and opened the door.

"Have I won the hundred dollars?" said he, and the neighbour was obliged
to own that he had.

THE DWARF-SWORD TIRFING.

Suaforlami, the second in descent from Odin, was king over Gardarike
(Russia). One day he rode a-hunting, and sought long after a hart, but
could not find one the whole day. When the sun was setting, he found
himself plunged so deep in the forest that he knew not where he was. On
his right hand he saw a hill, and before it he saw two dwarfs. He drew
his sword against them, and cut off their retreat by getting between
them and the rock. They offered him ransom for their lives, and he asked
them their names, and they said that one of them was called Dyren and
the other Dualin. Then he knew that they were the most ingenious and the
most expert of all the dwarfs, and he therefore demanded that they
should make for him a sword, the best that they could form. Its hilt was
to be of gold, and its belt of the same metal. He moreover commanded
that the sword should never miss a blow, should never rust, that it
should cut through iron and stone as through a garment, and that it
should always be victorious in war and in single combat. On these
conditions he granted the dwarfs their lives.

At the time appointed he came, and the dwarfs appearing, they gave him
the sword. When Dualin stood at the door, he said--

"This sword shall be the bane of a man every time it is drawn, and with
it shall be perpetrated three of the greatest atrocities, and it will
also prove thy bane."

Suaforlami, when he heard that, struck at the dwarf, so that the blade
of the sword penetrated the solid rock. Thus Suaforlami became possessed
of this sword, and he called it Tirfing. He bore it in war and in single
combat, and with it he slew the giant Thiasse, whose daughter Fridur he
took.

Suaforlami was soon after slain by the Berserker Andgrim, who then
became master of the sword. When the twelve sons of Andgrim were to
fight with Hialmar and Oddur for Ingaborg, the beautiful daughter of
King Inges, Angantyr bore the dangerous Tirfing, but all the brethren
were slain in the combat, and were buried with their arms.

Angantyr left an only daughter, Hervor, who, when she grew up, dressed
herself in man's attire, and took the name of Hervardar, and joined a
party of Vikinger, or pirates. Knowing that Tirfing lay buried with her
father, she determined to awaken the dead, and obtain the charmed blade.
She