Part 23 (2/2)

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 s.h.i.+ning 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 n.o.ble 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 Ygdra.s.sil, and the day of Ragnarok 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 pa.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 s.h.i.+eld, a great s.h.i.+eld of iron. Hammered out on that s.h.i.+eld 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.

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