s the North
Sea towards Isenland, or whether along the narrow channel between
Britain-land and the main. While he paused, uncertain where to turn,
he saw the pale-haired daughters of old AEgir, the white-veiled Waves,
playing in the moonlight near the shore. Of them he asked the way to
AEgir's hall.

"Seven days' journey westward," said they, "beyond the green Isle of
Erin, is our father's hall. Seven days' journey northward, on the bleak
Norwegian shore, is our father's hall."

And they stopped not once in their play, but rippled and danced on the
shelving beach, or dashed with force against the shore.

"Where is your mother Ran, the Queen of the Ocean?" asked Loki.

And they answered,--

"In the deep sea-caves
By the sounding shore,
In the dashing waves
When the wild storms roar,
In her cold green bowers
In the northern fiords,
She lurks and she glowers,
She grasps and she hoards,
And she spreads her strong net for her prey."

Loki waited to hear no more; but he sprang into the air, and the magic
shoes carried him onwards over the water in search of the Ocean-queen.
He had not gone far when his sharp eyes espied her, lurking near a rocky
shore against which the breakers dashed with frightful fury. Half hidden
in the deep dark water, she lay waiting and watching; and she spread her
cunning net upon the waves, and reached out with her long greedy fingers
to seize whatever booty might come near her.

When the wary queen saw Loki, she hastily drew in her net, and tried to
hide herself in the shadows of an overhanging rock. But Loki called her
by name, and said,--

"Sister Ran, fear not! I am your friend Loki, whom once you served as a
guest in AEgir's gold-lit halls."

Then the Ocean-queen came out into the bright moonlight, and welcomed
Loki to her domain, and asked, "Why does Loki thus wander so far from
Asgard, and over the trackless waters?"

And Loki answered, "I have heard of the net which you spread upon the
waves, and from which no creature once caught in its meshes can ever
escape. I have found a salmon where the Rhine-spring gushes from beneath
the mountains, and a very cunning salmon he is for no common skill can
catch him. Come, I pray, with your wondrous net, and cast it into the
stream where he lies. Do but take the wary fish for me, and you shall
have more gold than you have taken in a year from the wrecks of stranded
vessels."

"I dare not go,