chief-maker. Loki trembled, and dropped his goblet, and sank down
upon his knees before the terrible Asa.

"I yield me!" he cried. "Spare my life, I pray you, and I will be your
thrall forever!"

"I want no such thrall," answered Thor. "And I spare your life on one
condition only,--that you go at once from hence, and nevermore presume
to come into the company of Asa-folk."

"I promise all that you ask," said Loki, trembling more than ever. "Let
me go."

Thor stepped aside; and the frightened culprit fled from the hall, and
was soon out of sight. The feast was broken up. The folk bade AEgir a
kind farewell, and all embarked on Frey's good ship Skidbladner; and
fair winds wafted them swiftly home to Asgard.

Loki fled to the dark mountain gorges of Mist Land, and sought for a
while to hide himself from the sight of both gods and men. In a deep
ravine by the side of a roaring torrent, he built himself a house of
iron and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he
could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he lived
in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle the gods,
and regain his old place in Asgard. And now and then he slipped slyly
away from his hiding-place, and wrought much mischief for a time among
the abodes of men. But when Thor heard of his evil-doings, and sought
to catch him, and punish him for his evil deeds, he was nowhere to be
found. And at last the Asa-folk determined, that, if he could ever be
captured, the safety of the world required that he should be bound hand
and foot, and kept forever in prison.

Loki often amused himself in his mountain home by taking upon him his
favorite form of a salmon, and lying listlessly, beneath the waters
of the great Fanander Cataract, which fell from the shelving rocks a
thousand feet above him. One day while thus lying, he bethought himself
of former days, when he walked the glad young earth in company with
the All-Father. And among other things he remembered how he had once
borrowed the magic net of Ran, the Ocean-queen, and had caught with it
the dwarf Andvari, disguised, as he himself now was, in the form of a
slippery salmon.

"I will make me such a net!" he cried. "I will make it strong and good;
and I, too, will fish for men."

So he took again his proper shape, and went back to his cheerless home
in the ravine. And he gathered flax and wool and long hemp, and spun
yarn and strong cords, and wove