ghts
the sparks never stopped flying from his forge; and the ringing of his
anvil, and the hissing of the hot metal as he tempered it, were heard
continuously. On the eighth day the sword was fashioned, and Siegfried
brought it to Mimer.

The smith felt the razor-edge of the bright weapon, and said, "This
seems, indeed, a fair fire-edge. Let us make a trial of its keenness."

Then a thread of wool as light as thistle-down was thrown upon water,
and, as it floated there, Mimer struck it with the sword. The glittering
blade cleft the slender thread in twain, and the pieces floated
undisturbed upon the surface of the liquid.

"Well done!" cried the delighted smith. "Never have I seen a keener
edge. If its temper is as true as its sharpness would lead us to
believe, it will indeed serve me well."

But Siegfried took the sword again, and broke it into many pieces; and
for three days he welded it in a white-hot fire, and tempered it with
milk and oatmeal. Then, in sight of Mimer and the sneering apprentices,
he cast a light ball of fine-spun wool upon the flowing water of the
brook; and it was caught in the swift eddies of the stream, and whirled
about until it met the bared blade of the sword, which was held in
Mimer's hands. And it was parted as easily and clean as the rippling
water, and not the smallest thread was moved out of its place.

Then back to the smithy Siegfried went again; and his forge glowed with
a brighter fire, and his hammer rang upon the anvil with a cheerier
sound, than ever before. But he suffered none to come near, and no
one ever knew what witchery he used. But some of his fellow-pupils
afterwards told how, in the dusky twilight, they had seen a one-eyed
man, long-bearded, and clad in a cloud-gray kirtle, and wearing a
sky-blue hood, talking with Siegfried at the smithy door. And they said
that the stranger's face was at once pleasant and fearful to look upon,
and that his one eye shone in the gloaming like the evening star, and
that, when he had placed in Siegfried's hands bright shards, like pieces
of a broken sword, he faded suddenly from their sight, and was seen no
more.

For seven weeks the lad wrought day and night at his forge; and then,
pale and haggard, but with a pleased smile upon his face, he stood
before Mimer, with the gleaming sword in his hands. "It is finished," he
said. "Behold the glittering terror!--the blade Balmung. Let us try its
edge, and prove its temper once again, th