lifted her from the ground and has laid her across her horse's saddle
as if she were dead; she leaps upon his back and they are galloping
away like the wind. The Father of the Gods has avenged the broken
promise; he has killed the hero whom he loved, and now he turns for one
moment toward the robber whom he has helped to win the fight. Only once
the god waves his hand toward him and the robber falls dead; he will
fight and kill brave men no more. But a harder task than all is to come
for the Father of the Gods; how shall he deal with his own daughter,
who has disobeyed him?
"The fire is burning a little better now, but it does not yet seem to
be quite on good terms with the wind outside. The smoke is going up
again instead of down, and that is an improvement. It rises in sudden
puffs and flurries, like clouds flying across the sky after a storm.
The shadows of the clouds fall upon a mountain height, a rugged, rocky,
wild, beautiful place, where the daughters of the god are meeting to
ride home together with the heroes they have brought from some field of
battle. Now and then, as the quick flames leap up into the smoke, I can
see another and another coming, riding on her flying horse, racing with
the driving wind and the hurrying clouds, each with her warrior lying
before her across her saddle, and so alighting here and joining her
sisters. They are all here at last except the one Daughter of the God
whom we have seen before, and now she comes, but she brings no warrior
across her saddle, only the poor woman with whom she fled from the
fight.
"She tells her sisters how she has disobeyed their father, and she begs
them to protect her and the woman against his anger. They dare not help
her; never has one of them done anything that was not his will. What
can she do? He is coming in pursuit of her; sooner or later he must
find her, but she may at least save the woman. She bids her flee alone
while she waits with her sisters for her father and her punishment to
come. Far away, she tells her, there is a deep forest, and in the
forest is a cave where the horrible dragon that was once the giant
keeps and guards his treasure. So much does the Father of the Gods
dread the curse that the wicked dwarf laid upon the ring, and the doom
which he knows is coming to himself because of his own sin, that he
never wanders there. To this forest she must go, and there she may find
a refuge. The Daughter of the God gives the woman the fragments of the
broken magic sword, which she has brought with her from the field of
the fight, and bids her go.
"And now, with angry lightnings flashing all around him, comes the
Father of the Gods. Never before has he been shaken by such a storm as
this. His daughter whom he loved more than all the others, has
disobeyed him. Never before has she done anything but that which it was
his will that she should do. Now she has known his will, she has heard
his command, and she has broken it. She stands before him, sorrowful,
but still calm, stern, and placid, and asks what is to be her
punishment. She has brought her doom upon herself, he answers, and now
she must be a war goddess no more, but only a woman. He must kiss her
once, and all the strength and the valor and the pride of the goddess
will be gone. Then she will sink to sleep, and here on this rocky
mountain height she must lie till some man comes and awakes her, and
she must be a woman only and his wife.
"Very dreadful this seems to the poor war goddess, but it is because
she has never been a woman, and does not know much about women. To me
it does not seem dreadful at all. It is much better and sweeter and
nobler, I believe, to be the best that a woman can be than the
strongest and greatest and proudest that a goddess can be. And I hope
you will always remember what we see here in the fire to-night, and if
you ever feel that there is any danger of your being a goddess, or if
anybody ever tells you that you are one, then let somebody kiss you and
make you a woman.
"But to one who has so long been used to wearing armor and riding
through the air, and choosing the bravest of the fallen heroes, and
bearing them to the castle of the gods, the change may well seem hard
to suffer at first. So the Daughter of the God thinks that no heavier
punishment could have been found for her. Her sisters think so, too,
and they beg their father to have mercy on her, but he sternly bids
them be silent and to leave him. Now the Daughter of the God tells him
how she tried to do what he would have her do; she knew that he loved
the hero and hated the robber, and that his command to her was given
unwillingly; she hoped to gain for him the wish of his heart, in spite
of his words, and she threw her shield over the hero.
"It is useless; he cannot stay her punishment now, but his anger is all
gone and he is filled with sorrow like her own. He loves her still,
more than any other daughter, and now he will never have her beside him
in the halls of the gods again, never again see her ride to the battle,
never see her return with brave men to guard his house, never again
speak to her as he could to no other, and tell her all that is in his
heart, never again see her glad, deep, answering eyes look into his,
full of sympathy and help. One thing yet she begs: if all that they
have been to each other, the god and his daughter, must be no more, if
she must sleep and wait here for an unknown husband to wake her, she
prays him to set some guard around her, a wall of fire, that no one but
a brave man, the bravest of men, may win her for his bride.
"Yes, he will do this; she shall be shut in by fire and none shall ever
come to her but the bravest of heroes, one who knows no fear at all. No
one who fears even his own terrible spear, that spear which broke the
magic sword that he himself had made, shall ever awake her who was his
daughter, and now is to be his daughter no more. He draws her to him
for one last time; he kisses her lips and they are silent; he kisses
her eyes and they close. He lays her on a bank of soft moss; he closes
her helmet and covers her with her shield. Near by her horse lies upon
the ground asleep too; the flowers among the grass and in the crevices
of the rocks droop their drowsy heads; the winds as they pass make no
noise. He touches the point of his spear to the ground. Instantly the
fire springs up; it makes a fierce, raging ring around the rock; surely
only one who knows no fear can ever pass it. The Father of the Gods is
gone. Now we can see nothing but the fire streaming up and exulting in
its life and its hot defiance of all but the bravest; but there in the
midst of it lies the Daughter of the God, asleep till her lover shall
call her with a kiss to come with him and be a woman."
The little girl's mother had come into the room and had heard the last
of the story. "Isn't it time," she said, "that the daughter of somebody
else was asleep, too, if she wants to grow to be a woman?"
"It is late," I had to admit. "Well, the Daughter of the God is safe
for the present. Perhaps some other time, when we have a better-behaved
fire, we may see something of the lover."
THE HERO WHO KNEW NO FEAR
"Don't you think the fire is very good to-night?" the little girl
asked.
"Yes, it is certainly very good indeed," I admitted.
"I should think," she said, "that anybody that could see things in
fires might see very nice things in this one."
When she who might command deigns thus delicately to make a mere
suggestion, it is the part both of chivalry and of loyalty to obey. I
should feel that having my head chopped off was altogether too good for
me if I hesitated at such a time. "Come," I said, "and let us see what
the fire really looks like. What does it look like to you?"
"Oh, it doesn't look like anything at all to me, only just the fire.
What does it to you?"
"It looks like a fire to me too, but it is the fire of a smith's forge.
The place where it is looks half like a room and half like a cavern. It
is all of rocks, but there is the forge and there are the chimney and
the anvil and the bellows and all sorts of smith's tools."
"You can see things all around the fire, just the same as in it, can't
you?" said the child.
"Oh, to be sure; when I want to see these things that make themselves
into stories, I can see them almost anywhere, only I think the fire is
a particularly good place. And who do you think is working at the
forge? It is an ugly little dwarf, the very one whom we saw the other
night, who made the magic helmet, the brother of the one who stole the
treasure from the river nymphs. You remember he was a clever smith,
else he never could have made that wonderful helmet. Now he is at work
here trying to make a sword. And he does make a sword too, but he does
not seem pleased with it when it is finished, and he leaves off his
work and sits down, with a very dissatisfied, sulky, ugly look in his
face.
"It would be hard for anybody to look more unlike the dwarf than the
person I see now coming into the cave. He is a boy, or perhaps he would
rather be called a young man, and I shall be glad to call him whatever
he likes. He is dressed in skins and wears a little silver horn at his
side. If the dwarf is short and ugly, he is tall and handsome; if the
dwarf's face has a scowl of wicked hatred and cunning, his has a smile
that beams with kindliness and candor; if the dwarf is old and crooked
and rough and hairy, he is young and straight and graceful and fair. In
short, you surely never saw a young man who looked more free, happy,
generous, noble, strong, and bold than he. It makes one more good-
humored to look at him, and the sunlight follows him straight into the
cave. Something else follows him too, for he is leading a big brown
bear by a cord twisted around its neck. He sends the bear at the dwarf,
who screams and runs away in terror. The young man seems to have caught
the bear in the woods just to frighten the dwarf, and he lets it go
again when the dwarf tells him that the sword is finished and ready for
him. He takes the sword and looks at it scornfully. It is good for
nothing, he says. He strikes it upon the anvil and breaks it into a
dozen pieces. He is a little particular about his swords; he does not
like them unless he can chop anvils with them.
"Before we try to see any more, perhaps I ought to tell you something
about this wonderful youth and why he lives here in the cave with the
dwarf. He was born here. This is the forest where the treasure is
hidden that was paid to the giants for building the castle of the gods.
It is guarded, as you know, by the giant who killed his brother so that
he might have the whole of it, and he has changed himself into a
horrible dragon, by the magic helmet, so that he may guard it better.
The young man's mother was the woman whom the Daughter of the God sent
away into this forest to save her from the anger of the Father of the
Gods, as you remember. She took refuge here in the dwarf's cave and she
died soon after her son was born, and then the dwarf kept the boy and
brought him up. But it was not because he cared for him at all or had
the least kindly feeling for anybody. It was just because he wanted, as
so many others wanted, that rich treasure and the magic helmet and the
magic ring with the curse upon it.
"Now, you see, the boy's mother gave him the pieces of the broken magic
sword and told him to keep them for the boy. He knew something about
the sword and so he got it into his head that this was the very sword
that would sometime kill that dragon. And since this boy was to have
the sword, he thought, too, that he might very likely grow up to be the
man who would kill the dragon. Do you see, then, why he has kept him
and fed him and brought him up so carefully? It was just because he was
so cunning and cruel and selfish that he took good care of the boy. He
knew very well that he himself would never dare to go near enough to
that dragon for it to breathe on him, but he thought: 'Some day I will
give this boy the magic sword and make him go and kill the monster with
it, and then I will kill him and get all the treasure, with the helmet
and the ring, and then I shall be the ruler of all the dwarfs, of men,
of the gods themselves, and of the whole world.'
[Illustration: "THE SUNLIGHT FOLLOWS HIM STRAIGHT INTO THE CAVE."]
"So the baby that the dwarf took and tended at first has grown to be
this noble, brave, generous young man, and he hates the dwarf as anyone
as good and strong as he must hate anything so cowardly and mean and
wicked. All these years the dwarf has never told him anything about his
mother or how he came to be living with him here in the cave. But now
of a sudden the young man asks the dwarf some questions and shows that
he means to treat him very roughly if he does not answer them. So the
dwarf tells him a little of what I have told you, and to prove that
what he says about his mother is true he shows him the pieces of the
broken sword.
"The young man gets interested in these at once, you may be sure. 'That
was a good sword,' he cries; 'that is the sword I must have; mend it
for me, dwarf, and mend it quickly. I will go into the forest, and, if
it is not done when I come back, you shall be sorry that you worked so
badly.'
"Then away he goes to play with the bears, perhaps, in the forest. Now
you can be quite sure that the dwarf has not kept that broken sword all
these years without ever trying to mend it. He has tried many times,
and he can no more put the pieces together than he can look as handsome
as the fiery youth who has just left him here frightened half to death.
So he simply sits down and lets himself get more frightened till he
looks up and finds that he has a visitor.
"The visitor is a tall old man whom he does not know, but I know him;
he is the Father of the Gods. He asks the dwarf to let him sit down and
rest, but the dwarf is even more ill-natured than usual and bids him go
away and not trouble him. The Father of the Gods replies that he might
perhaps tell the dwarf something that would be of use to him if he
would let him stay. Now you see what a good chance this would be for
the dwarf to ask how to mend the broken sword, but he is so cross and
surly that he thinks of nothing but how to be as disagreeable as
possible, so he says that he knows all that he needs to know and does
not care to learn from anybody. But the Father of the Gods persists; he
will give the dwarf his head, he says, if he cannot answer any three
questions that he may ask him. This pleases the dwarf, for he thinks it
would be a pleasure to him to cut off somebody's head. 'What people,
then,' he asks for his first question, 'live under the ground?'
"'The dwarfs,' says the stranger; 'one of them had a ring once, by
which he ruled all the others.'
"'And what people,' asks the dwarf, 'live upon the mountains?'
"'The giants; one of them, in the form of a dragon, has the ring now.'
"'And who live up among the clouds?'
"'The gods,' says the stranger, 'and the Father of the Gods has a spear
with which he rules the world.'
"As he says that, he lets the end of the spear which he carries drop
upon the ground and instantly there is a peal of thunder.
"'Now,' says the stranger, 'as I have saved my head, you must pledge me
yours to answer the three questions which I shall ask. Who is the
strongest of heroes whom the Father of the Gods loves?'
"The dwarf answers that he thinks it must be the son of the woman who
died long ago in the forest, who will kill the dragon and win the
treasure. This is a good answer, and the stranger asks again: 'What
sword must he use to kill the dragon?'
"What easy questions these are, to be sure! The dwarf says at once:
'The magic sword that the Father of the Gods made.'
"Now the stranger looks stern and says: 'But who shall mend the sword
that it may be fit for the fight?'
"At this the dwarf is frightened indeed. He cries out in terror that he
cannot do it, he knows no better smith than himself, and he does not
see how it can be done. 'Then you should have asked me that,' says the
stranger, 'instead of foolish questions about things that you knew
already. Yet I will tell you: as none but the best of heroes could pull
that sword out of the tree where it once stuck, so now none but a hero
who knows no fear can put its broken pieces together. Your poor head,
which belongs to me, I will leave to the same hero, and so good-by.'
"The dwarf falls upon the ground in a trembling heap, and so the young
man finds him when he comes back to ask if he has yet mended the sword.
'I can never mend it,' he cries. 'Have you ever known fear?'
"'Fear?' he answers; 'no, what is fear? Is it something I ought to know
how to do, something you ought to have taught me and have not? Is it a
pleasant thing to have or to know or to do? What is it like?'
"'I cannot teach you fear,' says the dwarf, 'but I know one who can, or
else you never can learn it. It is the dragon that lives in the cave at
the end of the wood. I will take you to him and if he will not teach
you fear then you may kill him.'
"'Very well,' says the young man, 'I will go; but first mend the sword
for me; I shall need it.'
"'I cannot mend it for you.' the dwarf answers; 'only one who does not
know how to fear can do that.'
"'Then I must do it myself,' says the young man, and he sets about it
at once.
"The fire on that forge has never been so hot and the fire here on our
hearth has never been so bright as now when the young man who knows no
fear blows the bellows. While the coals under that eager blast shine
redder and redder and then whiter and whiter he begins filing the
pieces of the sword to powder. The dwarf cries out to him that that is
not the way to mend a sword; but this is not a common sword, and the
dwarf has shown well enough already that he knows nothing about mending
it. So the young smith pays no attention to him, but goes on with his
work. In mending magic swords, just as in some other things, knowing
how at the start does not count for so much as not knowing any fear.
"So without any fear the young man melts the filings of the sword with
the splendid fire which you can surely see just as well as anybody, and
pours the melted metal into a mould of the shape of a sword blade. By
this time the dwarf has found that it is of no use to interrupt him and
has begun to think about his own work. When the dragon has been killed,
he thinks, the hero will be hot and tired, and then he will offer him
something to drink. It will be poison, the hero will die, and then he,
the poor dwarf, who has worked and waited all these years for this day,
will have all the treasure, with the magic helmet and the ring. So he
sets himself to brewing the poison by the very same fire that the young
man is using to forge his sword.
"And now the young man has heated the sword again and shaped it with
hammers and cooled it with water, he is sharpening and polishing the
blade and fitting it to the hilt, and now at last he holds it in his
hand and it is done. He has forged the magic sword and has proved his
right; he is the true hero, the hero who knows no fear. And is there
any thing that such a hero loves better than a good sword? Yes, to be
sure; but to this hero the time for that has not come yet, and he has
never felt such delight as fills him now when he looks along the
bright, smooth, keen edge of this blade. Oh, the sword was not like
this before it was broken. Sometimes people say that beautiful polished
things are like mirrors, but this sword is like a flame. It burns and
twinkles as he holds it and turns it in his hand. I can scarcely see of
what shape it is, for now it shines like a straight beam of light, now,
as he twists it, there is a flash in a half circle, like a scymitar,
and again the point alone gleams out and flashes, as if it would find
its own way to the heart of a foe, with no hand to guide it. He swings
the sword above his head, as he did the other that the dwarf made for
him, and strikes it upon the anvil. And this time the anvil falls in
two as if it were made of paper, and the sword glitters and shines and
shimmers in the joy of its magic sharpness and strength.
"Now that the sword is ready, the dwarf leads the young man away
through the woods, a long journey, to a place where he has never been
before, to find the dragon. You see that deep, dark hole under the
sticks; that is the dragon's cave in the side of the mountain. Just a
little light shines at the very bottom of it, where the dragon is
resting and breathing out fire. 'There is his hole,' says the dwarf;
'just wait here till he comes out and then kill him, Look out for his
teeth or he will catch you and eat you; be careful about his breath,
for it is fiery and poisonous; beware of his tail, for he may wind it
around you and crush you.'
"'I do not care for his teeth or his breath or his tail,' says the
young man; 'I only want to find his heart. Leave me here, and never let
me see you again.'
"The dwarf goes away and the young man sits down on the grass to wait
for the dragon. You see, since he knows nothing at all about fear it
does not seem to him such a great thing to kill a dragon. He does not
care much whether he kills it or not, and he is in no hurry about it.
So he sits on the grass and looks at the gray old rocks and the bright
young flowers about him, sees the golden sunlight falling in little
spots and flecks through the branches, feels the cool, fresh morning
air, and hears the soft rustle of the trees and the singing of the
birds. Most of all, he listens to the birds that flutter about in the
branches above him, as the sparks hover over the fire there, before
they fly away up the chimney, and in particular to one bird, right over
his head in the tree. It sings so loudly and so clearly that it seems
to be talking to him, only, of course, he cannot understand what it
says. He has wished for a long time that he might have some better
company than the ugly dwarf, and he thinks now that he should like to
talk with the bird.
"If he cannot understand the bird, perhaps the next best thing would be
to make the bird understand him, so he makes a pipe out of a reed and
tries to play upon it something like the bird's song. I don't know what
he thinks he is saying to the bird with his reed, and he seems not much
pleased with it himself, for he throws it away and blows a ringing,
echoing blast on his horn instead. And now he gets an answer, for this
time he has awakened the dragon, and it comes out of its cave to see
what is making so much noise so early in the morning.
"Oh, but it is an ugly-looking monster! It is something like a snake,
but more like a giant lizard. It has scales all over its body and it
has a long, shiny tail. It walks clumsily, because its legs are too
small for it, and writhes and wriggles itself along, raising its head
now and then to look about, and breathing out red fire and black smoke
like a blast from a furnace. When its poisonous breath has blown this
smoke away for an instant, it shows two rows of teeth like knives and a
long forked tongue like a snake's, and its jaws are opened wide enough
to take the young man into them and bite him into a dozen pieces at one
snap. Surely if he is ever to learn what fear is now is his chance.
"He sees all this just as plainly as I see it here in the fire; but do
you think he is afraid? Why, he simply laughs at the monster. 'A
pleasant-looking fellow you are,' he says; 'can you teach me what fear
is? If you cannot, I shall prick you with my sword to make you think
about it.'
"Now, this dragon can talk just as well as it could when it was a
giant, so it begins to get angry and tells the impudent young man to
come on and see what he can do with his little tailor's needle of a
sword. He does not have to be asked twice, and in a minute there is
just as lively a fight as you ever saw. The dragon tries to breathe
fire upon the hero and scorch him up to a black cinder, but he does not
want to be a cinder and he runs around to the dragon's side. Then the
dragon tries to catch him with its long slimy tail, so that it may
crush him to a jelly, but he does not want to be a jelly either, so as
soon as the tail comes near enough he gives it a terrible wound with
his sword, and then runs back in front of the dragon. The monster gives
a dreadful roar as it feels the wound, and raises its head and breast
high up in the air, striking at the hero with its long, sharp claws and
trying to throw the whole weight of its body upon him. This is just
what he has been watching for, and as the dragon lifts itself before
him he drives his sword clear through its heart.
"Then he springs lightly away again, as the dragon, with another
horrible bellow, falls down and rolls over upon its side. 'It is the
curse of the ring that has killed me,' says the dragon, as it dies; 'my
treasure is there in the cave; you can take it now, bold boy, but the
curse of the ring will bring death to you, as it has brought it to me.'