and put
the handle into the hands of her whom he thought was his bride. Thor's
hands closed on his hammer. Instantly he stood up. The veil fell off
him. His countenance and his blazing eyes were seen by all. He struck
one blow on the wall of the house. Down it crashed. Then Thor went
striding out of the ruin with Loki beside him, while within the Giants
bellowed as the roof and walls fell down on them. And so was Miölnir,
the defence of Asgard, lost and won back.
[Illustration]
ÆGIR'S FEAST: HOW THOR TRIUMPHED
The time between midday and evening wore on while the Æsir and the Vanir
gathered for the feast in old Ægir's hall listened to the stories that
Loki told in mockery of Thor. The night came, but no banquet was made
ready for the Dwellers in Asgard. They called to Ægir's two
underservants, Fimaffenger and Elder, and they bade them bring them a
supper. Slight was what they got, but they went to bed saying, "Great
must be the preparations that old Ægir is making to feast us tomorrow."
The morrow came and the midday of the morrow, and still the Dwellers in
Asgard saw no preparations being made for the banquet. Then Frey rose up
and went to seek old Ægir, the Giant King of the Sea. He found him
sitting with bowed head in his inner hall. "Ho, Ægir," he said, "what of
the banquet that you have offered to the Dwellers in Asgard?"
Old Ægir mumbled and pulled at his beard. At last he looked his guest in
the face and told why the banquet was not being made ready. The mead for
the feast was not yet brewed. And there was little chance of being able
to brew mead that would do for all, for Ægir's hall was lacking a mead
kettle that would contain enough.
When the Æsir and the Vanir heard this they were sorely disappointed.
Who now, outside of Asgard, would give them a feast? Ægir was the only
one of the Giants who was friendly to them, and Ægir could not give them
full entertainment.
Then a Giant youth who was there spoke up and said, "My kinsman, the
Giant Hrymer, has a mead kettle that is a mile wide. If we could bring
Hrymer's kettle here, what a feast we might have!"
"One of us can go for that kettle," Frey said.
"Ah, but Hrymer's dwelling is beyond the deepest forest and behind the
highest mountain," the Giant youth said, "and Hrymer himself is a rough
and a churlish one to call on."
"Still, one of us should go," Frey said.
"I will go to Hrymer's dwelling," said Thor, standing up. "I will go to
Hrymer's dwelling and get the mile-wide kettle from him by force or
cunning." He had been sitting subdued under the mocking tales that Loki
told of him and he was pleased with this chance to make his prowess
plain to the Æsir and the Vanir. He buckled on the belt that doubled his
strength. He drew on the iron gloves that enabled him to grasp Miölnir.
He took his hammer in his hands, and he signed to the Giant youth to
come with him and be his guide.
The Æsir and the Vanir applauded Thor as he stepped out of old Ægir's
hall. But Loki, mischievous Loki, threw a gibe after him. "Do not let
the hammer out of your hands this time, bride of Thrym," he shouted.
Thor, with the Giant youth to guide him, went through the deepest forest
and over the highest mountain. He came at last to the Giant's dwelling.
On a hillock before Hrymer's house was a dreadful warden; a Giant crone
she was, with heads a-many growing out of her shoulders. She was
squatting down on her ankles, and her heads, growing in bunches, were
looking in different directions. As Thor and the Giant youth came near
screams and yelps came from all her heads. Thor grasped his hammer and
would have flung it at her if a Giant woman, making a sign of peace, had
not come to the door of the dwelling. The youthful Giant who was with
Thor greeted her as his mother.
"Son, come within," said she, "and you may bring your fellow farer with
you."
The Giant crone--she was Hrymer's grandmother--kept up her screaming and
yelping. But Thor went past her and into the Giant's dwelling.
When she saw that it was one of the Dwellers in Asgard who had come with
her son the Giant woman grew fearful for them both. "Hrymer," she said,
"will be in a rage to find one of the Æsir under his roof. He will
strive to slay you."
"It is not likely he will succeed," Thor said, grasping Miölnir, the
hammer that all the Giant race knew of and dreaded.
"Hide from him," said the Giant woman. "He may injure my son in his rage
to find you here."
"I am not wont to hide from the Giants," Thor said.
"Hide only for a little while! Hide until Hrymer has eaten," the Giant
woman pleaded. "He comes back from the chase in a stormy temper. After
he has eaten he is easier to deal with. Hide until he has finished
supper."
Thor at last agreed to do this. He and the Giant youth hid behind a
pillar in the hall. They were barely hidden when they heard the clatter
of the Giant's steps as he came through the courtyard. He came to the
door. His beard was like a frozen forest around his mouth. And he
dragged along with him a wild bull that he had captured in the chase. So
proud was he of his capture that he dragged it into the hall.
"I have taken alive," he shouted, "the bull with the mightiest head and
horns. 'Heaven-breaking' this bull is called. No Giant but me could
capture it." He tied the bull to the post of the door and then his eyes
went toward the pillar behind which Thor and the Giant youth were
hiding. The pillar split up its whole length at that look from Hrymer's
eyes. He came nearer. The pillar of stone broke across. It fell with the
crossbeam it supported and all the kettles and cauldrons that were
hanging on the beam came down with a terrible rattle.
Then Thor stepped out and faced the wrathful Giant. "It is I who am
here, friend Hrymer," he said, his hands resting on his hammer.
Then Hrymer, who knew Thor and knew the force of Thor's hammer, drew
back. "Now that you are in my house, Asa Thor," he said, "I will not
quarrel with you. Make supper ready for Asa Thor and your son and
myself," said he to the Giant woman.
A plentiful supper was spread and Hrymer and Thor and the Giant youth
sat down to three whole roast oxen. Thor ate the whole of one ox.
Hrymer, who had eaten nearly two himself, leaving only small cuts for
his wife and his youthful kinsman, grumbled at Thor's appetite. "You'll
clear my fields, Asa Thor," he said, "if you stay long with me."
"Do not grumble, Hrymer," Thor said. "Tomorrow I'll go fishing and I'll
bring you back the weight of what I ate."
"Then instead of hunting I'll go fishing with you tomorrow, Asa Thor,"
said Hrymer. "And don't be frightened if I take you out on a rough sea."
Hrymer was first out of bed the next morning. He came with the pole and
the ropes in his hand to where Thor was sleeping. "Time to start earning
your meal, Asa Thor," said he.
Thor got out of bed, and when they were both in the courtyard the Giant
said, "You'll have to provide a bait for yourself. Mind that you take a
bait large enough. It is not where the little fishes are, the place
where I'm going to take you. If you never saw monsters before you'll see
them now. I'm glad, Asa Thor, that you spoke of going fishing."
"Will this bait be big enough?" said Thor, laying his hands on the horns
of the bull that Hrymer had captured and brought home, the bull with the
mighty head of horns that was called "Heaven-breaking." "Will this bait
be big enough, do you think?"
"Yes, if you're big enough to handle it," said the Giant.
Thor said nothing, but he struck the bull full in the middle of the
forehead with his fist. The great creature fell down dead. Thor then
twisted the bull's head off. "I have my bait and I'm ready to go with
you, Hrymer," he said.
Hrymer had turned away to hide the rage he was in at seeing Thor do such
a feat. He walked down to the boat without speaking. "You may row for
the first few strokes," said Hrymer, when they were in the boat, "but
when we come to where the ocean is rough, why I'll take the oars from
you."
Without saying a word Thor made a few strokes that took the boat out
into the middle of the ocean. Hrymer was in a rage to think that he
could not show himself greater than Thor. He let out his line and began
to fish. Soon he felt something huge on his hook. The boat rocked and
rocked till Thor steadied it. Then Hrymer drew into the boat the largest
whale that was in these seas.
"Good fishing," said Thor, as he put his own bait on the line.
"It's something for you to tell the Æsir," said Hrymer.
"I thought as you were here I'd show you something bigger than
salmon-fishing."
"I'll try my luck now," said Thor.
He threw out a line that had at the end of it the mighty-horned head of
the great bull. Down, down the head went. It passed where the whales
swim, and the whales were afraid to gulp at the mighty horns. Down, down
it went till it came near where the monster serpent that coils itself
round the world abides. It reared its head up from its serpent coils as
Thor's bait came down through the depths of the ocean. It gulped at the
head and drew it into its gullet. There the great hook stuck. Terribly
surprised was the serpent monster. It lashed the ocean into a fury. But
still the hook stayed. Then it strove to draw down to the depths of the
ocean the boat of those who had hooked it. Thor put his legs across the
boat and stretched them till they touched the bottom bed of the ocean.
On the bottom bed of the ocean Thor stood and he pulled and he pulled on
his line. The serpent monster lashed the ocean into fiercer and fiercer
storms and all the world's ships were hurled against each other and
wrecked and tossed. But it had to loosen coil after coil of the coils it
makes around the world. Thor pulled and pulled. Then the terrible head
of the serpent monster appeared above the waters. It reared over the
boat that Hrymer sat in and that Thor straddled across. Thor dropped the
line and took up Miölnir, his mighty hammer. He raised it to strike the
head of the serpent monster whose coils go round the world. But Hrymer
would not have that happen. Rather than have Thor pass him by such a
feat he cut the line, and the head of the serpent monster sank back into
the sea. Thor's hammer was raised. He hurled it, hurled that hammer that
always came back to his hand. It followed the sinking head through
fathom after fathom of the ocean depth. It struck the serpent monster a
blow, but not such a deadly blow as would have been struck if the water
had not come between. A bellow of pain came up from the depths of the
ocean, such a bellow of pain that all in Jötunheim were affrighted.
"This surely is something to tell the Æsir of," said Thor, "something to
make them forget Loki's mockeries."
Without speaking Hrymer turned the boat and rowed toward the shore,
dragging the whale in the wake. He was in such a rage to think that one
of the Æsir had done a feat surpassing his that he would not speak. At
supper, too, he remained silent, but Thor talked for two, boasting
loudly of his triumph over the monster serpent.
"No doubt you think yourself very powerful, Asa Thor," Hrymer said at
last. "Well, do you think you are powerful enough to break the cup that
is before you?"
Thor took up the cup and with a laugh he hurled it against the stone
pillar of the house. The cup fell down on the floor without a crack or a
dint in it. But the pillar was shattered with the blow.
The Giant laughed. "So feeble are the folk of Asgard!" he said.
Thor took up the cup again and flung it with greater force against the
stone pillar. And again the cup fell to the ground without a crack or a
dint.
Then he heard the woman who was the mother of the Giant youth sing
softly, as she plied her wheel behind him:
Not at the pillar of the stead,
But at Hrymer's massy head:
When you next the goblet throw,
Let his head receive the blow.
Thor took the cup up again. He flung it, not at the pillar this time,
but at Hrymer's head. It struck the Giant full on the forehead and fell
down on the floor in pieces. And Hrymer's head was left without a dint
or a crack.
"Ha, so you can break a cup, but can you lift up my mile-wide kettle?"
cried the Giant.
"Show me where your mile-wide kettle is and I shall try to lift it,"
cried Thor.
The Giant took up the flooring and showed him the mile-wide kettle down
in the cellar. Thor stooped down and took the kettle by the brim. He
lifted it slowly as if with a mighty effort.
"You can lift, but can you carry it?" said the Giant.
"I will try to do that," said Thor. He lifted the kettle up and placed
it on his head. He strode to the door and out of the house before the
Giant could lay hands on him. Then when he was outside he started to
run. He was across the mountain before he looked behind him. He heard a
yelping and a screaming and he saw the Giant crone with the bunch of
heads running, running after him. Up hill and down dale Thor raced, the
mile-wide kettle on his head and the Giant crone in chase of him.
Through the deep forest he ran and over the high mountain, but still
Bunch-of-Heads kept him in chase. But at last, jumping over a lake, she
fell in and Thor was free of his pursuer.
And so back to the Æsir and the Vanir Thor came in triumph, carrying on
his head the mile-wide kettle. And those of the Æsir and the Vanir who
had laughed most at Loki's mockeries rose up and cheered for him as he
came in. The mead was brewed, the feast was spread, and the greatest
banquet that ever the Kings of the Giants gave to the Dwellers in Asgard
was eaten in gladness.
A strange and silent figure sat at the banquet. It was the figure of a
Giant and no one knew who he was nor where he had come from. But when
the banquet was ended Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, turned toward this
figure and said, "O Skyrmir, Giant King of Utgard, rise up now and tell
Thor of all you practiced upon him when he and Loki came to your City."
Then the stranger at the banquet stood up, and Thor and Loki saw he was
the Giant King in whose halls they had had the contests. Skyrmir turned
toward them and said:
"O Thor and O Loki, I will reveal to you now the deceits I practiced on
you both. It was I whom ye met on the moorland on the day before ye came
into Utgard. I gave you my name as Skyrmir and I did all I might do to
prevent your entering our City, for the Giants dreaded a contest of
strength with Asa Thor. Now hear me, O Thor. The wallet I gave for you
to take provisions out of was tied with magic knots. No one could undo
them by strength or cleverness. And while you were striving to undo them
I placed a mountain of rock between myself and you. The hammer blows,
which as you thought struck me, struck the mountain and made great
clefts and gaps in it. When I knew the strength of your tremendous blows
I was more and more in dread of your coming into our City.
"I saw you would have to be deceived by magic. Your lad Thialfi was the
one whom I first deceived. For it was not a Giant youth who raced
against him, but Thought itself. And even you, O Loki, I deceived. For
when you tried to make yourself out the greatest of eaters I pitted
against you, not a Giant, but Fire that devours everything.
"You, Thor, were deceived in all the contests. After you had taken the
drinking horn in your hands we were all affrighted to see how much you
were able to gulp down. For the end of that horn was in the sea, and
Ægir, who is here, can tell you that after you had drunk from it, the
level of the sea went down.
"The cat whom you strove to lift was Nidhögg, the dragon that gnaws at
the roots of Ygdrassil, the Tree of Trees. Truly we were terrified when
we saw that you made Nidhögg budge. When you made the back of the cat
reach the roof of our palace we said to ourselves, 'Thor is the
mightiest of all the beings we have known.'
"Lastly you strove with the hag Ellie. Her strength seemed marvelous to
you, and you thought yourself disgraced because you could not throw her.
But know, Thor, that Ellie whom you wrestled with was Old Age herself.
We were terrified again to see that she who can overthrow all was not
able to force you prone upon the ground."
So Skyrmir spoke and then left the hall. And once more the Æsir and the
Vanir stood up and cheered for Thor, the strongest of all who guarded
Asgard.
[Illustration]
THE DWARF'S HOARD, AND THE CURSE THAT IT BROUGHT
Now old Ægir's feast was over and all the Æsir and the Vanir made ready
for their return to Asgard. Two only went on another way--Odin, the
Eldest of the Gods, and Loki the Mischievous.
Loki and Odin laid aside all that they had kept of the divine power and
the divine strength. They were going into the World of Men, and they
would be as men merely. Together they went through Midgard, mingling
with men of all sorts, kings and farmers, outlaws and true men, warriors
and householders, thralls and councillors, courteous men and men who
were ill-mannered. One day they came to the bank of a mighty river and
there they rested, listening to the beat of iron upon iron in a place
near by.
Presently, on a rock in the middle of the river, they saw an otter
come. The otter went into the water and came back to the rock with a
catch of salmon. He devoured it there. Then Odin saw Loki do a senseless
and an evil thing. Taking up a great stone he flung it at the otter. The
stone struck the beast on the skull and knocked him over dead.
"Loki, Loki, why hast thou done a thing so senseless and so evil?" Odin
said. Loki only laughed. He swam across the water and came back with the
creature of the river. "Why didst thou take the life of the beast?" Odin
said.
"The mischief in me made me do it," said Loki. He drew out his knife and
ripping the otter up he began to flay him. When the skin was off the
beast he folded it up and stuck it in his belt. Then Odin and he left
that place by the river.
They came to a house with two smithies beside it, and from the smithies
came the sound of iron beating upon iron. They went within the house and
they asked that they might eat there and rest themselves.
An old man who was cooking fish over a fire pointed out a bench to them.
"Rest there," said he, "and when the fish is cooked I will give you
something good to eat. My son is a fine fisher and he brings me salmon
of the best."
Odin and Loki sat on the bench and the old man went on with his cooking.
"My name is Hreidmar," he said, "and I have two sons who work in the
smithies without. I have a third son also. It is he who does the fishing
for us. And who may ye be, O wayfaring men?"
Loki and Odin gave names to Hreidmar that were not the names by which
they were known in Asgard or on Midgard. Hreidmar served fish to them
and they ate. "And what adventures have ye met upon your travels?"
Hreidmar asked. "Few folk come this way to tell me of happenings."
"I killed an otter with a cast of a stone," Loki said with a laugh.
"You killed an otter!" Hreidmar cried. "Where did you kill one?"
"Where I killed him is of no import to you, old man," said Loki. "His
skin is a good one, however. I have it at my belt."
Hreidmar snatched the skin out of Loki's belt. As soon as he held the
skin before his eyes he shrieked out, "Fafnir, Regin, my sons, come here
and bring the thralls of your smithies. Come, come, come!"
"Why dost thou make such an outcry, old man?" said Odin.
"Ye have slain my son Otter," shrieked the old man. "This in my hands is
the skin of my son."
As Hreidmar said this two young men bearing the forehammers of the
smithies came in followed by the thralls. "Strike these men dead with
your forehammers, O Fafnir, O Regin," their father cried. "Otter, who
used to stay in the river, and whom I changed by enchantment into a
river beast that he might fish for me, has been slain by these men."
"Peace," said Odin. "We have slain thy son, it would seem, but it was
unwittingly that we did the deed. We will give a recompense for the
death of thy son."
"What recompense will ye give?" said Hreidmar, looking at Odin with eyes
that were small and sharp.
Then did Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, say a word that was unworthy of
his wisdom and his power. He might have said, "I will bring thee a
draught of Mimir's well water as a recompense for thy son's death." But
instead of thinking of wisdom, Odin All-Father thought of gold. "Set a
price on the life of thy son and we will pay that price in gold," he
said.
"Maybe ye are great kings traveling through the world," Hreidmar said.
"If ye are ye will have to find gold that will cover every hair upon the
skin of him whom ye have killed."
Then did Odin, his mind being fixed upon the gold, think upon a certain
treasure, a treasure that was guarded by a Dwarf. No other treasure in
the nine worlds would be great enough to make the recompense that
Hreidmar claimed. He thought upon this treasure and he thought on how it
might be taken and yet he was ashamed of his thought.
"Dost thou, Loki, know of Andvari's hoard?" he said.
"I know of it," said Loki sharply, "and I know where it is hidden. Wilt
thou, Odin, win leave for me to fetch Andvari's hoard?"
Odin spoke to Hreidmar. "I will stay with thee as a hostage," he said,
"if thou wilt let this one go to fetch a treasure that will cover the
otter's skin hair by hair."
"I will let this be done," said old Hreidmar with the sharp and cunning
eyes. "Go now," said he to Loki. Then Loki went from the house.
Andvari was a Dwarf who, in the early days, had gained for himself the
greatest treasure in the nine worlds. So that he might guard this
treasure unceasingly he changed himself into a fish--into a pike--and he
swam in the water before the cave where the hoard was hidden.
All in Asgard knew of the Dwarf and of the hoard he guarded. And there
was a thought amongst all that this hoard was not to be meddled with and
that some evil was joined to it. But now Odin had given the word that it
was to be taken from the Dwarf. Loki set out for Andvari's cave
rejoicingly. He came to the pool before the cave and he watched for a
sight of Andvari. Soon he saw the pike swimming cautiously before the
cave.
He would have to catch the pike and hold him till the treasure was given
for ransom. As he watched the pike became aware of him. Suddenly he
flung himself forward in the water and went with speed down the stream.
Not with his hands and not with any hook and line could Loki catch that
pike. How, then, could he take him? Only with a net that was woven by
magic. Then Loki thought of where he might get such a net.
Ran, the wife of old Ægir, the Giant King of the Sea, had a net that was
woven by magic. In it she took all that was wrecked on the sea. Loki
thought of Ran's net and he turned and went back to Ægir's hall to ask
for the Queen. But Ran was seldom in her husband's dwelling. She was now
down by the rocks of the sea.
He found Ran, the cold Queen, standing in the flow of the sea, drawing
out of the depths with the net that she held in her hands every piece
of treasure that was washed that way. She had made a heap of the things
she had drawn out of the sea, corals and amber, and bits of gold and
silver, but still she was plying her net greedily.
"Thou knowst me, Ægir's wife," said Loki to her.
"I know thee, Loki," said Queen Ran.
"Lend me thy net," said Loki.
"That I will not do," said Queen Ran.
"Lend me thy net that I may catch Andvari the Dwarf who boasts that he
has a greater treasure than ever thou wilt take out of the sea," said
Loki.
The cold Queen of the sea ceased plying her net. She looked at Loki
steadily. Yes, if he were going to catch Andvari she would lend her net
to him. She hated all the Dwarfs because this one and that one had told
her they had greater treasures than ever she would be mistress of. But
especially she hated Andvari, the Dwarf who had the greatest treasure in
the nine worlds.
"There is nothing more to gather here," she said, "and if thou wilt
swear to bring me back my net by tomorrow I shall lend it to you."
"I swear by the sparks of Muspelheim that I will bring thy net back to
thee by tomorrow, O Queen of Ægir," Loki cried. Then Ran put into his
hands the Magic Net. Back then he went to where the Dwarf, transformed,
was guarding his wondrous hoard.
Dark was the pool in which Andvari floated as a pike; dark it was, but
to him it was all golden with the light of his wondrous treasure. For
the sake of this hoard he had given up his companionship with the
Dwarfs and his delight in making and shaping the things of their
workmanship. For the sake of his hoard he had taken on himself the
dumbness and deafness of a fish.
Now as he swam about before the cave he was aware again of a shadow
above him. He slipped toward the shadow of the bank. Then as he turned
round he saw a net sweeping toward him. He sank down in the water. But
the Magic Net had spread out and he sank into its meshes.
Suddenly he was out of the water and was left gasping on the bank. He
would have died had he not undone his transformation.
Soon he appeared as a Dwarf. "Andvari, you are caught; it is one of the
Æsir who has taken you," he heard his captor say.
"Loki," he gasped.
"Thou art caught and thou shalt be held," Loki said to him. "It is the
will of the Æsir that thou give up thy hoard to me."
"My hoard, my hoard!" the Dwarf shouted. "Never will I give up my
hoard."
"I hold thee till thou givest it to me," said Loki.
"Unjust, unjust," shouted Andvari. "It is only thou, Loki, who art
unjust. I will go to the throne of Odin and I will have Odin punish thee
for striving to rob me of my treasure."
"Odin has sent me to fetch thy hoard to him," said Loki.
"Can it be that all the Æsir are unjust? Ah, yes. In the beginning of
things they cheated the Giant who built the wall round their City. The
Æsir are unjust."
Loki had Andvari in his power. And after the Dwarf had raged against him
and defied him, he tormented him; at last, trembling with rage and with
his face covered with tears, Andvari took Loki into his cavern, and,
turning a rock aside, showed him the mass of gold and gems that was his
hoard.
At once Loki began to gather into the Magic Net lumps and ingots and
circlets of gold with gems that were rubies and sapphires and emeralds.
He saw Andvari snatch at something on the heap, but he made no sign of
marking it. At last all was gathered into the net, and Loki stood there
ready to bear the Dwarf's hoard away.
"There is one thing more to be given," said Loki, "the ring that you,
Andvari, snatched from the heap."
"I snatched nothing," said the Dwarf. But he shook with anger and his
teeth gnashed together and froth came on his lips. "I snatched nothing
from the heap."
But Loki pulled up his arm and there fell to the ground the ring that
Andvari had hidden under his armpit.
It was the most precious thing in all the hoard. Had it been left with
him Andvari would have thought that he still possessed a treasure, for
this ring of itself could make gold. It was made out of gold that was
refined of all impurities and it was engraven with a rune of power.
Loki took up this most precious ring and put it on his finger. Then the
Dwarf screamed at him, turning his thumbs toward him in a curse:
The ring with the rune
Of power upon it:
May it weigh down your fortune,
And load you with evil,
You, Loki, and all
Who lust to possess
The ring I have cherished.
As Andvari uttered this curse Loki saw a figure rise up in the cave and
move toward him. As this figure came near he knew who it was: Gulveig, a
Giant woman who had once been in Asgard.
Far back in the early days, when the Gods had come to their holy hill
and before Asgard was built, three women of the Giants had come amongst
the Æsir. After the Three had been with them for a time, the lives of
the Æsir changed. Then did they begin to value and to hoard the gold
that they had played with. Then did they think of war. Odin hurled his
spear amongst the messengers that came from the Vanir, and war came into
the world.
The Three were driven out of Asgard. Peace was made with the Vanir. The
Apples of Lasting Youth were grown in Asgard. The eagerness for gold was
curbed. But never again were the Æsir as happy as they were before the
women came to them from the Giants.
Gulveig was one of the Three who had blighted the early happiness of the
Gods. And, behold, she was in the cave where Andvari had hoarded his
treasure and with a smile upon her face she was advancing toward Loki.
"So, Loki," she said, "thou seest me again. And Odin who sent thee to
this cave will see me again. Lo, Loki! I go to Odin to be thy messenger
and to tell him that thou comest with Andvari's hoard."
And speaking so, and smiling into his face, Gulveig went out of the cave
with swift and light steps. Loki drew the ends of the Magic Net together
and gathering all the treasures in its meshes he, too, went out.
Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, stood leaning on his spear and looking at
the skin of the otter that was spread out before him. One came into the
dwelling swiftly. Odin looked and saw that she who had come in on such
swift, glad feet was Gulveig who, once with her two companions, had
troubled the happiness of the Gods. Odin raised his spear to cast it at
her.
"Lay thy spear down, Odin," she said. "I dwelt for long in the Dwarf's
cave. But thy word unloosed me, and the curse said over Andvari's ring
has sent me here. Lay thy spear down, and look on me, O Eldest of the
Gods.
"Thou didst cast me out of Asgard, but thy word has brought me to come
back to thee. And if ye two, Odin and Loki, have bought yourselves free
with gold and may enter Asgard, surely I, Gulveig, am free to enter
Asgard also."
Odin lowered his spear, sighing deeply. "Surely it is so, Gulveig," he
said. "I may not forbid thee to enter Asgard. Would I had thought of
giving the man Kvasir's Mead or Mimir's well water rather than this gold
as a recompense."
As they spoke Loki came into Hreidmar's dwelling. He laid on the floor
the Magic Net. Old Hreidmar with his sharp eyes, and huge Fafnir, and
lean and hungry-looking Regin came in to gaze on the gold and gems that
shone through the meshes. They began to push each other away from gazing
at the gold. Then Hreidmar cried out, "No one may be here but these two
kings and I while we measure out the gold and gems and see whether the
recompense be sufficient. Go without, go without, sons of mine."
Then Fafnir and Regin were forced to go out of the dwelling. They went
out slowly, and Gulveig went with them, whispering to both.
With shaking hands old Hreidmar spread out the skin that once covered
his son. He drew out the ears and the tail and the paws so that every
single hair could be shown. For long he was on his hands and knees, his
sharp eyes searching, searching over every line of the skin. And still
on his knees he said, "Begin now, O kings, and cover with a gem or a
piece of gold every hair on the skin that was my son's."
Odin stood leaning on his spear, watching the gold and gems being paid
out. Loki took the gold--the ingots, and the lumps and the circlets; he
took the gems--the rubies, and the emeralds and the sapphires, and he
began to place them over each hair. Soon the middle of the skin was all
covered. Then he put the gems and the gold over the paws and the tail.
Soon the otter-skin was so glittering that one would think it could
light up the world. And still Loki went on finding a place where a gem
or a piece of gold might be put.
At last he stood up. Every gem and every piece of gold had been taken
out of the net. And every hair on the otter's skin had been covered with
a gem or a piece of gold.
And still old Hreidmar on his hands and knees was peering over the skin,
searching, searching for a hair that was not covered. At last he lifted
himself up on his knees. His mouth was open, but he was speechless. He
touched Odin on the knees, and when Odin bent down he showed him a hair
upon the lip that was left uncovered.
"What meanest thou?" Loki cried, turning upon the crouching man.
"Your ransom is not paid yet--look, here is still a hair uncovered. You
may not go until every hair is covered with gold or a gem."
"Peace, old man," said Loki roughly. "All the Dwarf's hoard has been
given thee."
"Ye may not go until every hair has been covered," Hreidmar said again.
"There is no more gold or gems," Loki answered.
"Then ye may not go," cried Hreidmar, springing up.
It was true. Odin and Loki might not leave that dwelling until the
recompense they had agreed to was paid in full. Where now would the Æsir
go for gold?
And then Odin saw the gleam of gold on Loki's finger: it was the ring he
had forced from Andvari. "Thy fingerring," said Odin. "Put thy
fingerring over the hair on the otter's skin."
Loki took off the ring that was engraved with the rune of power, and he
put it on the lip-hair of the otter's skin. Then Hreidmar clapped his
hands and screamed aloud. Huge Fafnir and lean and hungry-looking Regin
came within, and Gulveig came behind them. They stood around the skin of
the son and the brother that was all glittering with gold and gems. But
they looked at each other more than they looked on the glittering mass,
and very deadly were the looks that Fafnir and Regin cast upon their
father and cast upon each other.
Over Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge, went all of the Æsir and the Vanir
that had been at old Ægir's feast--Frey and Freya, Frigga, Iduna, and
Sif; Tyr with his sword and Thor in his chariot drawn by the goats. Loki
came behind them, and behind them all came Odin, the Father of the Gods.
He went slowly with his head bent, for he knew that an unwelcome one was
following--Gulveig, who once had been cast out of Asgard and whose
return now the Gods might not gainsay.
PART III
THE WITCH'S HEART
[Illustration]
FOREBODING IN ASGARD
What happened afterwards is to the shame of the Gods, and mortals may
hardly speak of it. Gulveig the Witch came into Asgard, for Heimdall
might not forbid her entrance. She came within and she had her seat
amongst the Æsir and the Vanir. She walked through Asgard with a smile
upon her face, and where she walked and where she smiled Care and dire
Foreboding came.
Those who felt the care and the foreboding most deeply were Bragi the
Poet and his wife, the fair and simple Iduna, she who gathered the
apples that kept age from the Dwellers in Asgard. Bragi ceased to tell
his never-ending tale. Then one day, overcome by the fear and the
foreboding that was creeping through Asgard, Iduna slipped down
Ygdrassil, the World Tree, and no one was left to pluck the apples with
which the Æsir and the Vanir stayed their youth.
Then were all the Dwellers in Asgard in sore dismay. Strength and beauty
began to fade from all. Thor found it hard to lift Miölnir, his great
hammer, and the flesh under Freya's necklace lost its white radiance.
And still Gulveig the Witch walked smiling through Asgard, although now
she was hated by all.
It was Odin and Frey who went in search of Iduna. She would have been
found and brought back without delay if Frey had had with him the magic
sword that he had bartered for Gerda. In his search he had to strive
with one who guarded the lake wherein Iduna had hidden herself. Beli was
the one he strove against. He overcame him in the end with a weapon made
of stags' antlers. Ah, it was not then but later that Frey lamented the
loss of his sword: it was when the Riders of Muspell came against
Asgard, and the Vanir, who might have prevailed, prevailed not because
of the loss of Frey's sword.
They found Iduna and they brought her back. But still Care and
Foreboding crept through Asgard. And it was known, too, that the witch
Gulveig was changing the thoughts of the Gods.
At last Odin had to judge Gulveig. He judged her and decreed her death.
And only Gungnir, the spear of Odin, might slay Gulveig, who was not of
mortal race.
Odin hurled Gungnir. The spear went through Gulveig. But still she stood
smiling at the Gods. A second time Odin hurled his spear. A second time
Gungnir pierced the witch. She stood livid as one dead but fell not
down. A third time Odin hurled his spear. And now, pierced for the third
time, the witch gave a scream that made all Asgard shudder and she fell
in death on the ground.
"I have slain in these halls where slaying is forbidden," Odin said.
"Take now the corpse of Gulveig and burn it on the ramparts, so that no
trace of the witch who has troubled us will remain in Asgard."
They brought the corpse of Gulveig the witch out on the ramparts and
they lighted fires under the pile on which they laid her and they called
upon Hræsvelgur to fan up the flame:
Hræsvelgur is the Giant,
Who on heaven's edge sits
In the guise of an eagle;
And the winds, it is said,
Rush down on the earth
From his outspreading pinions.
Far away was Loki when all this was being done. Often now he went from
Asgard, and his journeys were to look upon that wondrous treasure that
had passed from the keeping of the Dwarf Andvari. It was Gulveig who had
kept the imagination of that treasure within his mind. Now, when he came
back and heard the whispers of what had been done, a rage flamed up
within him. For Loki was one of those whose minds were being changed by
the presence and the whispers of the witch Gulveig. His mind was being
changed to hatred of the Gods. Now he went to the place of Gulveig's
burning. All her body was in ashes, but her heart had not been devoured
by the flames. And Loki in his rage took the heart of the witch and ate
it. Oh, black and direful was it in Asgard, the day that Loki ate the
heart that the flames would not devour!
[Illustration]
LOKI THE BETRAYER
He stole Frigga's dress of falcon feathers. Then as a falcon he flew out
of Asgard. Jötunheim was the place that he flew toward.
The anger and the fierceness of the hawk was within Loki as he flew
through the Giants' Realm. The heights and the chasms of that dread land
made his spirits mount up like fire. He saw the whirlpools and the
smoking mountains and had joy of these sights. Higher and higher he
soared until, looking toward the South, he saw the flaming land of
Muspelheim. Higher and higher still he soared. With his falcon's eyes he
saw the gleam of Surtur's flaming sword. All the fire of Muspelheim and
all the gloom of Jötunheim would one day be brought against Asgard and
against Midgard. But Loki was no longer dismayed to think of the ruin of
Asgard's beauty and the ruin of Midgard's promise.
He hovered around one of the dwellings in Jötunheim. Why had he come to
it? Because he had seen two of the women of that dwelling, and his rage
against the Asyniur and the Vanir was such that the ugliness and the
evil of these women was pleasing to him.
He hovered before the open door of the Giant's house and he looked upon
those who were within. Gerriöd, the most savage of all the Giants, was
there. And beside him, squatting on the ground, were his two evil and
ugly daughters, Gialp and Greip.
They were big and bulky, black and rugged, with horses' teeth and hair
that was like horses' manes. Gialp was the uglier of the two, if one
could be said to be uglier than the other, for her nose was a yard long
and her eyes were crooked.
What were they talking about as they sat there, one scratching the
other? Of Asgard and the Dwellers in Asgard whom they hated. Thor was
the one whom they hated most of all, and they were speaking of all they
would like to do to him.
"I would keep Thor bound in chains," said Gerriöd the Giant, "and I
would beat him to death with my iron club."
"I would grind his bones to powder," said Greip.
"I would tear the flesh off his bones," said Gialp. "Father, can you not
catch this Thor and bring him to us alive?"
"Not so long as he has his hammer Miölnir, and the gloves with which he
grasps his hammer, and the belt that doubles his strength."
"Oh, if we could catch him without his hammer and his belt and his
gloves," cried Gialp and Greip together.
At that moment they saw the falcon hovering before the door. They were
eager now for something to hold and torment and so the hearts of the
three became set upon catching the falcon. They did not stir from the
place where they were sitting, but they called the child Glapp, who was
swinging from the roof-tree, and they bade him go out and try to catch
the falcon.
All concealed by the great leaves the child Glapp climbed up the ivy
that was around the door. The falcon came hovering near. Then Glapp
caught it by the wings and fell down through the ivy, screaming and
struggling as he was being beaten, and clawed, and torn by the wings and
the talons and the beak of the falcon.
Gerriöd and Greip and Gialp rushed out and kept hold of the falcon. As
the Giant held him in his hands and looked him over he knew that this
was no bird-creature. The eyes showed him to be of Alfheim or Asgard.
The Giant took him and shut him in a box till he would speak.
Soon he tapped at the closed box and when Gerriöd opened it Loki spoke
to him. So glad was the savage Giant to have one of the Dwellers in
Asgard in his power that he and his daughters did nothing but laugh and
chuckle to each other for days. And all this time they left Loki in the
closed box to waste with hunger.
When they opened the box again Loki spoke to them. He told them he
would do any injury to the Dwellers in Asgard that would please them if
they would let him go.
"Will you bring Thor to us?" said Greip.
"Will you bring Thor to us without his hammer, and without the gloves
with which he grasps his hammer, and without his belt?" said Gialp.
"I will bring him to you if you will let me go," Loki said. "Thor is
easily deceived and I can bring him to you without his hammer and his
belt and his gloves."
"We will let you go, Loki," said the Giant, "if you will swear by the
gloom of Jötunheim that you will bring Thor to us as you say."
Loki swore that he would do so by the gloom of Jötunheim--"Yea, and by
the fires of Muspelheim," he added. The Giant and his daughters let him
go, and he flew back to Asgard.
He restored to Frigga her falcon dress. All blamed him for having stolen
it, but when he told how he had been shut up without food in Gerriöd's
dwelling those who judged him thought he had been punished enough for
the theft. He spoke as before to the Dwellers in Asgard, and the rage
and hatred he had against them since he had eaten Gulveig's heart he
kept from bursting forth.
He talked to Thor of the adventures they had together in Jötunheim. Thor
would now roar with laughter when he talked of the time when he went as
a bride to Thrym the Giant.
Loki was able to persuade him to make another journey to Jötunheim. "And
I want to speak to you of what I saw in Gerriöd's dwelling," he said.
"I saw there the hair of Sif, your wife."
"The hair of Sif, my wife," said Thor in surprise.
"Yes, the hair I once cut off from Sif's head," said Loki. "Gerriöd was
the one who found it when I cast it away. They light their hall with
Sif's hair. Oh, yes, they don't need torches where Sif's hair is."
"I should like to see it," said Thor.
"Then pay Gerriöd a visit," Loki replied. "But if you go to his house
you will have to go without your hammer Miölnir, and without your gloves
and your belt."
"Where will I leave Miölnir, and my gloves and my belt?" Thor asked.
"Leave them in Valaskjalf, Odin's own dwelling," said cunning Loki.
"Leave them there and come to Gerriöd's dwelling. Surely you will be
well treated there."
"Yes, I will leave them in Valaskjalf and go with you to Gerriöd's
dwelling," Thor said.
Thor left his hammer, his gloves, and his belt in Valaskjalf. Then he
and Loki went toward Jötunheim. When they were near the end of their
journey, they came to a wide river, and with a young Giant whom they met
on the bank they began to ford it.
Suddenly the river began to rise. Loki and the young Giant would have
been swept away only Thor gripped both of them. Higher and higher the
river rose, and rougher and rougher it became. Thor had to plant his
feet firmly on the bottom or he and the two he held would have been
swept down by the flood. He struggled across, holding Loki and the
young Giant. A mountain ash grew out of the bank, and, while the two
held to him, he grasped it with his hands. The river rose still higher,
but Thor was able to draw Loki and the young Giant to the bank, and then
he himself scrambled up on it.
Now looking up the river he saw a sight that filled him with rage. A
Giantess was pouring a flood into it. This it was that was making the
river rise and seethe. Thor pulled a rock out of the bank and hurled it
at her. It struck her and flung her into the flood. Then she struggled
out of the water and went yelping away. This Giantess was Gialp,
Gerriöd's ugly and evil daughter.
Nothing would do the young Giant whom Thor had helped across but that
the pair would go and visit Grid, his mother, who lived in a cave in the
hillside. Loki would not go and was angered to hear that Thor thought of
going. But Thor, seeing that the Giant youth was friendly, was willing
enough to go to Grid's dwelling.
"Go then, but get soon to Gerriöd's dwelling yonder. I will wait for you
there," said Loki. He watched Thor go up the hillside to Grid's cave. He
waited until he saw Thor come back down the hillside and go toward
Gerriöd's dwelling. He watched Thor go into the house where, as he
thought, death awaited him. Then in a madness for what he had done,
Loki, with his head drawn down on his shoulders, started running like a
bird along the ground.
Grid, the old Giantess, was seated on the floor of the cave grinding
corn between two stones. "Who is it?" she said, as her son led Thor
within. "One of the Æsir! What Giant do you go to injure now, Asa Thor?"
"I go to injure no Giant, old Grid," Thor replied. "Look upon me! Cannot
you see that I have not Miölnir, my mighty hammer, with me, nor my belt,
nor my gloves of iron?"
"But where in Jötunheim do you go?"
"To the house of a friendly Giant, old Grid--to the house of Gerriöd."
"Gerriöd a friendly Giant! You are out of your wits, Asa Thor. Is he not
out of his wits, my son--this one who saved you from the flood, as you
say?"
"Tell him of Gerriöd, old mother," said the Giant youth.
"Do not go to his house, Asa Thor. Do not go to his house."
"My word has been given, and I should be a craven if I stayed away now,
just because an old crone sitting at a quernstone tells me I am going
into a trap."
"I will give you something that will help you, Asa Thor. Lucky for you I
am mistress of magical things. Take this staff in your hands. It is a
staff of power and will stand you instead of Miölnir."
"I will take it since you offer it in kindness, old dame, this
worm-eaten staff."
"And take these mittens, too. They will serve you for your gauntlets of
iron."
"I will take them since you offer them in kindness, old dame, these worn
old mittens."
"And take this length of string. It will serve you for your belt of
prowess."
"I will take it since you offer it in kindness, old dame, this ragged
length of string."
"'Tis well indeed for you, Asa Thor, that I am mistress of magical
things."
Thor put the worn length of string around his waist, and as he did he
knew that Grid, the old Giantess, was indeed the mistress of magical
things. For immediately he felt his strength augmented as when he put on
his own belt of strength. He then drew on the mittens and took the staff
that she gave him in his hands.
He left the cave of Grid, the old Giantess, and went to Gerriöd's
dwelling. Loki was not there. It was then that Thor began to think that
perhaps old Grid was right and that a trap was being laid for him.
No one was in the hall. He came out of the hall and into a great stone
chamber and he saw no one there either. But in the center of the stone
chamber there was a stone seat, and Thor went to it and seated himself
upon it.
No sooner was he seated than the chair flew upwards. Thor would have
been crushed against the stone roof only that he held his staff up. So
great was the power in the staff, so great was the strength that the
string around him gave, that the chair was thrust downward. The stone
chair crashed down upon the stone floor.
There were horrible screams from under it. Thor lifted up the seat and
saw two ugly, broken bodies there. The Giant's daughters, Gialp and
Greip, had hidden themselves under the chair to watch his death. But
the stone that was to have crushed him against the ceiling had crushed
them against the floor.
Thor strode out of that chamber with his teeth set hard. A great fire
was blazing in the hall, and standing beside that fire he saw Gerriöd,
the long-armed Giant.
He held a tongs into the fire. As Thor came toward him he lifted up the
tongs and flung from it a blazing wedge of iron. It whizzed straight
toward Thor's forehead. Thor put up his hands and caught the blazing
wedge of iron between the mittens that old Grid had given him. Quickly
he hurled it back at Gerriöd. It struck the Giant on the forehead and
went blazing through him.
Gerriöd crashed down into the fire, and the burning iron made a blaze
all around him. And when Thor reached Grid's cave (he went there to
restore to the old Giantess the string, the mittens, and the staff of
power she had given him) he saw the Giant's dwelling in such a blaze
that one would think the fires of Muspelheim were all around it.
[Illustration]
LOKI AGAINST THE ÆSIR
The Æsir were the guests of the Vanir: in Frey's palace the Dwellers in
Asgard met and feasted in friendship. Odin and Tyr were there, Vidar and
Vali, Niörd, Frey, Heimdall, and Bragi. The Asyniur and the Vana were
also--Frigga, Freya, Iduna, Gerda, Skadi, Sif, and Nanna. Thor and Loki
were not at the feast, for they had left Asgard together.
In Frey's palace the vessels were of shining gold; they made light for
the table and they moved of their own accord to serve those who were
feasting. All was peace and friendship there until Loki entered the
feast hall.
Frey, smiling a welcome, showed a bench to Loki. It was beside Bragi's
and next to Freya's. Loki did not take the place; instead he shouted
out, "Not beside Bragi will I sit; not beside Bragi, the most craven of
all the Dwellers in Asgard."
Bragi sprang up at that affront, but his wife, the mild Iduna, quieted
his anger. Freya turned to Loki and reproved him for speaking injurious
words at a feast.
"Freya," said Loki, "why were you not so mild when Odur was with you?
Would it not have been well to have been wifely with your husband
instead of breaking faith with him for the sake of a necklace that you
craved of the Giant women?"
Amazement fell on all at the bitterness that was in Loki's words and
looks. Tyr and Niörd stood up from their seats. But then the voice of
Odin was heard and all was still for the words of the All-Father.
"Take the place beside Vidar, my silent son, O Loki," said Odin, "and
let thy tongue which drips bitterness be silent."
"All the Æsir and the Vanir listen to thy words, O Odin, as if thou wert
always wise and just," Loki said. "But must we forget that thou didst
bring war into the world when thou didst fling thy spear at the envoys
of the Vanir? And didst thou not permit me to work craftily on the one
who built the wall around Asgard for a price? Thou dost speak, O Odin,
and all the Æsir and the Vanir listen to thee! But was it not thou who,
thinking not of wisdom but of gold when a ransom had to be made, brought
the witch Gulveig out of the cave where she stayed with the Dwarf's
treasure? Thou wert not always wise nor always just, O Odin, and we at
the table here need not listen to thee as if always thou wert."
Then Skadi, the wife of Niörd, flung words at Loki. She spoke with all
the fierceness of her Giant blood. "Why should we not rise up and chase
from the hall this chattering crow?" she said.
"Skadi," said Loki, "remember that the ransom for thy father's death has
not yet been paid. Thou wert glad to snatch a husband instead of it.
Remember who it was that killed thy Giant father. It was I, Loki. And no
ransom have I paid thee for it, although thou hast come amongst us in
Asgard."
Then Loki fixed his eyes on Frey, the giver of the feast, and all knew
that with bitter words he was about to assail him. But Tyr, the brave
swordsman, rose up and said, "Not against Frey mayst thou speak, O Loki.
Frey is generous; he is the one amongst us who spares the vanquished and
frees the captive."
"Cease speaking, Tyr," said Loki. "Thou mayst not always have a hand to
hold that sword of thine. Remember this saying of mine in days to come.
"Frey," said he, "because thou art the giver of the feast they think I
will not speak the truth about thee. But I am not to be bribed by a
feast. Didst thou not send Skirnir to Gymer's dwelling to befool Gymer's
flighty daughter? Didst thou not bribe him into frightening her into a
marriage with thee, who, men say, wert the slayer of her brother? Yea,
Frey. Thou didst part with a charge, with the magic sword that thou
shouldst have kept for the battle. Thou hadst cause to grieve when thou
didst meet Beli by the lake."
When he said this all who were there of the Vanir rose up, their faces
threatening Loki.
"Sit still, ye Vanir," Loki railed. "If the Æsir are to bear the brunt
of Jötunheim's and Muspelheim's war upon Asgard it was your part to be
the first or the last on Vigard's plain. But already ye have lost the
battle for Asgard, for the weapon that was put into Frey's hands he
bartered for Gerda the Giantess. Ha! Surtur shall triumph over you
because of Frey's bewitchment."
In horror they looked at the one who could let his hatred speak of
Surtur's triumph. All would have laid hands on Loki only Odin's voice
rang out. Then another appeared at the entrance of the feasting hall. It
was Thor. With his hammer upon his shoulder, his gloves of iron on his
hands, and his belt of prowess around him, he stood marking Loki with
wrathful eyes.
"Ha, Loki, betrayer," he shouted. "Thou didst plan to leave me dead in
Gerriöd's house, but now thou wilt meet death by the stroke of this
hammer."
His hands were raised to hurl Miölnir. But the words that Odin spoke
were heard. "Not in this hall may slaying be done, son Thor. Keep thy
hands upon thy hammer."
Then shrinking from the wrath in the eyes of Thor, Loki passed out of
the feast hall. He went beyond the walls of Asgard and crossed Bifröst,
the Rainbow Bridge. And he cursed Bifröst, and longed to see the day
when the armies of Muspelheim would break it down in their rush against
Asgard.
East of Midgard there was a place more evil than any region in
Jötunheim. It was Jarnvid, the Iron Wood. There dwelt witches who were
the most foul of all witches. And they had a queen over them, a hag,
mother of many sons who took upon themselves the shapes of wolves. Two
of her sons were Skoll and Hati, who pursued Sol, the Sun, and Mani, the
Moon. She had a third son, who was Managarm, the wolf who was to be
filled with the life-blood of men, who was to swallow up the Moon, and
stain the heavens and earth with blood. To Jarnvid, the Iron Wood, Loki
made his way. And he wed one of the witches there, Angerboda, and they
had children that took on dread shapes. Loki's offspring were the most
terrible of the foes that were to come against the Æsir and the Vanir in
the time that was called the Twilight of the Gods.
[Illustration]
THE VALKYRIE
Against the time when the riders of Muspelheim, with the Giants and the
evil powers of the Underworld, would bring on battle, Odin All-Father
was preparing a host of defenders for Asgard. They were not of the Æsir
nor of the Vanir; they were of the race of mortal men, heroes chosen
from amongst the slain on fields of battle in Midgard.
To choose the heroes, and to give victory to those whom he willed to
have victory, Odin had battle-maidens that went to the fields of war.
Beautiful were those battle-maidens and fearless; wise were they also,
for to them Odin showed the Runes of Wisdom. Valkyries, Choosers of the
Slain, they were named.
Those who were chosen on the fields of the slain were called in Asgard
the Einherjar. For them Odin made ready a great Hall. Valhalla, the Hall
of the Slain, it was called. Five hundred and forty doors had Valhalla,
and out of each door eight hundred Champions might pass. Every day the
Champions put on their armor and took their weapons down from the walls,
and went forth and battled with each other. All who were wounded were
made whole again, and in peace and goodly fellowship they sat down to
the feast that Odin prepared for them. Odin himself sat with his
Champions, drinking wine but eating no meat.
For meat the Champions ate the flesh of the boar Sæhrimnir; every day
the boar was killed and cooked, and every morning it was whole again.
For drink they had the mead that was made from the milk of the goat
Heidrun, the goat that browsed on the leaves of the tree Læradir. And
the Valkyries, the wise and fearless battle-maidens, went amongst them,
filling up the drinking-horns with the heady mead.
Youngest of all the battle-maidens was Brynhild. Nevertheless, to her
Odin All-Father had shown more of the Runes of Wisdom than he had shown
to any of her sisters. And when the time came for Brynhild to journey
down into Midgard he gave her a swan-feather dress such as he had given
before to the three Valkyrie sisters--Alvit, Olrun, and Hladgrun.
In the dazzling plumage of a swan the young battle-maiden flew down from
Asgard. Not yet had she to go to the battlefields. Waters drew her, and
as she waited on the will of the All-Father she sought out a lake that
had golden sands for its shore, and as a maiden bathed in it.
Now there dwelt near this lake a young hero whose name was Agnar. And
one day as Agnar lay by the lake he saw a swan with dazzling plumage fly
down to it. And while she was in the reeds the swan-feather dress
slipped off her, and Agnar beheld the swan change to a maiden.
So bright was her hair, so strong and swift were all her movements, that
he knew her for one of Odin's battle-maidens; for one of those who give
victory and choose the slain. Very daring was Agnar, and he set his mind
upon capturing this battle-maiden even though he should bring on himself
the wrath of Odin by doing it.
He hid the swan-feather dress that she had left in the reeds. When she
came out of the water she might not fly away. Agnar gave back to her the
swan-feather dress, but she had to promise that she would be his
battle-maiden.
And as they talked together the young Valkyrie saw in him a hero that
one from Asgard might help. Very brave and very noble was Agnar.
Brynhild went with him as his battle-maiden, and she told him much from
the Runes of Wisdom that she knew, and she showed him that the
All-Father's last hope was in the bravery of the heroes of the earth;
with the Chosen from the Slain for his Champions he would make battle in
defence of Asgard.
Always Brynhild was with Agnar's battalions; above the battles she
hovered, her bright hair and flashing battle-dress outshining the spears
and swords and shields of the warriors.
But the gray-beard King Helmgunnar made war on the young Agnar. Odin
favored the gray-beard King, and to him he promised the victory.
Brynhild knew the will of the All-Father. But to Agnar, not to
Helmgunnar, she gave the victory.
Doomed was Brynhild on the instant she went against Odin's will. Never
again might she come into Asgard. A mortal woman she was now, and the
Norns began to spin the thread of her mortal destiny.
Sorrowful was Odin All-Father that the wisest of his battle-maidens
might never appear in Asgard nor walk by the benches at the feasts of
his Champions in Valhalla. He rode down on Sleipner to where Brynhild
was. And when he came before her it was his, and not her head that was
bowed down.
For she knew now that the World of Men was paying a bitter price for the
strength that Asgard would have in the last battle. The bravest and
noblest were being taken from Midgard to fill up the ranks of Odin's
Champions. And Brynhild's heart was full of anger against the rulers of
Asgard, and she cared no more to be of them.
Odin looked on his unflinching battle-maiden, and he said, "Is there
aught thou wouldst have me bestow on thee in thy mortal life, Brynhild?"
"Naught save this," Brynhild answered, "that in my mortal life no one
but a man without fear, the bravest hero in the world, may claim me for
wife."
All-Father bowed his head in thought. "It shall be as thou hast asked,"
he said. "Only he who is without fear shall come near thee."
Then on the top of the mountain that is called Hindfell he had a Hall
built that faced the south. Ten Dwarfs built it of black stone. And when
the Hall was built he put round it a wall of mounting and circling fire.
More did Odin All-Father: he took a thorn of the Tree of Sleep and he
put it into the flesh of the battle-maiden. Then, with her helmet on her
head and the breast-mail of the Valkyrie upon her, he lifted Brynhild in
his arms and carried her through the wall of mounting and circling fire.
He laid her upon the couch that was within the Hall. There she would lie
in slumber until the hero who was without fear should ride through the
flame and waken her to the life of a mortal woman.
He took farewell of her and he rode back to Asgard on Sleipner. He might
not foresee what fate would be hers as a mortal woman. But the fire he
had left went mounting and circling around the Hall that the Dwarfs had
built. For ages that fire would be a fence around where Brynhild, once a
Valkyrie, lay in sleep.
[Illustration]
THE CHILDREN OF LOKI
The children of Loki and the witch Angerboda were not as the children of
men: they were formless as water, or air, or fire is formless, but it
was given to each of them to take on the form that was most like to
their own greed.
Now the Dwellers in Asgard knew that these powers of evil had been born
into the world and they thought it well that they should take on forms
and appear before them in Asgard. So they sent one to Jarnvid, the Iron
Wood, bidding Loki bring before the Gods the powers born of him and the
witch Angerboda. So Loki came into Asgard once more. And his offspring
took on forms and showed themselves to the Gods. The first, whose greed
was destruction, showed himself as a fearful Wolf. Fenrir he was named.
And the second, whose greed was slow destruction, showed itself as a
Serpent. Jörmungand it was called. The third, whose greed was for
withering of all life, took on a form also. When the Gods saw it they
were affrighted. For this had the form of a woman, and one side of her
was that of a living woman and the other side of her was that of a
corpse. Fear ran through Asgard as this form was revealed and as the
name that went with it, Hela, was uttered.
Far out of sight of the Gods Hela was thrust. Odin took her and hurled
her down to the deeps that are below the world. He cast her down to
Niflheim, where she took to herself power over the nine regions. There,
in the place that is lowest of all, Hela reigns. Her hall is Elvidnir;
it is set round with high walls and it has barred gates; Precipice is
the threshold of that hall; Hunger is the table within it; Care is the
bed, and Burning Anguish is the hanging of the chamber.
Thor laid hold upon Jörmungand. He flung the serpent into the ocean that
engirdles the world. But in the depths of the ocean Jörmungand
flourished. It grew and grew until it encircled the whole world. And men
knew it as the Midgard Serpent.
Fenrir the Wolf might not be seized upon by any of the Æsir. Fearfully
he ranged through Asgard and they were only able to bring him to the
outer courts by promising to give him all the food he was able to eat.
The Æsir shrank from feeding Fenrir. But Tyr, the brave swordsman, was
willing to bring food to the Wolf's lair. Every day he brought him huge
provision and fed him with the point of his sword. The Wolf grew and
grew until he became monstrous and a terror in the minds of the Dwellers
in Asgard.
At last the Gods in council considered it and decided that Fenrir must
be bound. The chain that they would bind him with was called Laeding. In
their own smithy the Gods made it and its weight was greater than Thor's
hammer.
Not by force could the Gods get the fetter upon Fenrir, so they sent
Skirnir, the servant of Frey, to beguile the Wolf into letting it go
upon him. Skirnir came to his lair and stood near him, and he was
dwarfed by the Wolf's monstrous size.
"How great may thy strength be, Mighty One?" Skirnir asked. "Couldst
thou break this chain easily? The Gods would try thee."
In scorn Fenrir looked down on the fetter Skirnir dragged. In scorn he
stood still allowing Laeding to be placed upon him. Then, with an effort
that was the least part of his strength, he stretched himself and broke
the chain in two.
The Gods were dismayed. But they took more iron, and with greater fires
and mightier hammer blows they forged another fetter. Dromi, this one
was called, and it was half again as strong as Laeding was. Skirnir the
Venturesome brought it to the Wolf's lair, and in scorn Fenrir let the
mightier chain be placed upon him.
He shook himself and the chain held. Then his eyes became fiery and he
stretched himself with a growl and a snarl. Dromi broke across, and
Fenrir stood looking balefully at Skirnir.
The Gods saw that no chain they could forge would bind Fenrir and they
fell more and more into fear of him. They took council again and they
bethought them of the wonder-work the Dwarfs had made for them, the
spear Gungnir, the ship Skidbladnir, the hammer Miölnir. Could the
Dwarfs be got to make the fetter to bind Fenrir? If they would do it the
Gods would add to their domain.
Skirnir went down to Svartheim with the message from Asgard. The Dwarf
Chief swelled with pride to think that it was left to them to make the
fetter that would bind Fenrir.
"We Dwarfs can make a fetter that will bind the Wolf," he said. "Out of
six things we will make it."
"What are these six things?" Skirnir asked.
"The roots of stones, the breath of a fish, the beards of women, the
noise made by the footfalls of cats, the sinews of bears, the spittle of
a bird."
"I have never heard the noise made by a cat's footfall, nor have I seen
the roots of stones nor the beards of women. But use what things you
will, O Helper of the Gods."
The Chief brought his six things together and the Dwarfs in their smithy
worked for days and nights. They forged a fetter that was named
Gleipnir. Smooth and soft as a silken string it was. Skirnir brought it
to Asgard and put it into the hands of the Gods.
Then a day came when the Gods said that once again they should try to
put a fetter upon Fenrir. But if he was to be bound they would bind him
far from Asgard. Lyngvi was an island that they often went to to make
sport, and they spoke of going there. Fenrir growled that he would go
with them. He came and he sported in his own terrible way. And then as
if it were to make more sport, one of the Æsir shook out the smooth cord
and showed it to Fenrir.
"It is stronger than you might think, Mighty One," they said. "Will you
not let it go upon you that we may see you break it?"
Fenrir out of his fiery eyes looked scorn upon them. "What fame would
there be for me," he said, "in breaking such a binding?"
They showed him that none in their company could break it, slender as it
was. "Thou only art able to break it, Mighty One," they said.
"The cord is slender, but there may be an enchantment in it," Fenrir
said.
"Thou canst not break it, Fenrir, and we need not dread thee any more,"
the Gods said.
Then was the Wolf ravenous wroth, for he lived on the fear that he made
in the minds of the Gods. "I am loth to have this binding upon me," he
said, "but if one of the Æsir will put his hand in my mouth as a pledge
that I shall be freed of it, I will let ye put it on me."
The Gods looked wistfully on one another. It would be health to them all
to have Fenrir bound, but who would lose his hand to have it done? One
and then another of the Æsir stepped backward. But not Tyr, the brave
swordsman. He stepped to Fenrir and laid his left hand before those
tremendous jaws.
"Not thy left hand--thy swordhand, O Tyr," growled Fenrir, and Tyr put
his swordhand into that terrible mouth.
Then the cord Gleipnir was put upon Fenrir. With fiery eyes he watched
the Gods bind him. When the binding was on him he stretched himself as
before. He stretched himself to a monstrous size but the binding did not
break off him. Then with fury he snapped his jaws upon the hand, and
Tyr's hand, the swordsman's hand, was torn off.
But Fenrir was bound. They fixed a mighty chain to the fetter, and they
passed the chain through a hole they bored through a great rock. The
monstrous Wolf made terrible efforts to break loose, but the rock and
the chain and the fetter held. Then seeing him secured, and to avenge
the loss of Tyr's hand, the Gods took Tyr's sword and drove it to the
hilt through his underjaw. Horribly the Wolf howled. Mightily the foam
flowed down from his jaws. That foam flowing made a river that is called
Von--a river of fury that flowed on until Ragnarök came, the Twilight of
the Gods.
[Illustration]
BALDUR'S DOOM
In Asgard there were two places that meant strength and joy to the Æsir
and the Vanir: one was the garden where grew the apples that Iduna
gathered, and the other was the Peace Stead, where, in a palace called
Breidablik, Baldur the Well-Beloved dwelt.
In the Peace Stead no crime had ever been committed, no blood had ever
been shed, no falseness had ever been spoken. Contentment came into the
minds of all in Asgard when they thought upon this place. Ah! Were it
not that the Peace Stead was there, happy with Baldur's presence, the
minds of the Æsir and the Vanir might have become gloomy and stern from
thinking on the direful things that were arrayed against them.
Baldur was beautiful. So beautiful was he that all the white blossoms on
the earth were called by his name. Baldur was happy. So happy was he
that all the birds on the earth sang his name. So just and so wise was
Baldur that the judgment he pronounced might never be altered. Nothing
foul or unclean had ever come near where he had his dwelling:
'Tis Breidablik called,
Where Baldur the Fair
Hath built him a bower,
In the land where I know
Least loathliness lies.
Healing things were done in Baldur's Stead. Tyr's wrist was healed of
the wounds that Fenrir's fangs had made. And there Frey's mind became
less troubled with the foreboding that Loki had filled it with when he
railed at him about the bartering of his sword.
Now after Fenrir had been bound to the rock in the faraway island the
Æsir and the Vanir knew a while of contentment. They passed bright days
in Baldur's Stead, listening to the birds that made music there. And it
was there that Bragi the Poet wove into his never-ending story the tale
of Thor's adventures amongst the Giants.
But even into Baldur's Stead foreboding came. One day little Hnossa, the
child of Freya and the lost Odur, was brought there in such sorrow that
no one outside could comfort her. Nanna, Baldur's gentle wife, took the
child upon her lap and found ways of soothing her. Then Hnossa told of
a dream that had filled her with fright.
She had dreamt of Hela, the Queen that is half living woman and half
corpse. In her dream Hela had come into Asgard saying, "A lord of the
Æsir I must have to dwell with me in my realm beneath the earth." Hnossa
had such fear from this dream that she had fallen into a deep sorrow.
A silence fell upon all when the dream of Hnossa was told. Nanna looked
wistfully at Odin All-Father. And Odin, looking at Frigga, saw that a
fear had entered her breast.
He left the Peace Stead and went to his watchtower Hlidskjalf. He waited
there till Hugin and Munin should come to him. Every day his two ravens
flew through the world, and coming back to him told him of all that was
happening. And now they might tell him of happenings that would let him
guess if Hela had indeed turned her thoughts toward Asgard, or if she
had the power to draw one down to her dismal abode.
The ravens flew to him, and lighting one on each of his shoulders, told
him of things that were being said up and down Ygdrassil, the World
Tree. Ratatösk the Squirrel was saying them. And Ratatösk had heard them
from the brood of serpents that with Nidhögg, the great dragon, gnawed
ever at the root of Ygdrassil. He told it to the Eagle that sat ever on
the topmost bough, that in Hela's habitation a bed was spread and a
chair was left empty for some lordly comer.
And hearing this, Odin thought that it were better that Fenrir the Wolf
should range ravenously through Asgard than that Hela should win one
from amongst them to fill that chair and lie in that bed.
He mounted Sleipner, his eight-legged steed, and rode down toward the
abodes of the Dead. For three days and three nights of silence and
darkness he journeyed on. Once one of the hounds of Helheim broke loose
and bayed upon Sleipner's tracks. For a day and a night Garm, the hound,
pursued them, and Odin smelled the blood that dripped from his monstrous
jaws.
At last he came to where, wrapped in their shrouds, a field of the Dead
lay. He dismounted from Sleipner and called upon one to rise and speak
with him. It was on Volva, a dead prophetess, he called. And when he
pronounced her name he uttered a rune that had the power to break the
sleep of the Dead.
There was a groaning in the middle of where the shrouded ones lay. Then
Odin cried, out, "Arise, Volva, prophetess." There was a stir in the
middle of where the shrouded ones lay, and a head and shoulders were
thrust up from amongst the Dead.
"Who calls on Volva the Prophetess? The rains have drenched my flesh and
the storms have shaken my bones for more seasons than the living know.
No living voice has a right to call me from my sleep with the Dead."
"It is Vegtam the Wanderer who calls. For whom is the bed prepared and
the seat left empty in Hela's habitation?"
"For Baldur, Odin's son, is the bed prepared and the seat left empty.
Now let me go back to my sleep with the Dead."
But now Odin saw beyond Volva's prophecy. "Who is it," he cried out,
"that stands with unbowed head and that will not lament for Baldur?
Answer, Volva, prophetess!"
"Thou seest far, but thou canst not see clearly. Thou art Odin. I can
see clearly but I cannot see far. Now let me go back to my sleep with
the Dead."
"Volva, prophetess!" Odin cried out again.
But the voice from amongst the shrouded ones said, "Thou canst not wake
me any more until the fires of Muspelheim blaze above my head."
Then there was silence in the field of the Dead, and Odin turned
Sleipner, his steed, and for four days, through the gloom and silence,
he journeyed back to Asgard.
Frigga had felt the fear that Odin had felt. She looked toward Baldur,
and the shade of Hela came between her and her son. But then she heard
the birds sing in the Peace Stead and she knew that none of all the
things in the world would injure Baldur.
And to make it sure she went to all the things that could hurt him and
from each of them she took an oath that it would not injure Baldur, the
Well-Beloved. She took an oath from fire and from water, from iron and
from all metals, from earths and stones and great trees, from birds and
beasts and creeping things, from poisons and diseases. Very readily they
all gave the oath that they would work no injury on Baldur.
Then when Frigga went back and told what she had accomplished the gloom
that had lain on Asgard lifted. Baldur would be spared to them. Hela
might have a place prepared in her dark habitation, but neither fire
nor water, nor iron nor any metals, nor earths nor stones nor great
woods, nor birds nor beasts nor creeping things, nor poisons nor
diseases, would help her to bring him down. "Hela has no arms to draw
you to her," the Æsir and the Vanir cried to Baldur.
Hope was renewed for them and they made games to honor Baldur. They had
him stand in the Peace Stead and they brought against him all the things
that had sworn to leave him hurtless. And neither the battle-axe flung
full at him, nor the stone out of the sling, nor the burning brand, nor
the deluge of water would injure the beloved of Asgard. The Æsir and the
Vanir laughed joyously to see these things fall harmlessly from him
while a throng came to join them in the games; Dwarfs and friendly
Giants.
But Loki the Hater came in with that throng. He watched the games from
afar. He saw the missiles and the weapons being flung and he saw Baldur
stand smiling and happy under the strokes of metal and stones and great
woods. He wondered at the sight, but he knew that he might not ask the
meaning of it from the ones who knew him.
He changed his shape into that of an old woman and he went amongst those
who were making sport for Baldur. He spoke to Dwarfs and friendly
Giants. "Go to Frigga and ask. Go to Frigga and ask," was all the answer
Loki got from any of them.
Then to Fensalir, Frigga's mansion, Loki went. He told those in the
mansion that he was Groa, the old Enchantress who was drawing out of
Thor's head the fragments of a grindstone that a Giant's throw had
embedded in it. Frigga knew about Groa and she praised the Enchantress
for what she had done.
"Many fragments of the great grindstone have I taken out of Thor's head
by the charms I know," said the pretended Groa. "Thor was so grateful
that he brought back to me the husband that he once had carried off to
the end of the earth. So overjoyed was I to find my husband restored
that I forgot the rest of the charms. And I left some fragments of the
stone in Thor's head."
So Loki said, repeating a story that was true. "Now I remember the rest
of the charm," he said, "and I can draw out the fragments of the stone
that are left. But will you not tell me, O Queen, what is the meaning of
the extraordinary things I saw the Æsir and the Vanir doing?"
"I will tell you," said Frigga, looking kindly and happily at the
pretended old woman. "They are hurling all manner of heavy and dangerous
things at Baldur, my beloved son. And all Asgard cheers to see that
neither metal nor stone nor great wood will hurt him."
"But why will they not hurt him?" said the pretended Enchantress.
"Because I have drawn an oath from all dangerous and threatening things
to leave Baldur hurtless," said Frigga.
"From all things, lady? Is there no thing in all the world that has not
taken an oath to leave Baldur hurtless?"
"Well, indeed, there is one thing that has not taken the oath. But that
thing is so small and weak that I passed it by without taking thought of
it."
"What can it be, lady?"
"The Mistletoe that is without root or strength. It grows on the eastern
side of Valhalla. I passed it by without drawing an oath from it."
"Surely you were not wrong to pass it by. What could the Mistletoe--the
rootless Mistletoe--do against Baldur?"
Saying this the pretended Enchantress hobbled off.
But not far did the pretender go hobbling. He changed his gait and
hurried to the eastern side of Valhalla. There a great oak tree
flourished and out of a branch of it a little bush of Mistletoe grew.
Loki broke off a spray and with it in his hand he went to where the Æsir
and the Vanir were still playing games to honor Baldur.
All were laughing as Loki drew near, for the Giants and the Dwarfs, the
Asyniur and the Vana, were all casting missiles. The Giants threw too
far and the Dwarfs could not throw far enough, while the Asyniur and the
Vana threw far and wide of the mark. In the midst of all that glee and
gamesomeness it was strange to see one standing joyless. But one stood
so, and he was of the Æsir--Hödur, Baldur's blind brother.
"Why do you not enter the game?" said Loki to him in his changed voice.
"I have no missile to throw at Baldur," Hödur said.
"Take this and throw it," said Loki. "It is a twig of the Mistletoe."
"I cannot see to throw it," said Hödur.
"I will guide your hand," said Loki. He put the twig of Mistletoe in
Hödur's hand and he guided the hand for the throw. The twig flew toward
Baldur. It struck him on the breast and it pierced him. Then Baldur fell
down with a deep groan.
The Æsir and the Vanir, the Dwarfs and the friendly Giants, stood still
in doubt and fear and amazement. Loki slipped away. And blind Hödur,
from whose hand the twig of Mistletoe had gone, stood quiet, not knowing
that his throw had bereft Baldur of life.
Then a wailing rose around the Peace Stead. It was from the Asyniur and
the Vana. Baldur was dead, and they began to lament him. And while they
were lamenting him, the beloved of Asgard, Odin came amongst them.
"Hela has won our Baldur from us," Odin said to Frigga as they both bent
over the body of their beloved son.
"Nay, I will not say it," Frigga said.
When the Æsir and the Vanir had won their senses back the mother of
Baldur went amongst them. "Who amongst you would win my love and
goodwill?" she said. "Whoever would let him ride down to Hela's dark
realm and ask the Queen to take ransom for Baldur. It may be she will
take it and let Baldur come back to us. Who amongst you will go? Odin's
steed is ready for the journey."
Then forth stepped Hermod the Nimble, the brother of Baldur. He mounted
Sleipner and turned the eight-legged steed down toward Hela's dark
realm.
For nine days and nine nights Hermod rode on. His way was through rugged
glens, one deeper and darker than the other. He came to the river that
is called Giöll and to the bridge across it that is all glittering with
gold. The pale maid who guards the bridge spoke to him.
"The hue of life is still on thee," said Modgudur, the pale maid. "Why
dost thou journey down to Hela's deathly realm?"
"I am Hermod," he said, "and I go to see if Hela will take ransom for
Baldur."
"Fearful is Hela's habitation for one to come to," said Modgudur, the
pale maid. "All round it is a steep wall that even thy steed might
hardly leap. Its threshold is Precipice. The bed therein is Care, the
table is Hunger, the hanging of the chamber is Burning Anguish."
"It may be that Hela will take ransom for Baldur."
"If all things in the world still lament for Baldur, Hela will have to
take ransom and let him go from her," said Modgudur, the pale maid that
guards the glittering bridge.
"It is well, then, for all things lament Baldur. I will go to her and
make her take ransom."
"Thou mayst not pass until it is of a surety that all things still
lament him. Go back to the world and make sure. If thou dost come to
this glittering bridge and tell me that all things still lament Baldur,
I will let thee pass and Hela will have to hearken to thee."
"I will come back to thee, and thou, Modgudur, pale maid, wilt have to
let me pass."
"Then I will let thee pass," said Modgudur.
Joyously Hermod turned Sleipner and rode back through the rugged glens,
each one less gloomy than the other. He reached the upper world, and
saw that all things were still lamenting for Baldur. Joyously Hermod
rode onward. He met the Vanir in the middle of the world and he told
them the happy tidings.
Then Hermod and the Vanir went through the world seeking out each thing
and finding that each thing still wept for Baldur. But one day Hermod
came upon a crow that was sitting on the dead branch of a tree. The crow
made no lament as he came near. She rose up and flew away and Hermod
followed her to make sure that she lamented for Baldur.
He lost sight of her near a cave. And then before the cave he saw a hag
with blackened teeth who raised no voice of lament. "If thou art the
crow that came flying here, make lament for Baldur," Hermod said.
"I, Thaukt, will make no lament for Baldur," the hag said, "let Hela
keep what she holds."
"All things weep tears for Baldur," Hermod said.
"I will weep dry tears for him," said the hag.
She hobbled into her cave, and as Hermod followed a crow fluttered out.
He knew that this was Thaukt, the evil hag, transformed. He followed
her, and she went through the world croaking, "Let Hela keep what she
holds. Let Hela keep what she holds."
Then Hermod knew that he might not ride to Hela's habitation. All things
knew that there was one thing in the world that would not lament for
Baldur. The Vanir came back to him, and with head bowed over Sleipner's
mane, Hermod rode into Asgard.
Now the Æsir and the Vanir, knowing that no ransom would be taken for
Baldur and that the joy and content of Asgard were gone indeed, made
ready his body for the burning. First they covered Baldur's body with a
rich robe, and each left beside it his most precious possession. Then
they all took leave of him, kissing him upon the brow. But Nanna, his
gentle wife, flung herself on his dead breast and her heart broke and
she died of her grief. Then did the Æsir and the Vanir weep afresh. And
they took the body of Nanna and they placed it side by side with
Baldur's.
On his own great ship, Ringhorn, would Baldur be placed with Nanna
beside him. Then the ship would be launched on the water and all would
be burned with fire.
But it was found that none of the Æsir or the Vanir were able to launch
Baldur's great ship. Hyrroken, a Giantess, was sent for. She came
mounted on a great wolf with twisted serpents for a bridle. Four Giants
held fast the wolf when she alighted. She came to the ship and with a
single push she sent it into the sea. The rollers struck out fire as the
ship dashed across them.
Then when it rode the water fires mounted on the ship. And in the blaze
of the fires one was seen bending over the body of Baldur and whispering
into his ear. It was Odin All-Father. Then he went down off the ship and
all the fires rose into a mighty burning. Speechlessly the Æsir and the
Vanir watched with tears streaming down their faces while all things
lamented, crying, "Baldur the Beautiful is dead, is dead."
And what was it that Odin All-Father whispered to Baldur as he bent
above him with the flames of the burning ship around? He whispered of a
heaven above Asgard that Surtur's flames might not reach, and of a life
that would come to beauty again after the World of Men and the World of
the Gods had been searched through and through with fire.
[Illustration]
LOKI'S PUNISHMENT
The crow went flying toward the North, croaking as she flew, "Let Hela
keep what she holds. Let Hela keep what she holds." That crow was the
hag Thaukt transformed, and the hag Thaukt was Loki.
He flew to the North and came into the wastes of Jötunheim. As a crow he
lived there, hiding himself from the wrath of the Gods. He told the
Giants that the time had come for them to build the ship Naglfar, the
ship that was to be built out of the nails of dead men, and that was to
sail to Asgard on the day of Ragnarök with the Giant Hrymer steering it.
And harkening to what he said the Giants then and there began to build
Naglfar, the ship that Gods and men wished to remain unbuilt for long.
Then Loki, tiring of the wastes of Jötunheim, flew to the burning South.
As a lizard he lived amongst the rocks of Muspelheim, and he made the
Fire Giants rejoice when he told them of the loss of Frey's sword and of
Tyr's right hand.
But still in Asgard there was one who wept for Loki--Siguna, his wife.
Although he had left her and had shown his hatred for her, Siguna wept
for her evil husband.
He left Muspelheim as he had left Jötunheim and he came to live in the
World of Men. He knew that he had now come into a place where the wrath
of the Gods might find him, and so he made plans to be ever ready for
escape. He had come to the River where, ages before, he had slain the
otter that was the son of the Enchanter, and on the very rock where the
otter had eaten the salmon on the day of his killing, Loki built his
house. He made four doors to it so that he might see in every direction.
And the power that he kept for himself was the power of transforming
himself into a salmon.
Often as a salmon he swam in the River. But even for the fishes that
swam beside him Loki had hatred. Out of flax and yarn he wove a net that
men might have the means of taking them out of the water.
The wrath that the Gods had against Loki did not pass away. It was he
who, as Thaukt, the Hag, had given Hela the power to keep Baldur
unransomed. It was he who had put into Hödur's hand the sprig of
Mistletoe that had bereft Baldur of life. Empty was Asgard now that
Baldur lived no more in the Peace Stead, and stern and gloomy grew the
minds of the Æsir and the Vanir with thinking on the direful things that
were arrayed against them. Odin in his hall of Valhalla thought only of
the ways by which he could bring heroes to him to be his help in
defending Asgard.
The Gods searched through the world and they found at last the place
where Loki had made his dwelling. He was weaving the net to take fishes
when he saw them coming from four directions. He threw the net into the
fire so that it was burnt, and he sprang into the River and transformed
himself into a salmon. When the Gods entered his dwelling they found
only the burnt-out fire.
But there was one amongst them who could understand all that he saw. In
the ashes were the marks of the burnt net and he knew that these were
the tracing of something to catch fishes. And from the marks left in the
ashes he made a net that was the same as the one Loki had burnt.
With it in their hands the Gods went down the River, dragging the net
through the water. Loki was affrighted to find the thing of his own
weaving brought against him. He lay between two stones at the bottom of
the River, and the net passed over him.
But the Gods knew that the net had touched something at the bottom. They
fastened weights to it and they dragged the net through the River again.
Loki knew that he might not escape it this time and he rose in the water
and swam toward the sea. The Gods caught sight of him as he leaped over
a waterfall. They followed him, dragging the net. Thor waded behind,
ready to seize him should he turn back.
Loki came out at the mouth of the River and behold! There was a great
eagle hovering over the waves of the sea and ready to swoop down on
fishes. He turned back in the River. He made a leap that took him over
the net that the Gods were dragging. But Thor was behind the net and he
caught the salmon in his powerful hands and he held him for all the
struggle that Loki made. No fish had ever struggled so before. Loki got
himself free all but his tail, but Thor held to the tail and brought him
amongst the rocks and forced him to take on his proper form.
He was in the hands of those whose wrath was strong against him. They
brought him to a cavern and they bound him to three sharp-pointed rocks.
With cords that were made of the sinews of wolves they bound him, and
they transformed the cords into iron bands. There they would have left
Loki bound and helpless. But Skadi, with her fierce Giant blood, was not
content that he should be left untormented. She found a serpent that had
deadly venom and she hung this serpent above Loki's head. The drops of
venom fell upon him, bringing him anguish drop by drop, minute by
minute. So Loki's torture went on.
But Siguna with the pitying heart came to his relief. She exiled herself
from Asgard, and endured the darkness and the cold of the cavern, that
she might take some of the torment away from him who was her husband.
Over Loki Siguna stood, holding in her hands a cup into which fell the
serpent's venom, thus sparing him from the full measure of anguish. Now
and then Siguna had to turn aside to spill out the flowing cup, and then
the drops of venom fell upon Loki and he screamed in agony, twisting in
his bonds. It was then that men felt the earth quake. There in his bonds
Loki stayed until the coming of Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
PART IV
THE SWORD OF THE VOLSUNGS AND THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
[Illustration]
SIGURD'S YOUTH
In Midgard, in a northern Kingdom, a King reigned whose name was Alv; he
was wise and good, and he had in his house a fosterson whose name was
Sigurd.
Sigurd was fearless and strong; so fearless and so strong was he that he
once captured a bear of the forest and drove him to the King's Hall. His
mother's name was Hiordis. Once, before Sigurd was born, Alv and his
father who was King before him went on an expedition across the sea and
came into another country. While they were yet afar off they heard the
din of a great battle. They came to the battlefield, but they found no
living warriors on it, only heaps of slain. One warrior they marked: he
was white-bearded and old and yet he seemed the noblest-looking man Alv
or his father had ever looked on. His arms showed that he was a King
amongst one of the bands of warriors.
They went through the forest searching for survivors of the battle. And,
hidden in a dell in the forest, they came upon two women. One was tall
with blue, unflinching eyes and ruddy hair, but wearing the garb of a
serving-maid. The other wore the rich dress of a Queen, but she was of
low stature and her manner was covert and shrinking.
When Alv and his father drew near, the one who had on her the raiment of
a Queen said, "Help us, lords, and protect us, and we will show you
where a treasure is hidden. A great battle has been fought between the
men of King Lygni and the men of King Sigmund, and the men of King Lygni
have won the victory and have gone from the field. But King Sigmund is
slain, and we who are of his household hid his treasure and we can show
it to you."
"The noble warrior, white-haired and white-bearded, who lies yonder--is
he King Sigmund?"
The woman answered, "Yes, lord, and I am his Queen."
"We have heard of King Sigmund," said Alv's father. "His fame and the
fame of his race, the Volsungs, is over the wide world."
Alv said no word to either of the women, but his eyes stayed on the one
who had on the garb of a serving-maid. She was on her knees, wrapping in
a beast's skin two pieces of a broken sword.
"You will surely protect us, good lords," said she who had on the
queenly dress.
"Yea, wife of King Sigmund, we will protect you and your serving-maid,"
said Alv's father, the old King.
Then the women took the warriors to a wild place on the seashore and
they showed them where King Sigmund's treasure was hidden amongst the
rocks: cups of gold and mighty armrings and jeweled collars. Prince Alv
and his father put the treasure on the ship and brought the two women
aboard. Then they sailed from the land.
That was before Sigurd, the fosterson of King Alv, was born.
Now the mother of Alv was wise and little of what she saw escaped her
noting. She saw that of the two women that her son and her husband had
brought into their kingdom, the one who wore the dress of the
serving-maid had unflinching eyes and a high beauty, while the one who
wore the queenly dress was shrinking and unstately. One night when all
the women of the household were sitting round her, spinning wool by the
light of torches in the hall, the Queen-mother said to the one who wore
the queenly garb:
"Thou art good at rising in the morning. How dost thou know in the dark
hours when it wears to dawn?"
The one clad in the queenly garb said, "When I was young I used to rise
to milk the cows, and I waken ever since at the same hour."
The Queen-mother said to herself, "It is a strange country in which the
royal maids rise to milk the cows."
Then she said to the one who wore the clothes of the serving-maid:
"How dost thou know in the dark hours when the dawn is coming?"
"My father," she said, "gave me the ring of gold that I wear, and always
before it is time to rise I feel it grow cold on my finger."
"It is a strange country, truly," said the Queen-mother to herself, "in
which the serving-maids wear rings of gold."
When all the others had left she spoke to the two women who had been
brought into her country. To the one who wore the clothes of a
serving-maid she said:
"Thou art the Queen."
Then the one who wore the queenly clothes said, "Thou art right, lady.
She is the Queen, and I cannot any longer pretend to be other than I
am."
Then the other woman spoke. Said she: "I am the Queen as thou hast
said--the Queen of King Sigmund who was slain. Because a King sought for
me I changed clothes with my serving-maid, my wish being to baffle those
who might be sent to carry me away.
"Know that I am Hiordis, a King's daughter. Many men came to my father
to ask for me in marriage, and of those that came there were two whom I
heard much of: one was King Lygni and the other was King Sigmund of the
race of the Volsungs. The King, my father, told me it was for me to
choose between these two. Now King Sigmund was old, but he was the most
famous warrior in the whole world, and I chose him rather than King
Lygni.
"We were wed. But King Lygni did not lose desire of me, and in a while
he came against King Sigmund's kingdom with a great army of men. We hid
our treasure by the seashore, and I and my maid watched the battle from
the borders of the forest. With the help of Gram, his wondrous sword,
and his own great warrior strength, Sigmund was able to harry the great
force that came against him. But suddenly he was stricken down. Then was
the battle lost. Only King Lygni's men survived it, and they scattered
to search for me and the treasure of the King.
"I came to where my lord lay on the field of battle, and he raised
himself on his shield when I came, and he told me that death was very
near him. A stranger had entered the battle at the time when it seemed
that the men of King Lygni must draw away. With the spear that he held
in his hand he struck at Sigmund's sword, and Gram, the wondrous sword,
was broken in two pieces. Then did King Sigmund get his death-wound. 'It
must be I shall die,' he said, 'for the spear against which my sword
broke was Gungnir, Odin's spear. Only that spear could have shattered
the sword that Odin gave my fathers. Now must I go to Valhalla, Odin's
Hall of Heroes.'
"'I weep,' I said, 'because I have no son who might call himself of the
great race of the Volsungs.'
"'For that you need not weep,' said Sigmund, 'a son will be born to you,
my son and yours, and you shall name him Sigurd. Take now the broken
pieces of my wondrous sword and give them to my son when he shall be of
warrior age.'
"Then did Sigmund turn his face to the ground and the death-struggle
came on him. Odin's Valkyrie took his spirit from the battlefield. And I
lifted up the broken pieces of the sword, and with my serving-maid I
went and hid in a deep dell in the forest. Then your husband and your
son found us and they brought us to your kingdom where we have been
kindly treated, O Queen."
Such was the history that Hiordis, the wife of King Sigmund, told to the
mother of Prince Alv.
Soon afterwards the child was born to her that was Sigmund's son. Sigurd
she named him. And after Sigurd was born the old King died and Prince
Alv became King in his stead. He married Hiordis, she of the ruddy hair,
the unflinching ways, and the high beauty, and he brought up her son
Sigurd in his house as his fosterson.
Sigurd, the son of Sigmund, before he came to warrior's age, was known
for his strength and his swiftness and for the fearlessness that shone
round him like a glow. "Mighty was the race he sprang from, the Volsung
race," men said, "but Sigurd will be as mighty as any that have gone
before him." He built himself a hut in the forest that he might hunt
wild beasts and live near to one who was to train him in many crafts.
This one was Regin, a maker of swords and a cunning man besides. It was
said of Regin that he was an Enchanter and that he had been in the world
for longer than the generations of men. No one remembered, nor no one's
father remembered, when Regin had come into that country. He taught
Sigurd the art of working in metals and he taught him, too, the lore of
other days. But ever as he taught him he looked at Sigurd strangely, not
as a man looks at his fellow, but as a lynx looks at a stronger beast.
One day Regin said to young Sigurd, "King Alv has thy father's treasure,
men say, and yet he treats thee as if thou wert thrall-born."
Now Sigurd knew that Regin said this that he might anger him and
thereafter use him to his own ends. He said, "King Alv is a wise and a
good King, and he would let me have riches if I had need of them."
"Thou dost go about as a footboy, and not as a King's son."
"Any day that it likes me I might have a horse to ride," Sigurd said.
"So thou dost say," said Regin, and he turned from Sigurd and went to
blow the fire of his smithy.
Sigurd was made angry and he threw down the irons on which he was
working and he ran to the horse-pastures by the great River. A herd of
horses was there, gray and black and roan and chestnut, the best of the
horses that King Alv possessed. As he came near to where the herd grazed
he saw a stranger near, an ancient but robust man, wearing a strange
cloak of blue and leaning on a staff to watch the horses. Sigurd, though
young, had seen Kings in their halls, but this man had a bearing that
was more lofty than any King's he had ever looked on.
"Thou art going to choose a horse for thyself," said the stranger to
Sigurd.
"Yea, father," Sigurd said.
"Drive the herd first into the River," the stranger said.
Sigurd drove the horses into the wide River. Some were swept down by the
current, others struggled back and clambered up the bank of the
pastures. But one swam across the river, and throwing up his head
neighed as for a victory. Sigurd marked him; a gray horse he was, young
and proud, with a great flowing mane. He went through the water and
caught this horse, mounted him, and brought him back across the River.
"Thou hast done well," said the stranger. "Grani, whom thou hast got, is
of the breed of Sleipner, the horse of Odin."
"And I am of the race of the sons of Odin," cried Sigurd, his eyes wide
and shining with the very light of the sun. "I am of the race of the
sons of Odin, for my father was Sigmund, and his father was Volsung, and
his father was Rerir, and his father was Sigi, who was the son of Odin."
The stranger, leaning on his staff looked on the youth steadily. Only
one of his eyes was to be seen, but that eye, Sigurd thought, might see
through a stone. "All thou hast named," the stranger said, "were as
swords of Odin to send men to Valhalla, Odin's Hall of Heroes. And of
all that thou hast named there were none but were chosen by Odin's
Valkyries for battles in Asgard."
Cried Sigurd, "Too much of what is brave and noble in the world is taken
by Odin for his battles in Asgard."
The stranger leaned on his staff and his head was bowed. "What wouldst
thou?" he said, and it did not seem to Sigurd that he spoke to him.
"What wouldst thou? The leaves wither and fall off Ygdrassil, and the
day of Ragnarök comes." Then he raised his head and spoke to Sigurd.
"The time is near," he said, "when thou mayst possess thyself of the
pieces of thy father's sword."
Then the man in the strange cloak of blue went climbing up the hill and
Sigurd watched him pass away from his sight. He had held back Grani, his
proud horse, but now he turned him and let him gallop along the River in
a race that was as swift as the wind.
[Illustration]
THE SWORD GRAM AND THE DRAGON FAFNIR
Mounted upon Grani, his proud horse, Sigurd rode to the Hall and showed
himself to Alv, the King, and to Hiordis, his mother. Before the Hall he
shouted out the Volsung name, and King Alv felt as he watched him that
this youth was a match for a score of men, and Hiordis, his mother, saw
the blue flame of his eyes and thought to herself that his way through
the world would be as the way of the eagle through the air.
Having shown himself before the Hall, Sigurd dismounted from Grani, and
stroked and caressed him with his hands and told him that now he might
go back and take pasture with the herd. The proud horse breathed fondly
over Sigurd and bounded away.
Then Sigurd strode on until he came to the hut in the forest where he
worked with the cunning smith Regin. No one was in the hut when he
entered. But over the anvil, in the smoke of the smithy fire, there was
a work of Regin's hands. Sigurd looked upon it, and a hatred for the
thing that was shown rose up in him.
The work of Regin's hands was a shield, a great shield of iron. Hammered
out on that shield and colored with red and brown colors was the image
of a Dragon, a Dragon lengthening himself out of a cave. Sigurd thought
it was the image of the most hateful thing in the world, and the light
of the smithy fire falling on it, and the smoke of the smithy fire
rising round it, made it seem verily a Dragon living in his own element
of fire and reek.
While he was still gazing on the loathly image, Regin, the cunning
smith, came into the smithy. He stood by the wall and he watched Sigurd.
His back was bent; his hair fell over his eyes that were all fiery, and
he looked like a beast that runs behind the hedges.
"Aye, thou dost look on Fafnir the Dragon, son of the Volsungs," he said
to Sigurd. "Mayhap it is thou who wilt slay him."
"I would not strive with such a beast. He is all horrible to me," Sigurd
said.
"With a good sword thou mightst slay him and win for thyself more renown
than ever thy fathers had," Regin whispered.
"I shall win renown as my fathers won renown, in battle with men and in
conquest of kingdoms," Sigurd said.
"Thou art not a true Volsung or thou wouldst gladly go where most danger
and dread is," said Regin. "Thou hast heard of Fafnir the Dragon, whose
image I have wrought here. If thou dost ride to the crest of the hills
thou mayst look across to the desolate land where Fafnir has his haunt.
Know that once it was fair land where men had peace and prosperity, but
Fafnir came and made his den in a cave near by, and his breathings as he
went to and came from the River withered up the land and made it the
barren waste that men called Gnita Heath. Now, if thou art a true
Volsung, thou wilt slay the Dragon, and let that land become fair again,
and bring the people back to it and so add to King Alv's domain."
"I have nought to do with the slaying of Dragons," Sigurd said. "I have
to make war on King Lygni, and avenge upon him the slaying of Sigmund,
my father."
"What is the slaying of Lygni and the conquest of his kingdom to the
slaying of Fafnir the Dragon?" Regin cried. "I will tell thee what no
one else knows of Fafnir the Dragon. He guards a hoard of gold and
jewels the like of which was never seen in the world. All this hoard you
can make yours by slaying him."
"I do not covet riches," Sigurd said.
"No riches is like to the riches that Fafnir guards. His hoard is the
hoard that the Dwarf Andvari had from the world's early days. Once the
Gods themselves paid it over as a ransom. And if thou wilt win this
hoard thou wilt be as one of the Gods."
"How dost thou know that of which thou speakst, Regin?" Sigurd said.
"I know, and one day I may tell thee how I know."
"And one day I may harken to thee. But speak to me no more of this
Dragon. I would have thee make a sword, a sword that will be mightier
and better shapen than any sword in the world. Thou canst do this,
Regin, for thou art accounted the best swordsmith amongst men."
Regin looked at Sigurd out of his small and cunning eyes and he thought
it was best to make himself active. So he took the weightiest pieces of
iron and put them into his furnace and he brought out the secret tools
that he used when a masterwork was claimed from his hands.
All day Sigurd worked beside him keeping the fire at its best glow and
bringing water to cool the blade as it was fashioned and refashioned.
And as he worked he thought only about the blade and about how he would
make war upon King Lygni, and avenge the man who was slain before he
himself was born.
All day he thought only of war and of the beaten blade. But at night his
dreams were not upon wars nor shapen blades but upon Fafnir the Dragon.
He saw the heath that was left barren by his breath, and he saw the cave
where he had his den, and he saw him crawling down from his cave, his
scales glittering like rings of mail, and his length the length of a
company of men on the march.
The next day he worked with Regin to shape the great sword. When it was
shapen with all the cunning Regin knew it looked indeed a mighty sword.
Then Regin sharpened it and Sigurd polished it. And at last he held the
great sword by its iron hilt.
Then Sigurd took the shield that had the image of Fafnir the Dragon upon
it and he put the shield over the anvil of the smithy. Raising the great
sword in both his hands he struck full on the iron shield.
The stroke of the sword sheared away some of the shield, but the blade
broke in Sigurd's hands. Then in anger he turned on Regin, crying out,
"Thou hast made a knave's sword for me. To work with thee again! Thou
must make me a Volsung's sword."
Then he went out and called to Grani, his horse, and mounted him and
rode to the river bank like the sweep of the wind.
Regin took more pieces of iron and began to forge a new sword, uttering
as he worked runes that were about the hoard that Fafnir the Dragon
guarded. And Sigurd that night dreamt of glittering treasure that he
coveted not, masses of gold and heaps of glistening jewels.
He was Regin's help the next day and they both worked to make a sword
that would be mightier than the first. For three days they worked upon
it, and then Regin put into Sigurd's hands a sword, sharpened and
polished, that was mightier and more splendid looking than the one that
had been forged before. And again Sigurd took the shield that had the
image of the Dragon upon it and he put it upon the anvil. Then he
raised his arms and struck his full blow. The sword cut through the
shield, but when it struck the anvil it shivered in his hands.
He left the smithy angrily and called to Grani, his proud horse. He
mounted and rode on like the sweep of the wind.
Later he came to his mother's bower and stood before Hiordis. "A greater
sword must I have," said he, "than one that is made of metal dug out of
the earth. The time has come, mother, when thou must put into my hands
the broken pieces of Gram, the sword of Sigmund and the Volsungs."
Hiordis measured him with the glance of her eyes, and she saw that her
son was a mighty youth and one fit to use the sword of Sigmund and the
Volsungs. She bade him go with her to the King's Hall. Out of the great
stone chest that was in her chamber she took the beast's skin and the
broken blade that was wrapped in it. She gave the pieces into the hands
of her son. "Behold the halves of Gram," she said, "of Gram, the mighty
sword that in the far-off days Odin left in the Branstock, in the tree
of the house of Volsung. I would see Gram new-shapen in thy hands, my
son."
Then she embraced him as she had never embraced him before, and standing
there with her ruddy hair about her she told him of the glory of Gram
and of the deeds of his fathers in whose hands the sword had shone.
Then Sigurd went to the smithy, and he wakened Regin out of his sleep,
and he made him look on the shining halves of Sigmund's sword. He
commanded him to make out of these halves a sword for his hand.
Regin worked for days in his smithy and Sigurd never left his side. At
last the blade was forged, and when Sigurd held it in his hand fire ran
along the edge of it.
Again he laid the shield that had the image of the Dragon upon it on the
anvil of the smithy. Again, with his hands on its iron hilt, he raised
the sword for a full stroke. He struck, and the sword cut through the
shield and sheared through the anvil, cutting away its iron horn. Then
did Sigurd know that he had in his hands the Volsungs' sword. He went
without and called to Grani, and like the sweep of the wind rode down to
the River's bank. Shreds of wool were floating down the water. Sigurd
struck at them with his sword, and the fine wool was divided against the
water's edge. Hardness and fineness, Gram could cut through both.
That night Gram, the Volsungs' sword, was under his head when he slept,
but still his dreams were filled with images that he had not regarded in
the day time; the shine of a hoard that he coveted not, and the gleam of
the scales of a Dragon that was too loathly for him to battle with.
[Illustration]
THE DRAGON'S BLOOD
Sigurd went to war: with the men that King Alv gave him he marched into
the country that was ruled over by the slayer of his father. The war
that he waged was short and the battles that he won were not perilous.
Old was King Lygni now, and feeble was his grasp upon his people. Sigurd
slew him and took away his treasure and added his lands to the lands of
King Alv.
But Sigurd was not content with the victory he had gained. He had dreamt
of stark battles and of renown that would be hardily won. What was the
war he had waged to the wars that Sigmund his father, and Volsung his
father's father, had waged in their days? Not content was Sigurd. He led
his men back by the hills from the crests of which he could look upon
the Dragon's haunts. And having come as far as those hills he bade his
men return to King Alv's hall with the spoils he had won.
They went, and Sigurd stayed upon the hills and looked across Gnita
Heath to where Fafnir the Dragon had his lair. All blasted and wasted
was the Heath with the fiery breath of the Dragon. And he saw the cave
where Fafnir abode, and he saw the track that his comings and goings
made. For every day the Dragon left his cave in the cliffs, crossing the
Heath to come to the River at which he drank.
For the length of a day Sigurd watched from the hills the haunt of the
Dragon. In the evening he saw him lengthening himself out of the cave,
and coming on his track across the Heath, in seeming like a ship that
travels swiftly because of its many oars.
Then to Regin in his smithy he came. To that cunning man Sigurd said:
"Tell me all thou dost know of Fafnir the Dragon."
Regin began to talk, but his speech was old and strange and filled with
runes. When he had spoken it all Sigurd said, "All thou hast told me
thou wilt have to say over again in a speech that is known to men of our
day."
Then said Regin: "Of a hoard I spoke. The Dwarf Andvari guarded it from
the first days of the world. But one of the Æsir forced Andvari to give
the hoard to him, masses of gold and heaps of jewels, and the Æsir gave
it to Hreidmar, who was my father.
"For the slaying of his son Otter the Æsir gave the hoard to Hreidmar,
the greatest hoard that had ever been seen in the world. But not long
was it left to Hreidmar to gloat over. For a son slew a father that he
might possess that hoard. Fafnir, that son was Fafnir, my brother.
"Then Fafnir, that no one might disturb his possession of the hoard,
turned himself into a Dragon, a Dragon so fearful that none dare come
nigh him. And I, Regin, was stricken with covetousness of the hoard. I
did not change myself into another being, but, by the magic my father
knew, I made my life longer than the generations of men, hoping that I
would see Fafnir slain and then have the mighty hoard under my hands.
"Now, son of the Volsungs, thou dost know all that has to do with Fafnir
the Dragon, and the great hoard that he guards."
"Little do I care about the hoard he guards," Sigurd said. "I care only
that he has made the King's good lands into a waste and that he is an
evil thing to men. I would have the renown of slaying Fafnir the
Dragon."
"With Gram, the sword thou hast, thou couldst slay Fafnir," Regin cried,
his body shaken with his passion for the hoard. "Thou couldst slay him
with the sword thou hast. Harken now and I will tell thee how thou
mightst give him the deathly stroke through the coils of his mail.
Harken, for I have thought of it all.
"The track of the Dragon to the River is broad, for he takes ever the
one track. Dig a pit in the middle of that track, and when Fafnir comes
over it strike up into his coils of mail with Gram, thy great sword.
Gram only may pierce that mail. Then will Fafnir be slain and the hoard
will be left guardless."
"What thou sayst is wise, Regin," Sigurd answered. "We will make this
pit and I will strike Fafnir in the way thou sayst."
Then Sigurd went and he rode upon Grani, his proud horse, and he showed
himself to King Alv and to Hiordis, his mother. Afterwards he went with
Regin to the Heath that was the haunt of the Dragon, and in his track
they dug a pit for the slaying of Fafnir.
And, lest his horse should scream aloud at the coming of the Dragon,
Sigurd had Grani sent back to a cave in the hills. It was Regin that
brought Grani away. "I am fearful and can do nothing to help thee, son
of the Volsungs," he said. "I will go away and await the slaying of
Fafnir."
He went, and Sigurd lay down in the pit they had made and practiced
thrusting upward with his sword. He lay with his face upward and with
his two hands he thrust the mighty sword upward.
But as he lay there he bethought of a dread thing that might happen;
namely, that the blood and the venom of the Dragon might pour over him
as he lay there, and waste him flesh and bone. When he thought of this
Sigurd hastened out of the pit, and he dug other pits near by, and he
made a passage for himself from one pit to the other that he might
escape from the flow of the Dragon's envenomed blood.
As he lay down again in the pit he heard the treading of the Dragon and
he heard the Dragon's strange and mournful cry. Mightily the Dragon came
on and he heard his breathing. His shape came over the pit. Then the
Dragon held his head and looked down on Sigurd.
It was the instant for him to make stroke with Gram. He did not let the
instant pass. He struck mightily under the shoulder and toward the heart
of the beast. The sword went through the hard and glittering scales that
were the creature's mail. Sigurd pulled out the sword and drew himself
through the passage and out into the second pit as Fafnir's envenomed
blood drenched where he had been.
Drawing himself up out of the second pit he saw the huge shape of Fafnir
heaving and lashing. He came to him and thrust his sword right through
the Dragon's neck. The Dragon reared up as though to fling himself down
on Sigurd with all his crushing bulk and dread talons, with his fiery
breath and his envenomed blood. But Sigurd leaped aside and ran far off.
Then did Fafnir scream his death scream. After he had torn up rocks with
his talons he lay prone on the ground, his head in the pit that was
filled with his envenomed blood.
Then did Regin, hearing the scream that let him know that Fafnir was
slain, come down to where the battle had been fought. When he saw that
Sigurd was alive and unharmed he uttered a cry of fury. For his plan had
been to have Sigurd drowned and burnt in the pit with the stream of
Fafnir's envenomed blood.
But he mastered his fury and showed a pleased countenance to Sigurd.
"Now thou wilt have renown," he cried. "Forever wilt thou be called
Sigurd, Fafnir's Bane. More renown than ever any of thy fathers had wilt
thou have, O Prince of the Volsungs."
So he spoke, saying fair words to him, for now that he was left alive
there was something he would have Sigurd do.
"Fafnir is slain," Sigurd said, "and the triumph over him was not
lightly won. Now may I show myself to King Alv and to my mother, and the
gold from Fafnir's hoard will make me a great spoil."
"Wait," said Regin cunningly. "Wait. Thou hast yet to do something for
me. With the sword thou hast, cut through the Dragon and take out his
heart for me. When thou hast taken it out, roast it that I may eat of it
and become wiser than I am. Do this for me who showed thee how to slay
Fafnir."
Sigurd did what Regin would have him do. He cut out the heart of the
Dragon and he hung it from stakes to roast. Regin drew away and left
him. As Sigurd stood before the fire putting sticks upon it there was a
great silence in the forest.
He put his hand down to turn an ashen branch into the heart of the fire.
As he did a drop from the roasting Dragon-heart fell upon his hand. The
drop burnt into him. He put his hand to his mouth to ease the smart, and
his tongue tasted the burning blood of the Dragon.
He went to gather wood for the fire. In a clearing that he came to there
were birds; he saw four on a branch together. They spoke to each other
in birds' notes, and Sigurd heard and knew what they were saying.
Said the first bird: "How simple is he who has come into this dell! He
has no thought of an enemy, and yet he who was with him but a while ago
has gone away that he may bring a spear to slay him."
"For the sake of the gold that is in the Dragon's cave he would slay
him," said the second bird.
And the third bird said: "If he would eat the Dragon's heart himself he
would know all wisdom."
But the fourth bird said: "He has tasted a drop of the Dragon's blood
and he knows what we are saying."
The four birds did not fly away nor cease from speaking. Instead they
began to tell of a marvelous abode that was known to them.
Deep in the forest, the birds sang, there was a Hall that was called the
House of Flame. Its ten walls were Uni, Iri, Barri, Ori, Varns,
Vegdrasil, Derri, Uri, Dellinger, Atvarder, and each wall was built by
the Dwarf whose name it bore. All round the Hall there was a circle of
fire through which none might pass. And within the Hall a maiden slept,
and she was the wisest and the bravest and the most beautiful maiden in
the world.
Sigurd stood like a man enchanted listening to what the birds sang.
But suddenly they changed the flow of their discourse, and their notes
became sharp and piercing.
"Look, look!" cried one. "He is coming against the youth."
"He is coming against the youth with a spear," cried another.
"Now will the youth be slain unless he is swift," cried a third.
Sigurd turned round and he saw Regin treading the way toward him, grim
and silent, with a spear in his hands. The spear would have gone through
Sigurd had he stayed one instant longer in the place where he had been
listening to the speech of the birds. As he turned he had his sword in
his hand, and he flung it, and Gram struck Regin on the breast.
Then Regin cried out: "I die--I die without having laid my hands on the
hoard that Fafnir guarded. Ah, a curse was upon the hoard, for Hreidmar
and Fafnir and I have perished because of it. May the curse of the gold
now fall on the one who is my slayer."
Then did Regin breathe out his life. Sigurd took the body and cast it
into the pit that was alongside the dead Fafnir. Then, that he might eat
the Dragon's heart and become the wisest of men, he went to where he had
left it roasting. And he thought that when he had eaten the heart he
would go into the Dragon's cave and carry away the treasure that was
there, and bring it as spoil of his battle to King Alv and to his
mother. Then he would go through the forest and find the House of Flame
where slept the maiden who was the wisest and bravest and most beautiful
in the world.
But Sigurd did not eat the Dragon's heart. When he came to where he had
left it roasting he found that the fire had burnt it utterly.
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF SIGMUND AND SIGNY
He called to Grani, his proud horse; he stood up on a mound in the Heath
and he sent forth a great shout. And Grani heard in the cave where Regin
had left him and he came galloping to Sigurd with flowing mane and eyes
flashing fire.
He mounted Grani and he rode to Fafnir's cave. When he went into the
place where the Dragon was wont to lie he saw a door of iron before him.
With Gram, his mighty sword, he hewed through the iron, and with his
strong hands he pulled the door back. Then, before him he saw the
treasure the Dragon guarded, masses of gold and heaps of shining jewels.
But as he looked on the hoard Sigurd felt some shadow of the evil that
lay over it all. This was the hoard that in the far-off days the
River-Maidens watched over as it lay deep under the flowing water. Then
Andvari the Dwarf forced the River-Maidens to give it to him. And Loki
had taken it from Andvari, letting loose as he did Gulveig the Witch who
had such evil power over the Gods. For the sake of the hoard Fafnir had
slain Hreidmar, his father, and Regin had plotted death against Fafnir,
his brother.
Not all this history did Sigurd know. But a shadow of its evil touched
his spirit as he stood there before the gleaming and glittering heap. He
would take all of it away, but not now. The tale that the birds told was
in his mind, and the green of the forest was more to him than the
glitter of the treasure heap. He would come back with chests and load it
up and carry it to King Alv's hall. But first he would take such things
as he himself might wear.
He found a helmet of gold and he put it on his head. He found a great
armring and his put it around his arm. On the top of the armring there
was a small fingerring with a rune graved upon it. Sigurd put it on his
finger. And this was the ring that Andvari the Dwarf had put the curse
upon when Loki had taken the hoard from him.
He knew that no one would cross the Heath and come to Fafnir's lair, so
he did not fear to leave the treasure unguarded. He mounted Grani, his
proud horse, and rode toward the forest. He would seek the House of
Flame where she lay sleeping, the maiden who was the wisest and the
bravest and the most beautiful in the world. With his golden helmet
shining above his golden hair Sigurd rode on.
As he rode toward the forest he thought of Sigmund, his father, whose
slaying he had avenged, and he thought of Sigmund's father, Volsung, and
of the grim deeds that the Volsungs had suffered and wrought.
Rerir, the son of Sigi who was the son of Odin, was the father of
Volsung. And Volsung when he was in his first manhood had built his hall
around a mighty tree. Its branches went up to the roof and made the
beams of the house and its great trunk was the center of the hall. "The
Branstock" the tree was called, and Volsung hall was named "The Hall of
the Branstock."
Many children had Volsung, eleven sons and one daughter. Strong were all
his sons and good fighters, and Volsung of the Hall of the Branstock was
a mighty chief.
It was through Signy, the daughter of the house, that a feud and a
deadly battle was brought to Volsung and his sons. She was a wise and a
fair maiden and her fame went through all the lands. Now, one day
Volsung received a message from a King asking for the hand of Signy in
marriage. And Volsung who knew of this King through report of his
battles sent a message to him saying that he would be welcome to the
Hall of the Branstock.
So King Siggeir came with his men. But when the Volsungs looked into his
face they liked it not. And Signy shrank away, saying, "This King is
evil of heart and false of word."
Volsung and his eleven sons took counsel together. Siggeir had a great
force of men with him, and if they refused to give her he could slay
them all and harry their kingdom. Besides they had pledged themselves
to give Signy when they had sent him a message of welcome. Long counsel
they had together. And ten of Signy's brothers said, "Let Signy wed this
King. He is not as evil as he seems in her mind." Ten brothers said it.
But one spoke out, saying, "We will not give our sister to this evil
King. Rather let us all go down fighting with the Hall of the Branstock
flaming above our heads."
It was Sigmund, the youngest of the Volsungs, who said this.
But Signy's father said: "We know nought of evil of King Siggeir. Also
our word is given to him. Let him feast with us this night in the Hall
of the Branstock and let Signy go from us with him as his wife." Then
they looked to her and they saw Signy's face and it was white and stern.
"Let it be as ye have said, my father and my brothers," she said. "I
will wed King Siggeir and go with him overseas." So she said aloud. But
Sigmund heard her say to herself, "It is woe for the Volsungs."
A feast was made and King Siggeir and his men came to the Hall of the
Branstock. Fires were lighted and tables were spread, and great horns of
mead went around the guests. In the middle of the feasting a stranger
entered the Hall. He was taller than the tallest there, and his bearing
made all do him reverence. One offered him a horn of mead and he drank
it. Then, from under the blue cloak that he wore, he drew a sword that
made the brightness of the Hall more bright.
He went to the tree that the Hall was built around, to the Branstock,
and he thrust the sword into it. All the company were hushed. Then they
heard the voice of the stranger, a voice that was like the trumpet's
call: "The sword is for the hand that can draw it out of the Branstock."
Then he went out of the Hall.
All looked to where the sword was placed and saw a hand's breadth of
wonderful brightness. This one and that one would have laid hands on the
hilt, only Volsung's voice bade them stand still. "It is meet," he said,
"that our guest and our son-in-law, King Siggeir, should be the first to
put hands on its hilt and try to draw the sword of the stranger out of
the Branstock."
King Siggeir went to the tree and laid his hands on the broad hilt. He
strove hard to draw out the sword, but all his might could not move it.
As he strained himself to draw it and failed, a dark look of anger came
into his face.
Then others tried to draw it, the captains who were with King Siggeir,
and they, too, failed to move the blade. Then Volsung tried and Volsung
could not move it. One after the other, his eleven sons strained to draw
out the stranger's sword. At last it came to the turn of the youngest,
to Sigmund, to try. And when Sigmund laid his hand on the broad hilt and
drew it, behold! The sword came with his hand, and once again the Hall
was brightened with its marvelous brightness.
It was a wondrous sword, a sword made out of better metal and by smiths
more cunning than any known. All envied Sigmund that he had won for
himself that wonder-weapon.
King Siggeir looked on it with greedy eyes. "I will give thee its weight
in gold for that sword, good brother," he said.
But Sigmund said to him proudly: "If the sword was for thy hand thou
shouldst have won it. The sword was not for thine, but for a Volsung's
hand."
And Signy, looking at King Siggeir, saw a look of deeper evil come into
his face. She knew that hatred for all the Volsung race was in his
heart.
But at the end of the feast she was wed to King Siggeir, and the next
day she left the Hall of the Branstock and went with him down to where
his great painted ship was drawn up on the beach. And when they were
parting from her, her father and her brothers, King Siggeir invited them
to come to his country, as friends visiting friends and kinsmen visiting
kinsmen, and look on Signy again. And he stood on the beach and would
not go on board his ship until each and all of the Volsungs gave their
word that they would visit Signy and him in his own land. "And when thou
comest," he said to Sigmund, "be sure thou dost bring with thee the
mighty sword that thou didst win."
All this was thought of by Sigurd, the son of Sigmund, as he rode toward
the fringe of the forest.
The time came for Volsung and his sons to redeem the promise they made
to King Siggeir. They made ready their ship and they sailed from the
land where stood the Hall of the Branstock. And they landed on the coast
of King Siggeir's country, and they drew their ship up on the beach and
they made their camp there, intending to come to the King's Hall in the
broad light of the day.
But in the half light of the dawn one came to the Volsung ship. A cloak
and hood covered the figure, but Sigmund, who was the watcher, knew who
it was. "Signy!" he said, and Signy asked that her father and her
brothers be awakened until she would speak to them of a treason that was
brewed against them.
"King Siggeir has made ready a great army against your coming," she told
them. "He hates the Volsungs, the branch as well as the root, and it is
his plan to fall upon you, my father and my brothers, with his great
army and slay you all. And he would possess himself of Gram, Sigmund's
wonder-sword. Therefore, I say to you, O Volsungs, draw your ship into
the sea and sail from the land where such treachery can be."
But Volsung, her father, would not listen. "The Volsungs do not depart
like broken men from a land they have brought their ship to," he said.
"We gave, each and all, the word that we would visit King Siggeir and
visit him we will. And if he is a dastard and would fall upon us, why we
are the unbeaten Volsungs, and we will fight against him and his army
and slay him, and bear you back with us to the Hall of the Branstock.
The day widens now, and we shall go to the Hall."
Signy would have spoken of the great army King Siggeir had gathered, but
she knew that the Volsungs never harkened to talk of odds. She spoke no
more, but bowed her head and went back to King Siggeir's hall.
Siggeir knew that Signy had been to warn her father and her brothers. He
called the men he had gathered and he posted them cunningly in the way
the Volsungs would come. Then he sent one to the ship with a message of
welcome.
As they left their ship the army of King Siggeir fell upon the Volsungs
and their followers. Very fierce was the battle that was waged on the
beach, and many and many a one of King Siggeir's fierce fighters went
down before the fearless ones that made Volsung's company. But at last
Volsung himself was slain and his eleven sons were taken captive. And
Gram, his mighty sword, was taken out of Sigmund's hands.
They were brought before King Siggeir in his hall, the eleven Volsung
princes. Siggeir laughed to see them before him. "Ye are not in the Hall
of the Branstock now, to dishonor me with black looks and scornful
words," he said, "and a harder task will be given you than that of
drawing a sword out of a tree-trunk. Before set of sun I will see you
hewn to pieces with the sword."
Then Signy who was there stood up with her white face and her wide eyes,
and she said: "I pray not for longer life for my brothers, for well I
know that my prayers would avail them nought. But dost thou not heed the
proverb, Siggeir--'Sweet to the eye as long as the eye can see'?"
And Siggeir laughed his evil laugh when he heard her. "Aye, my Queen,"
he said, "sweet to the eye as long as the eye may see their torments.
They shall not die at once nor all together. I will let them see each
other die."
So Siggeir gave a new order to his dastard troops. The order was that
the eleven brothers should be taken into the depths of the forest and
chained to great beams and left there. This was done with the eleven
sons of Volsung.
The next day one who had watched and who was faithful to Signy came, and
Signy said to him: "What has befallen my brothers?"
And the watcher said: "A great wolf came to where the chained men are,
and fell upon the first of them and devoured him."
When Signy heard this no tears came from her eyes, but that which was
hard around her heart became harder. She said, "Go again, and watch what
befalls."
And the watcher came the second time and said: "The second of your
brothers has been devoured by the wolf." Signy shed no tears this time
either, and again that which was hard around her heart became harder.
And every day the watcher came and he told her what had befallen her
brothers. And it came to the time when but one of her brothers was left
alive, Sigmund, the youngest.
Then said Signy: "Not without device are we left at the end. I have
thought of what is to be done. Take a pot of honey to where he is
chained and smear Sigmund's face with the honey."
The watcher did as Signy bade him.
Again the great wolf came along the forest-ways to where Sigmund was
chained. When she snuffed over him she found the honey upon his face.
She put down her tongue to lick over his face. Then, with his strong
teeth Sigmund seized the tongue of the wolf. She fought and she
struggled with all her might, but Sigmund did not let go of her tongue.
The struggle with the beast broke the beam to which he was chained. Then
Sigmund seized the wolf with his hands and tore her jaws apart.
The watcher saw this happening and told of it to Signy. A fierce joy
went through her, and she said: "One of the Volsungs lives, and
vengeance will be wrought upon King Siggeir and upon his house."
Still the watcher stayed in the ways of the forest, and he marked where
Sigmund built for himself a hidden hut. Often he bore tokens from Signy
to Sigmund. Sigmund took to the ways of the hunter and the outlaw, but
he did not forsake the forest. And King Siggeir knew not that one of the
Volsungs lived and was near him.
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF SIGMUND AND SINFIOTLI
As Sigurd rode the ways of the forest he thought upon Sigmund, his
father, on his life and his death, according to what Hiordis, his
mother, had told him. Sigmund lived for long the life of the hunter and
the outlaw, but he never strayed far from the forest that was in King
Siggeir's dominion. Often did he get a token from Signy. They two, the
last of the Volsungs, knew that King Siggeir and his house would have to
perish for the treason he had wrought on their father and their
brothers.
Sigmund knew that his sister would send her son to help him. One morning
there came to his hut a boy of ten years. He knew that this was one of
Signy's sons, and that she would have him train him into being a
warrior worthy of the Volsung breed.
Sigmund hardly looked and hardly spoke to the lad. He was going hunting,
and as he took down his spear from the wall he said:
"There is the mealbag, boy. Mix the meal and make the bread, and we will
eat when I come back."
When he returned the bread was unmade, and the boy was standing watching
the mealbag with widened eyes. "Thou didst not make the bread?" Sigmund
said.
"Nay," said the boy, "I was afeard to go near the bag. Something stirred
within it."
"Thou hast the heart of a mouse so to be frighted. Go back to thy mother
and tell her that not in thee is the stuff for a Volsung warrior."
So Sigmund spoke, and the boy went away weeping.
A year later another son of Signy's came. As before Sigmund hardly
looked at and hardly spoke to the boy. He said:
"There is the mealbag. Mix the meal and make ready the bread against the
time I return."
When Sigmund came back the bread was unmade. The boy had shrunk away
from where the bag was.
"Thou hast not made the bread?" Sigmund said.
"Nay," said the boy, "something stirred in the bag, and I was afeard."
"Thou hast the heart of a mouse. Get thee back to thy mother and tell
her that there is not in thee the stuff for the making of a Volsung
warrior."
And this boy, like his brother, went back weeping.
At that time Signy had no other sons. But at last one was born to her,
the child of a desperate thought. Him, too, when he was grown, she sent
to Sigmund.
"What did thy mother say to thee?" Sigmund said to this boy when he
showed himself at the hut.
"Nothing. She sewed my gloves to my hands and then bade me pull them
off."
"And didst thou?"
"Aye, and the skin came with them."
"And didst thou weep?"
"A Volsung does not weep for such a thing."
Long did Sigmund look on the lad. He was tall and fair and great-limbed,
and his eyes had no fear in them.
"What wouldst thou have me do for thee?" said the lad.
"There is the mealbag," Sigmund said. "Mix the meal and make the bread
for me against the time I return."
When Sigmund came back the bread was baking on the coals. "What didst
thou with the meal?" Sigmund asked.
"I mixed it. Something was in the meal--a serpent, I think--but I
kneaded it with the meal, and now the serpent is baking on the coals."
Sigmund laughed and threw his arms around the boy. "Thou wilt not eat of
that bread," he said. "Thou didst knead into it a venomous serpent."
The boy's name was Sinfiotli. Sigmund trained him in the ways of the
hunter and the outlaw. Here and there they went, taking vengeance on
King Siggeir's men. The boy was fierce, but never did he speak a word
that was false.
One day when Sigmund and Sinfiotli were hunting, they came upon a
strange house in the dark wood. When they went within they found two men
lying there sleeping a deep sleep. On their arms were heavy rings of
gold, and Sigmund knew that they were the sons of Kings.
And beside the sleeping men he saw wolfskins, left there as though they
had been cast off. Then Sigmund knew that these men were
shape-changers--that they were ones who changed their shapes and ranged
through the forests as wolves.
Sigmund and Sinfiotli put on the skins that the men had cast off, and
when they did this they changed their shapes and became as wolves. And
as wolves they ranged through the forest, now and then changing their
shapes back to those of men. As wolves they fell upon King Siggeir's men
and slew more and more of them.
One day Sigmund said to Sinfiotli: "Thou art still young and I would not
have thee be too rash. If thou dost come upon a company of seven men,
fight them. But if thou dost come on a company greater than seven, raise
up thy voice as a wolf's cry and bring me to thy side."
Sinfiotli promised that he would do this.
One day, as he went through the forest in his wolf's shape, Sigmund
heard the din of a struggle and he stopped to listen for Sinfiotli's
call. But no call came. Then Sigmund went through the forest in the
direction of the struggle. On his way he passed the bodies of eleven
slain men. And he came upon Sinfiotli lying in the thicket, his wolf's
shape upon him, and panting from the battle he had waged.
"Thou didst strive with eleven men. Why didst thou not call to me?"
Sigmund said.
"Why should I have called to thee? I am not so feeble but I can strive
with eleven men."
Sigmund was made angry with this answer. He looked on Sinfiotli where he
lay, and the wicked wolf's nature that was in the skin came over him. He
sprang upon him, sinking his teeth in Sinfiotli's throat.
Sinfiotli lay gasping in the throes of death. And Sigmund, knowing the
deadly grip that was in those jaws of his, howled his anguish.
Then, as he licked the face of his comrade, he saw two weasels meet.
They began to fight, one with the other, and the first caught the second
at the throat, and bit him with his teeth and laid him out as if in
death. Sigmund marked the combat and the end of it. But then the first
weasel ran and found leaves of a certain herb and he put them upon his
comrade's wound. And the herb cured the wound, and the weasel that was
bitten rose up and was sound and swift again.
Sigmund went searching for the herb he saw the weasel carry to his
comrade. And as he sought for it he saw a raven with a leaf in her beak.
She dropped the leaf as he came to her, and behold! It was the same leaf
as the weasel had brought to his comrade. Sigmund took it and laid it on
the wound he had made in Sinfiotli's throat, and the wound healed, and
Sinfiotli was sound once more. They went back to their hut in the
forest. And the next day they burnt the wolfskins, and they prayed the
Gods that they might never be afflicted with the wolf's evil nature
again. And Sigmund and Sinfiotli never afterwards changed their shapes.
[Illustration]
THE STORY OF THE VENGEANCE OF THE VOLSUNGS AND
OF THE DEATH OF SINFIOTLI
And now Sinfiotli had come to his full strength and it was time to take
vengeance on King Siggeir for the slaying of Volsung and the dread doom
he had set for Volsung's ten sons. Sigmund and Sinfiotli put helmets on
their heads and took swords in their hands and went to King Siggeir's
Hall. They hid behind the casks of ale that were at the entrance and
they waited for the men-at-arms to leave the Hall that they might fall
upon King Siggeir and his attendants.
The younger children of King Siggeir were playing in the Hall and one
let fall a ball. It went rolling behind the casks of ale. And the child
peering after the ball saw two men crouching with swords in their hands
and helmets on their heads.
The child told a servant who told the King. Then Siggeir arose, and he
drew his men-at-arms around him, and he set them on the men who were
hiding behind the barrels. Sigmund and Sinfiotli sprang up and fought
against the men of King Siggeir, but they were taken captives.
Now they might not be slain there and then, for it was unlawful to slay
captives after sunset. But for all that, King Siggeir would not leave
them above ground. He decreed that they should be put in a pit, and a
mound made over them so that they would be buried alive.
The sentence was carried out. A great flagstone was put down to divide
the pit in two, so that Sigmund and Sinfiotli might hear each other's
struggle and not be able to give help to each other. All was done as the
King commanded.
But while his thralls were putting sods over the pit, one came amongst
them, cloaked and hooded, and dropped something wrapped in straw into
the side of the pit where Sinfiotli lay. And when the sky was shut out
from them with the turf and soil that was put over the pit, Sinfiotli
shouted to Sigmund: "I shall not die, for the queen has thrown down to
me meat wrapped in a parcel of straw."
And a while afterwards Sinfiotli shouted to Sigmund: "The queen has left
a sword in the meat which she flung down to me. It is a mighty sword.
Almost I think it is Gram, the sword you told me of."
"If it be Gram," Sigmund said, "it is a sword that can cut through this
flagstone. Thrust the blade against the stone and try."
Sinfiotli thrust the blade against the stone and the blade went through
the stone. Then, one on each side, they took hold of the sword and they
cut the great stone in two. Afterwards, working together, it was easy to
shift the turf and soil. The two came out under the sky.
Before them was the Hall of King Siggeir. They came to the Hall and they
set dry wood before it and they fired the wood and made the Hall blaze
up. And when the Hall was in a blaze King Siggeir came to the door and
shouted, "Who is it that has fired the house of the King?"
And Sigmund said, "I, Sigmund, the son of Volsung, that you may pay for
the treason wrought on the Volsungs."
Seeing Sigmund there with Gram, the great sword, in his hands, Siggeir
went back into his Hall. Then Signy was seen with her white face and her
stern eyes, and Sigmund called to her, "Come forth, come forth. Sigmund
calls. Come out of Siggeir's blazing house and together we will go back
to the Hall of the Branstock."
But Signy said, "All is finished now. The vengeance is wrought and I
have no more to keep me in life. The Volsung race lives on in you, my
brother, and that is my joy. Not merrily did I wed King Siggeir and not
merrily did I live with him, but merrily will I die with him now."
She went within the Hall; then the flames burst over it and all who were
within perished. Thus the vengeance of the Volsungs was wrought.
And Sigurd thought on the deed that Sigmund, his father, and Sinfiotli,
the youth who was his father's kinsman, wrought, as he rode the ways of
the forest, and of the things that thereafter befell them.
Sigmund and Sinfiotli left King Siggeir's land and came back to the land
where was the Hall of the Branstock. Sigmund became a great King and
Sinfiotli was the Captain of his host.
And the story of Sigmund and Sinfiotli goes on to tell how Sigmund wed a
woman whose name was Borghild, and how Sinfiotli loved a woman who was
loved by Borghild's brother. A battle came in which the youths were on
opposite sides, and Sinfiotli killed Borghild's brother, and it was in
fair combat.
Sinfiotli returned home. To make peace between him and the Queen,
Sigmund gave Borghild a great measure of gold as compensation for the
loss of her brother. The Queen took it and said, "Lo, my brother's worth
is reckoned at this; let no more be said about his slaying." And she
made Sinfiotli welcome to the Hall of the Branstock.
But although she showed herself friendly to him her heart was set upon
his destruction.
That night there was a feast in the Hall of the Branstock and Borghild
the Queen went to all the guests with a horn of mead in her hand. She
came to Sinfiotli and she held the horn to him. "Take this from my
hands, O friend of Sigmund," she said.
But Sinfiotli saw what was in her eyes and he said, "I will not drink
from this horn. There is venom in the drink."
Then, to end the mockery that the Queen would have made over Sinfiotli,
Sigmund who was standing by took the horn out of Borghild's hand. No
venom or poison could injure him. He raised the horn to his lips and
drained the mead at a draught.
The Queen said to Sinfiotli, "Must other men quaff thy drink for thee?"
Later in the night she came to him again, the horn of mead in her hand.
She offered it to Sinfiotli, but he looked in her eyes and saw the
hatred that was there. "Venom is in the drink," he said. "I will not
take it."
And again Sigmund took the horn and drank the mead at a draught. And
again the Queen mocked Sinfiotli.
A third time she came to him. Before she offered the horn she said,
"This is the one who fears to take his drink like a man. What a Volsung
heart he has!" Sinfiotli saw the hatred in her eyes, and her mockery
could not make him take the mead from her. As before Sigmund was
standing by. But now he was weary of raising the horn and he said to
Sinfiotli, "Pour the drink through thy beard."
He thought that Sigmund meant that he should pour the mead through his
lips that were bearded and make trouble no more between him and the
Queen. But Sigmund did not mean that. He meant that he should pretend to
drink and let the mead run down on the floor. Sinfiotli, not
understanding what his comrade meant, took the horn from the Queen and
raised it to his lips and drank. And as soon as he drank, the venom that
was in the drink went to his heart, and he fell dead in the Hall of the
Branstock.
Oh, woeful was Sigmund for the death of his kinsman and his comrade. He
would let no one touch his body. He himself lifted Sinfiotli in his arms
and carried him out of the Hall, and through the wood, and down to the
seashore. And when he came to the shore he saw a boat drawn up with a
man therein. Sigmund came near to him and saw that the man was old and
strangely tall. "I will take thy burthen from thee," the man said.
Sigmund left the body of Sinfiotli in the boat, thinking to take a place
beside it. But as soon as the body was placed in it the boat went from
the land without sail or oars. Sigmund, looking on the old man who stood
at the stern, knew that he was not of mortal men, but was Odin
All-Father, the giver of the sword Gram.
Then Sigmund went back to his Hall. His Queen died, and in time he wed
with Hiordis, who became the mother of Sigurd. And now Sigurd the
Volsung, the son of Sigmund and Hiordis, rode the ways of the forest,
the sword Gram by his side, and the Golden Helmet of the Dragon's Hoard
above his golden hair.
[Illustration]
BRYNHILD IN THE HOUSE OF FLAME
The forest ways led him on and up a mountain-side. He came to a
mountain-summit at last: Hindfell, where the trees fell away, leaving a
place open to the sky and the winds. On Hindfell was the House of Flame.
Sigurd saw the walls black, and high, and all around them was a ring of
fire.
As he rode nearer he heard the roar of the mounting and the circling
fire. He sat on Grani, his proud horse, and for long he looked on the
black walls and the flame that went circling around them.
Then he rode Grani to the fire. Another horse would have been
affrighted, but Grani remained steady under Sigurd. To the wall of fire
they came, and Sigurd, who knew no fear, rode through it.
Now he was in the courtyard of the Hall. No stir was there of man or
hound or horse. Sigurd dismounted and bade Grani be still. He opened a
door and he saw a chamber with hangings on which was wrought the pattern
of a great tree, a tree with three roots, and the pattern was carried
across from one wall to the other. On a couch in the center of the
chamber one lay in slumber. Upon the head was a helmet and across the
breast was a breastplate. Sigurd took the helmet off the head. Then over
the couch fell a heap of woman's hair--wondrous, bright-gleaming hair.
This was the maiden that the birds had told him of.
He cut the fastenings of the breastplate with his sword, and he gazed
long upon her. Beautiful was her face, but stern; like the face of one
who subdues but may not be subdued. Beautiful and strong were her arms
and her hands. Her mouth was proud, and over her closed eyes there were
strong and beautiful brows.
Her eyes opened, and she turned them and looked full upon Sigurd. "Who
art thou who hast awakened me?" she said.
"I am Sigurd, the son of Sigmund, of the Volsung race," he answered.
"And thou didst ride through the ring of fire to me?"
"That did I."
She knelt on the couch and stretched out her arms to where the light
shone. "Hail, O Day," she cried, "and hail, O beams that are the sons of
Day. O Night, and O daughter of Night, may ye look on us with eyes that
bless. Hail, O Æsir and O Asyniur! Hail, O wide-spreading fields of
Midgard! May ye give us wisdom, and wise speech, and healing power, and
grant that nothing untrue or unbrave may come near us!"
All this she cried with eyes open wide; they were eyes that had in them
all the blue that Sigurd had ever seen: the blue of flowers, the blue of
skies, the blue of battle-blades. She turned those great eyes upon him
and she said, "I am Brynhild, once a Valkyrie but now a mortal maiden,
one who will know death and all the sorrows that mortal women know. But
there are things that I may not know, things that are false and of no
bravery."
She was the bravest and the wisest and the most beautiful maiden in the
world: Sigurd knew that it was so. He laid his sword Gram at her feet,
and he said her name, "Brynhild." He told her how he had slain the
Dragon, and how he had heard the birds tell of her. She rose from the
couch and bound her wondrous hair on her head. In wonder he watched her.
When she moved it was as though she walked above the earth.
They sat together and she told him wonderful and secret things. And she
told him, too, how she was sent by Odin from Asgard to choose the slain
for his hall Valhalla, and to give victory to those whom he willed to
have it. And she told how she had disobeyed the will of All-Father, and
how for that she was made outcast of Asgard. Odin put into her flesh the
thorn of the Tree of Sleep that she might remain in slumber until one
who was the bravest of mortal men should waken her. Whoever would break
the fastenings of the breastplate would take out the Thorn of Sleep.
"Odin granted me this," she said, "that as a mortal maid I should wed
none but him who is the bravest in the world. And so that none but him
might come to me, All-Father put the fire-ring round where I lay in
slumber. And it is thou, Sigurd, son of Sigmund, who hast come to me.
Thou art the bravest and I think thou art the most beautiful too; like
to Tyr, the God who wields the sword."
She told him that whoever rode through the fire and claimed her as his
wife, him she must wed.
They talked to each other fondly and the day flowed by them. Then Sigurd
heard Grani, his horse, neigh for him again and again. He cried to
Brynhild: "Let me go from the gaze of thine eyes. I am that one who is
to have the greatest name in the world. Not yet have I made my name as
great as my father and my father's father made their names great. I have
overcome King Lygni, and I have slain Fafnir the Dragon, but that is
little. I would make my name the greatest in the world, and endure all
that is to be endured in making it so. Then I would come back to thee in
the House of Flame."
Brynhild said to him: "Well dost thou speak. Make thy name great, and
endure what thou hast to endure in making it so. I will wait for thee,
knowing that none but Sigurd will be able to win through the fire that
guards where I abide."
They gazed long on each other, but little more they spoke. Then they
held each other's hands in farewell, and they plighted faith, promising
each other that they would take no other man or maiden for their mate.
And for token of their troth Sigurd took the ring that was on his finger
and placed it on Brynhild's--Andvari's ring it was.
[Illustration]
SIGURD AT THE HOUSE OF THE NIBELUNGS
He left Hindfell and he came into a kingdom that was ruled over by a
people that were called the Nibelungs as Sigurd's people were called the
Volsungs. Giuki was the name of the King of that land.
Giuki and his Queen and all their sons gave a great welcome to Sigurd
when he came to their hall, for he looked such a one as might win the
name of being the world's greatest hero. And Sigurd went to war beside
the King's sons, Gunnar and Högni, and the three made great names for
themselves, but Sigurd's shone high above the others.
When they came back from that war there were great rejoicings in the
hall of the Nibelungs, and Sigurd's heart was filled with friendship
for all the Nibelung race; he had love for the King's sons, Gunnar and
Högni, and with Gunnar and Högni he swore oaths of brotherhood.
Henceforward he and they would be as brethren. King Giuki had a stepson
named Guttorm and he was not bound in the oath that bound Sigurd and the
others in brotherhood.
After the war they had waged Sigurd spent a whole winter in the hall of
the Nibelungs. His heart was full of memories of Brynhild and of
longings to ride to her in the House of Flame and to take her with him
to the kingdom that King Giuki would have given him. But as yet he would
not go back to her, for he had sworn to give his brethren further help.
One day, as he rode by himself, he heard birds talk to each other and he
knew the words they were saying. One said, "There is Sigurd who wears
the wondrous helmet that he took out of Fafnir's hoard." And the other
bird said, "He knows not that by that helmet he can change his shape as
Fafnir changed his shape, and make him look like this creature or that
creature, or this man or that man." And the third bird said, "He knows
not that the helmet can do anything so wonderful for him."
He rode back to the hall of the Nibelungs, and at the supperboard he
told them what he had heard the birds say. He showed them the wondrous
helmet. Also he told them how he had slain Fafnir the Dragon, and of how
he had won the mighty hoard for himself. His two sworn brothers who were
there rejoiced that he had such wondrous possessions.
But more precious than the hoard and more wondrous than the helmet was
the memory of Brynhild that he had. But of this he said no word.
Grimhild was the name of the Queen. She was the mother of Gunnar and
Högni and their half-brother Guttorm. And she and the King had one
daughter whose name was Gudrun. Now Grimhild was one of the wisest of
women, and she knew when she looked upon him that Sigurd was the world's
greatest warrior. She would have him belong to the Nibelungs, not only
by the oaths of brotherhood he had sworn with Gunnar and Högni, but by
other ties. And when she heard of the great hoard that was his she had
greater wish and will that he should be one with the Nibelungs. She
looked on the helmet of gold and on the great armring that he wore, and
she made it her heart's purpose that Sigurd should wed with Gudrun, her
daughter. But neither Sigurd nor the maiden Gudrun knew of Grimhild's
resolve.
And the Queen, watching Sigurd closely, knew that he had a remembrance
in his breast that held him from seeing Gudrun's loveliness. She had
knowledge of spells and secret brews (she was of the race of Borghild
whose brew had destroyed Sinfiotli's life) and she knew that she could
make a potion that would destroy the memory Sigurd held.
She mixed the potion. Then one night when there was feasting in the hall
of the Nibelungs, she gave the cup that held the potion into the hands
of Gudrun and bade her carry it to Sigurd.
Sigurd took the cup out of the hands of the fair Nibelung maiden and he
drank the potion. When he had drunk it he put the cup down and he stood
amongst the feasters like a man in a dream. And like a man in a dream he
went into his chamber, and for a day and a night afterwards he was
silent and his mind was astray. When he rode out with Gunnar and Högni
they would say to him, "What is it thou hast lost, brother?" Sigurd
could not tell them. But what he had lost was all memory of Brynhild the
Valkyrie in the House of Flame.
He saw Gudrun and it was as though he looked upon her for the first
time. Soft were the long tresses of her hair; soft were her hands. Her
eyes were like woodflowers, and her ways and her speech were gentle. Yet
was she noble in her bearing as became a Princess who would come into a
kingdom. And from the first time she had seen him upon Grani, his proud
horse, and with his golden helmet above his golden hair, Gudrun had
loved Sigurd.
At the season when the wild swans came to the lake Gudrun went down to
watch them build their nests. And while she was there Sigurd rode
through the pines. He saw her, and her beauty made the whole place
change. He stopped his horse and listened to her voice as she sang to
the wild swans, sang the song that Völund made for Alvit, his
swan-bride.
No more was Sigurd's heart empty of memory: it was filled with the
memory of Gudrun as he saw her by the lake when the wild swans were
building their nests. And now he watched her in the hall, sitting with
her mother embroidering, or serving her father or her brothers, and
tenderness for the maiden kept growing in his heart.
A day came when he asked Gunnar and Högni, his sworn brethren, for
Gudrun. They were glad as though a great fortune had befallen them. And
they brought him before Giuki the King, and Grimhild the Queen. It
seemed as if they had cast off all trouble and care and entered into the
prime of their life and power, so greatly did the King and the Queen
rejoice at Sigurd's becoming one with the Nibelungs through his marriage
with Gudrun.
When Gudrun heard that Sigurd had asked for her, she said to the Queen:
"Oh, my mother, your wisdom should have strengthened me to bear such
joy. How can I show him that he is so dear, so dear to me? But I shall
try not to show it, for he might deem that there was no sense in me but
sense to love him. So great a warrior would not care for such love. I
would be with him as a battle-maiden."
Sigurd and Gudrun were wed and all the kingdom that the Nibelungs ruled
over rejoiced. And Queen Grimhild thought that though the effect of the
potion she gave would wear away, his love for Gudrun would ever fill his
heart, and that no other memory would be able to find a place there.
[Illustration]
HOW BRYNHILD WAS WON FOR GUNNAR
Now that Sigurd had wed Gudrun he was one with the Nibelungs. The hoard
that was in Fafnir's cave he brought away and he left it in their
treasure house. He went into his fosterfather's kingdom again, and he
saw King Alv and Hiordis, his mother. But he had no memory now of the
House of Flame, nor of Brynhild, who waited there for him.
King Giuki died, and Gunnar, Sigurd's sworn brother, became King in his
stead. His mother would have him wed, but Gunnar told her he had seen no
maiden whom he would choose for his wife.
But when Sigurd and he were together Gunnar would speak of a maiden far
away, one whom he often thought on. And one day when Sigurd pressed him
to tell who this maiden was, he spoke of one whom the wisest of the
poets told of, a maiden in a Hall with a flame around it, a maiden named
Brynhild who was guarded by a ring of fire.
Sigurd laughed to think that his shrewd brother was beguiled by one whom
he had only heard of. But if he was beguiled by the tale of her, why
should he not come to her and wed her? So Sigurd said. Then Gunnar bent
to him and asked Sigurd would he aid him to win her? And Sigurd took
Gunnar's hand and swore that he would.
So they started off for Hindfell, Gunnar and Högni and Sigurd. They rode
on until they came in sight of the black walls with the mounting and
circling fire around them. No memory had Sigurd of the place. With the
flame of eagerness upon his stolid face Gunnar went forward to ride
through the ring of fire. He brought Goti, his horse, near the flame,
but the horse, for no urging, would go through it. Then Gunnar thought
that, mounted on Grani, Sigurd's horse, he could ride through the ring
of fire. He mounted Grani and came near to the flaring wall. But Grani,
knowing that the one who rode him had fear of the fire, reared up and
would not go through it. Only with Sigurd on his back would Grani go
through the flame.
Then were the three sworn brethren greatly discomfited. But after they
had considered it for long Högni the Wise said: "There is a way to win
Brynhild, and that is for Sigurd to change shapes, by the magic of his
helmet, with Gunnar. Then Sigurd could ride Grani through the wall of
flame and come to Brynhild in Gunnar's shape."
So spoke Högni the Wise, and when he saw his sworn brother's gaze fixed
on him in pleading, Sigurd could not but agree to ride through the flame
and come to Brynhild in the way he said. And so by the magic of his
helmet he changed shapes with Gunnar. Then he mounted Grani and rode to
the wall of flame. And Grani, knowing that the one he bore was without
fear, rode through the flaring fire. Then Sigurd came into the courtyard
of the House of Flame. He dismounted from Grani, and he bade his horse
be still.
He went within the Hall and he saw one with a bow in her hands shooting
at a mark. She turned to him, and he saw a beautiful and stern face,
with coils of wondrous, bright-gleaming hair and eyes that were like
stars in an unventured-in sea. He thought that the arrow in her hands
had been shot through him. But it was not so. Brynhild threw down the
bow and came to him with that walk of hers that was as of one moving
above the earth. And when she came near and looked upon him she uttered
a strange cry.
"Who art thou?" she said. "Who art thou who hast come to me through the
wall of flaring fire?"
"Gunnar, son of Giuki, of the race of the Nibelungs," Sigurd said.
"Art thou the bravest one in the world?" she asked.
"I have ridden through the wall of flaring fire to come to thee," Sigurd
answered.
"He who has come through that wall of flaring fire may claim me,"
Brynhild said. "It is written in the runes, and it must be so. But I
thought there was only one who would come to me through it." She looked
at him, and her eyes had a flame of anger. "Oh, I would strive with thee
with warrior-weapons," she cried. Then Sigurd felt her strong hands upon
him, and he knew that she was striving to throw him.
They wrestled, and each was so strong that none could move the other.
They wrestled, Sigurd the first of heroes, and Brynhild, the Valkyrie.
Sigurd got her hand in his in the wrestle. On that hand was a ring, and
Sigurd bent back the finger and drew it off.
It was Andvari's ring, the ring he had placed on her finger. And when
the ring was taken off it, Brynhild sank down on her knees like one that
was strengthless.
Then Sigurd lifted her in his arms and carried her to where Grani, his
horse, was waiting. He lifted her across his horse, and he mounted
behind her and again he rode through the wall of flame. Högni and Gunnar
were waiting, Gunnar in Sigurd's shape. Brynhild did not look upon them,
but covered her face with her hands. Then Sigurd took back his own
shape, and he rode before Gunnar and Högni to the hall of the Nibelungs.
He went within, and he found Gudrun, his wife, playing with Sigmund, his
little son, and he sat beside her and he told her of all that had
befallen: how, for the sake of the sworn brotherhood, he had won
Brynhild the Valkyrie for Gunnar, and how he had striven with her and
had overcome her, and had taken off her finger the ring that he now
wore upon his own.
And even as he spoke to his wife the fume of the potion that Gudrun's
mother had given him was wearing off, and he had memories of going to
the House of Flame on a day that was not this day, and of riding through
the wall of fire in his own shape. And again, as on the night when he
drank the potion that Queen Grimhild brewed, he became as one whose wits
are astray. He stood watching his child as he played, and his wife as
she worked at her embroidery, and he was as a man in a dream.
While he was standing there Gunnar and Högni came into the hall of the
Nibelungs bringing Brynhild with them. Gudrun rose up to welcome her who
came as her brother's bride. Then did Sigurd look on Brynhild and then
did he remember all. And when he remembered all such a mighty sigh rose
from his heart as burst the links of the mail that was across his
breast.
[Illustration]
THE DEATH OF SIGURD
It happened one day that Brynhild, Gunnar's wife, now a Queen, was with
Sigurd's wife, bathing in a river. Not often they were together.
Brynhild was the haughtiest of women, and often she treated Gudrun with
disdain. Now as they were bathing together, Gudrun, shaking out her
hair, cast some drops upon Brynhild. Brynhild went from Gudrun. And
Sigurd's wife, not knowing that Brynhild had anger against her, went
after her up the stream.
"Why dost thou go so far up the river, Brynhild?" Gudrun asked.
"So that thou mayst not shake thy hair over me," answered Brynhild.
Gudrun stood still while Brynhild went up the river like a creature who
was made to be alone. "Why dost thou speak so to me, sister?" Gudrun
cried.
She remembered that from the first Brynhild had been haughty with her,
often speaking to her with harshness and bitterness. She did not know
what cause Brynhild had for this.
It was because Brynhild had seen in Sigurd the one who had ridden
through the fire for the first time, he who had awakened her by breaking
the binding of her breastplate and so drawing out of her flesh the thorn
of the Tree of Sleep. She had given him her love when she awakened on
the world. But he, as she thought, had forgotten her easily, giving his
love to this other maiden. Brynhild, with her Valkyrie's pride, was left
with a mighty anger in her heart.
"Why dost thou speak so to me, Brynhild?" Gudrun asked.
"It would be ill indeed if drops from thy hair fell on one who is so
much above thee, one who is King Gunnar's wife," Brynhild answered.
"Thou art married to a King, but not to one more valorous than my lord,"
Gudrun said.
"Gunnar is more valorous; why dost thou compare Sigurd with him?"
Brynhild said.
"He slew the Dragon Fafnir, and won for himself Fafnir's hoard," said
Gudrun.
"Gunnar rode through the ring of fire. Mayhap thou wilt tell us that
Sigurd did the like," said Brynhild.
"Yea," said Gudrun, now made angry. "It was Sigurd and not Gunnar who
rode through the ring of fire. He rode through it in Gunnar's shape, and
he took the ring off thy finger--look, it is now on mine."
And Gudrun held out her hand on which was Andvari's ring. Then Brynhild
knew, all at once, that what Gudrun said was true. It was Sigurd that
rode through the ring of fire the second as well as the first time. It
was he who had struggled with her, taking the ring off her hand and
claiming her for a bride, not for himself but for another, and out of
disdain.
Falsely had she been won. And she, one of Odin's Valkyries, had been wed
to one who was not the bravest hero in the world, and she to whom
untruth might not come had been deceived. She was silent now, and all
the pride that was in her turned to hatred of Sigurd.
She went to Gunnar, her husband, and she told him that she was so deeply
shamed that she could never be glad in his Hall again; that never would
he see her drinking wine, nor embroidering with golden threads, and
never would he hear her speaking words of kindness. And when she said
this to him she rent the web she was weaving, and she wept aloud so that
all in the hall heard her, and all marveled to hear the proud Queen cry.
Then Sigurd came to her, and he offered in atonement the whole hoard of
Fafnir. And he told her how forgetfulness of her had come upon him, and
he begged her to forgive him for winning her in falseness. But she
answered him: "Too late thou hast come to me, Sigurd. Now I have only a
great anger in my heart."
When Gunnar came she told him she would forgive him, and love him as she
had not loved him before, if he would slay Sigurd. But Gunnar would not
slay him, although Brynhild's passion moved him greatly, since Sigurd
was a sworn brother of his.
Then she went to Högni and asked him to slay Sigurd, telling him that
the whole of Fafnir's hoard would belong to the Nibelungs if Sigurd were
slain. But Högni would not slay him, since Sigurd and he were sworn
brothers.
There was one who had not sworn brotherhood with Sigurd. He was Guttorm,
Gunnar's and Högni's half-brother. Brynhild went to Guttorm. He would
not slay Sigurd, but Brynhild found that he was infirm of will and
unsteady of thought. With Guttorm, then, she would work for the slaying
of Sigurd. Her mind was fixed that he and she would no longer be in the
world of men.
She made a dish of madness for Guttorm--serpent's venom and wolf's flesh
mixed--and when he had eaten it Guttorm was crazed. Then did he listen
to Brynhild's words. And she commanded him to go into the chamber where
Sigurd slept and stab him through the body with a sword.
This Guttorm did. But Sigurd, before he gasped out his life, took Gram,
his great sword, and flung it at Guttorm and cut him in twain.
And Brynhild, knowing what deed was done, went without and came to where
Grani, Sigurd's proud horse, was standing. She stayed there with her
arms across Grani's neck, the Valkyrie leaning across the horse that was
born of Odin's horse. And Grani stood listening for some sound. He
heard the cries of Gudrun over Sigurd, and then his heart burst and he
died.
They bore Sigurd out of the Hall and Brynhild went beside where they
placed him. She took a sword and put it through her own heart. Thus died
Brynhild who had been made a mortal woman for her disobedience to the
will of Odin, and who was won to be a mortal's wife by a falseness.
They took Sigurd and his horse Grani, and his helmet and his golden
war-gear and they left all on a great painted ship. They could not but
leave Brynhild beside him, Brynhild with her wondrous hair and her stern
and beautiful face. They left the two together and launched the ship on
the sea. And when the ship was on the water they fired it, and Brynhild
once again lay in the flames.
And so Sigurd and Brynhild went together to join Baldur and Nanna in
Hela's habitation.
Gunnar and Högni came to dread the evil that was in the hoard. They took
the gleaming and glittering mass and they brought it to the river along
which, ages before, Hreidmar had his smithy and the Dwarf Andvari his
cave. From a rock in the river they cast the gold and jewels into the
water and the hoard of Andvari sank for ever beneath the waves. Then the
River Maidens had possession again of their treasure. But not for long
were they to guard it and to sing over it, for now the season that was
called the Fimbul Winter was coming over the earth, and Ragnarök, the
Twilight of the Gods, was coming to the Dwellers in Asgard.
[Illustration]
THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
Snow fell on the four quarters of the world; icy winds blew from every
side; the sun and the moon were hidden by storms. It was the Fimbul
Winter: no spring came and no summer; no autumn brought harvest or
fruit, and winter grew into winter again.
There was three years' winter. The first was called the Winter of Winds:
storms blew and snows drove down and frosts were mighty. The children of
men might hardly keep alive in that dread winter.
The second winter was called the Winter of the Sword: those who were
left alive amongst men robbed and slew for what was left to feed on;
brother fell on brother and slew him, and over all the world there were
mighty battles.
And the third winter was called the Winter of the Wolf. Then the
ancient witch who lived in Jarnvid, the Iron Wood, fed the Wolf Managarm
on unburied men and on the corpses of those who fell in battle. Mightily
grew and flourished the Wolf that was to be the devourer of Mani, the
Moon. The Champions in Valhalla would find their seats splashed with the
blood that Managarm dashed from his jaws; this was a sign to the Gods
that the time of the last battle was approaching.
A cock crew; far down in the bowels of the earth he was and beside
Hela's habitation: the rusty-red cock of Hel crew, and his crowing made
a stir in the lower worlds. In Jötunheim a cock crew, Fialar, the
crimson cock, and at his crowing the Giants aroused themselves. High up
in Asgard a cock crew, the golden cock Gullinkambir, and at his crowing
the Champions in Valhalla bestirred themselves.
A dog barked; deep down in the earth a dog barked; it was Garm, the
hound with bloody mouth, barking in Gnipa's Cave. The Dwarfs who heard
groaned before their doors of stone. The tree Ygdrassil moaned in all
its branches. There was a rending noise as the Giants moved their ship;
there was a trampling sound as the hosts of Muspelheim gathered their
horses.
But Jötunheim and Muspelheim and Hel waited tremblingly; it might be
that Fenrir the Wolf might not burst the bonds wherewith the Gods had
bound him. Without his being loosed the Gods might not be destroyed. And
then was heard the rending of the rock as Fenrir broke loose. For the
second time the Hound Garm barked in Gnipa's Cave.
Then was heard the galloping of the horses of the riders of Muspelheim;
then was heard the laughter of Loki; then was heard the blowing of
Heimdall's horn; then was heard the opening of Valhalla's five hundred
and forty doors, as eight hundred Champions made ready to pass through
each door.
Odin took council with Mimir's head. Up from the waters of the Well of
Wisdom he drew it, and by the power of the runes he knew he made the
head speak to him. Where best might the Æsir and the Vanir and the
Einherjar, who were the Champions of Midgard, meet, and how best might
they strive with the forces of Muspelheim and Jötunheim and Hel? The
head of Mimir counseled Odin to meet them on Vigard Plain and to wage
there such war that the powers of evil would be destroyed forever, even
though his own world should be destroyed with them.
The riders of Muspelheim reached Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge. Now would
they storm the City of the Gods and fill it with flame. But Bifröst
broke under the weight of the riders of Muspelheim, and they came not to
the City of the Gods.
Jörmungand, the serpent that encircles the world, reared itself up from
the sea. The waters flooded the lands, and the remnant of the world's
inhabitants was swept away. That mighty flood floated Naglfar, the Ship
of Nails that the Giants were so long building, and floated the ship of
Hel also. With Hrymer the Giant steering it, Naglfar sailed against the
Gods, with all the powers of Jötunheim aboard. And Loki steered the ship
of Hel with the Wolf Fenrir upon it for the place of the last battle.
Since Bifröst was broken, the Æsir and the Vanir, the Asyniur and the
Vana, the Einherjar and the Valkyries rode downward to Vigard through
the waters of Thund. Odin rode at the head of his Champions. His helmet
was of gold and in his hand was his spear Gungnir. Thor and Tyr were in
his company.
In Mirkvid, the Dark Forest, the Vanir stood against the host of
Muspelheim. From the broken end of the Rainbow Bridge the riders came,
all flashing and flaming, with fire before them and after them. Niörd
was there with Skadi, his Giant wife, fierce in her war-dress; Freya was
there also, and Frey had Gerda beside him as a battle-maiden. Terribly
bright flashed Surtur's sword. No sword ever owned was as bright as his
except the sword that Frey had given to Skirnir. Frey and Surtur fought;
he perished, Frey perished in that battle, but he would not have
perished if he had had in his hand his own magic sword.
And now, for the third time, Garm, the hound with blood upon his jaws,
barked. He had broken loose on the world, and with fierce bounds he
rushed toward Vigard Plain, where the Gods had assembled their powers.
Loud barked Garm. The Eagle Hræsvelgur screamed on the edge of heaven.
Then the skies were cloven, and the tree Ygdrassil was shaken in all its
roots.
To the place where the Gods had drawn up their ranks came the ship of
Jötunheim and the ship of Hel, came the riders of Muspelheim, and Garm,
the hound with blood upon his jaws. And out of the sea that now
surrounded the plain of Vigard the serpent Jörmungand came.
What said Odin to the Gods and to the Champions who surrounded him? "We
will give our lives and let our world be destroyed, but we will battle
so that these evil powers will not live after us." Out of Hel's ship
sprang Fenrir the Wolf. His mouth gaped; his lower jaw hung against the
earth, and his upper jaw scraped the sky. Against the Wolf Odin
All-Father fought. Thor might not aid him, for Thor had now to encounter
Jörmungand, the monstrous serpent.
By Fenrir the Wolf Odin was slain. But the younger Gods were now
advancing to the battle; and Vidar, the Silent God, came face to face
with Fenrir. He laid his foot on the Wolf's lower jaw, that foot that
had on the sandal made of all the scraps of leather that shoemakers had
laid by for him, and with his hands he seized the upper jaw and tore his
gullet. Thus died Fenrir, the fiercest of all the enemies of the Gods.
Jörmungand, the monstrous serpent, would have overwhelmed all with the
venom he was ready to pour forth. But Thor sprang forward and crushed
him with a stroke of his hammer Miölnir. Then Thor stepped back nine
paces. But the serpent blew his venom over him, and blinded and choked
and burnt, Thor, the World's Defender, perished.
Loki sprang from his ship and strove with Heimdall, the Warder of the
Rainbow Bridge and the Watcher for the Gods. Loki slew Heimdall and was
slain by him.
Bravely fought Tyr, the God who had sacrificed his swordhand for the
binding of the Wolf. Bravely he fought, and many of the powers of evil
perished by his strong left hand. But Garm, the hound with bloody jaws,
slew Tyr.
And now the riders of Muspelheim came down on the field. Bright and
gleaming were all their weapons. Before them and behind them went
wasting fires. Surtur cast fire upon the earth; the tree Ygdrassil took
fire and burned in all its great branches; the World Tree was wasted in
the blaze. But the fearful fire that Surtur brought on the earth
destroyed him and all his host.
The Wolf Hati caught up on Sol, the Sun; the Wolf Managarm seized on
Mani, the Moon; they devoured them; stars fell, and darkness came down
on the world.
The seas flowed over the burnt and wasted earth and the skies were dark
above the sea, for Sol and Mani were no more. But at last the seas drew
back and earth appeared again, green and beautiful. A new Sun and a new
Moon appeared in the heavens, one a daughter of Sol and the other a
daughter of Mani. No grim wolves kept them in pursuit.
Four of the younger Gods stood on the highest of the world's peaks; they
were Vidar and Vali, the sons of Odin, and Modi and Magni, the sons of
Thor. Modi and Magni found Miölnir, Thor's hammer, and with it they slew
the monsters that still raged through the world, the Hound Garm and the
Wolf Managarm.
Vidar and Vali found in the grass the golden tablets on which were
inscribed the runes of wisdom of the elder Gods. The runes told them of
a heaven that was above Asgard, of Gimli, that was untouched by Surtur's
fire. Vili and Ve, Will and Holiness, ruled in it. Baldur and Hödur came
from Hela's habitation, and the Gods sat on the peak together and held
speech with each other, calling to mind the secrets and the happenings
they had known before Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods.
Deep in a wood two of human kind were left; the fire of Surtur did not
touch them; they slept, and when they wakened the world was green and
beautiful again. These two fed on the dews of the morning; a woman and a
man they were. Lif and Lifthrasir. They walked abroad in the world, and
from them and from their children came the men and women who spread
themselves over the earth.
The End.
