corn, and purple bloom to the
grapes, as he passed through fields and vineyards.

When he rode along in his car, drawn by the stately boar, Golden
Bristles, soft winds blew before him, filling the air with fragrance and
spreading abroad the news, "Van Frey is coming!" and every half-closed
flower burst into perfect beauty, and forest, and field, and hill
flushed their richest colors to greet his presence.

Under Frey's care and instruction the pretty little light elves forgot
their idle ways and learned all the pleasant tasks he had promised to
teach them. It was the prettiest possible sight to see them in the
evening filling their tiny buckets, and running about among the woods
and meadows to hang the dew-drops deftly on the slender tips of the
grass-blades, or to drop them into the half-closed cups of the sleepy
flowers. When this last of their day's tasks was over they used to
cluster round their summer-king, like bees about the queen, while he
told them stories about the wars between the Aesir and the giants, or of
the old time when he lived alone with his father Nioerd, in Noatun, and
listened to the waves singing songs of far distant lands. So pleasantly
did they spend their time in Alfheim.

But in the midst of all this work and play Frey had a wish in his mind,
of which he could not help often talking to his clear-minded messenger
and friend Skirnir. "I have seen many things," he used to say, "and
traveled through many lands; but to see all the world at once, as Asa
Odin does from Air Throne, _that_ must be a splendid sight."

"Only Father Odin may sit on Air Throne," Skirnir would say; and it
seemed to Frey that this answer was not so much to the purpose as his
friend's sayings generally were.

At length, one very clear summer evening, when Odin was feasting with
the other Aesir in Valhalla, Frey could restrain his curiosity no
longer. He left Alfheim, where all the little elves were fast asleep,
and, without asking any one's advice, climbed into Air Throne, and stood
on tiptoe in Odin's very seat. It was a clear evening, and I had,
perhaps, better not even try to tell you what Frey saw.

He looked first all round him over Manheim, where the rosy light of the
set sun still lingered, and where men, and birds, and flowers were
gathering themselves up for their night's repose; then he glanced
towards the heavenly hills where Bifroest rested, and then towards the
shadowy land which deepened down into Niflheim