youth was a match for a score of men, and Hiordis, his mother, saw
the blue flame of his eyes and thought to herself that his way through
the world would be as the way of the eagle through the air.

Having shown himself before the Hall, Sigurd dismounted from Grani, and
stroked and caressed him with his hands and told him that now he might
go back and take pasture with the herd. The proud horse breathed fondly
over Sigurd and bounded away.

Then Sigurd strode on until he came to the hut in the forest where he
worked with the cunning smith Regin. No one was in the hut when he
entered. But over the anvil, in the smoke of the smithy fire, there was
a work of Regin's hands. Sigurd looked upon it, and a hatred for the
thing that was shown rose up in him.

The work of Regin's hands was a shield, a great shield of iron. Hammered
out on that shield and colored with red and brown colors was the image
of a Dragon, a Dragon lengthening himself out of a cave. Sigurd thought
it was the image of the most hateful thing in the world, and the light
of the smithy fire falling on it, and the smoke of the smithy fire
rising round it, made it seem verily a Dragon living in his own element
of fire and reek.

While he was still gazing on the loathly image, Regin, the cunning
smith, came into the smithy. He stood by the wall and he watched Sigurd.
His back was bent; his hair fell over his eyes that were all fiery, and
he looked like a beast that runs behind the hedges.

"Aye, thou dost look on Fafnir the Dragon, son of the Volsungs," he said
to Sigurd. "Mayhap it is thou who wilt slay him."

"I would not strive with such a beast. He is all horrible to me," Sigurd
said.

"With a good sword thou mightst slay him and win for thyself more renown
than ever thy fathers had," Regin whispered.

"I shall win renown as my fathers won renown, in battle with men and in
conquest of kingdoms," Sigurd said.

"Thou art not a true Volsung or thou wouldst gladly go where most danger
and dread is," said Regin. "Thou hast heard of Fafnir the Dragon, whose
image I have wrought here. If thou dost ride to the crest of the hills
thou mayst look across to the desolate land where Fafnir has his haunt.
Know that once it was fair land where men had peace and prosperity, but
Fafnir came and made his den in a cave near by, and his breathings as he
went to and came from the River withered up the land and made it the
barren waste that men called Gnita Heath. Now,