_A legend of the Norsemen in which the dwarfs are made to work for
the good of mankind._
Odin was the head of all the gods. He sat upon the Air Throne and
looked down on the earth and the sea. One morning he said:
“The earth is very beautiful, but the men on it are very idle and
stupid. I see dwarfs who play tricks with the farmers. I see a
farmer sowing wheat, and a dwarf comes after him and changes the
wheat into stones. I see two ugly dwarfs who are holding the head
of a wise man under water until he is dead. They are mixing his
blood with honey and putting it into stone jars. I will attend to
them this very day.” And so he called Flying Word and sent him down
to earth to make all the dwarfs come before him.
The dwarfs were very frightened when they came before Odin. He was
powerful and big, and they were tiny and weak. But they were not
scared long, and began to scamper and dance and laugh right in his
face. Odin frowned and looked very fiercely at them. There were,
however, a few good little dwarfs who looked very serious. Odin
spoke to the dwarfs who were drowning the wise man.
“Whose blood was that you were mixing with honey and putting into
jars?” The dwarfs clapped their hands.
“Oh, that was Kvasir, who was so wise. We found him lying in a
meadow, drowned in his own wisdom!”
But Odin knew that they had killed the wise man, and so he sent all
those bad dwarfs away down into the earth. He made some of them put
fuel on the earth’s fires, and he made the others dig in the gold
and diamond mines. They might come up at night, but by daybreak
they had to go back to their underground work. And so the dwarfs
scampered off and burrowed in the ground.
The good little dwarfs hung around, weeping and wailing by turns
like “a morning shower.”
“We have never done anybody any harm; let us stay on the earth; we
will be very good,” they begged and promised. And Odin said: “You
must help then with the flowers and insects and wild bees, and help
the farmers, or down you go, too.”
“If we only had some one to teach us,” said they. “We are such tiny
foolish little people!” Odin looked at them a while, and then sent
Niord out to find them a teacher. Niord left the great hall and
went out and sat on the side of a mountain. He whistled for a long
time a low sweet note, and then out of the sky came two forms--a
brother and sister--one named Frey and the other Freyja. Summer and
Beauty were their other names. Niord brought Frey to Odin and said:
“Here is my son, the genius of sunshine and flowers, and forests
and harvests. He will teach the dwarfs to work.”
Odin liked the gentle Frey and said: “It is well. Take your little
people away and put them to work.” And so began the work of all the
dwarfs and they are working to this very day.