t the smooth cord
and showed it to Fenrir.

"It is stronger than you might think, Mighty One," they said. "Will you
not let it go upon you that we may see you break it?"

Fenrir out of his fiery eyes looked scorn upon them. "What fame would
there be for me," he said, "in breaking such a binding?"

They showed him that none in their company could break it, slender as it
was. "Thou only art able to break it, Mighty One," they said.

"The cord is slender, but there may be an enchantment in it," Fenrir
said.

"Thou canst not break it, Fenrir, and we need not dread thee any more,"
the Gods said.

Then was the Wolf ravenous wroth, for he lived on the fear that he made
in the minds of the Gods. "I am loth to have this binding upon me," he
said, "but if one of the AEsir will put his hand in my mouth as a pledge
that I shall be freed of it, I will let ye put it on me."

The Gods looked wistfully on one another. It would be health to them all
to have Fenrir bound, but who would lose his hand to have it done? One
and then another of the AEsir stepped backward. But not Tyr, the brave
swordsman. He stepped to Fenrir and laid his left hand before those
tremendous jaws.

"Not thy left hand--thy swordhand, O Tyr," growled Fenrir, and Tyr put
his swordhand into that terrible mouth.

Then the cord Gleipnir was put upon Fenrir. With fiery eyes he watched
the Gods bind him. When the binding was on him he stretched himself as
before. He stretched himself to a monstrous size but the binding did not
break off him. Then with fury he snapped his jaws upon the hand, and
Tyr's hand, the swordsman's hand, was torn off.

But Fenrir was bound. They fixed a mighty chain to the fetter, and they
passed the chain through a hole they bored through a great rock. The
monstrous Wolf made terrible efforts to break loose, but the rock and
the chain and the fetter held. Then seeing him secured, and to avenge
the loss of Tyr's hand, the Gods took Tyr's sword and drove it to the
hilt through his underjaw. Horribly the Wolf howled. Mightily the foam
flowed down from his jaws. That foam flowing made a river that is called
Von--a river of fury that flowed on until Ragnaroek came, the Twilight of
the Gods.

[Illustration]

BALDUR'S DOOM

In Asgard there were two places that meant strength and joy to the AEsir
and the Vanir: one was the garden where grew the apples that Iduna
gathered, and the other was the Peace Stead, where, in a palace cal