where the maids wore gold,' said the King. 'Truly you are
no maid, but a King's daughter.'

So he treated her royally, and as time went on she had a son called
Sigurd, a beautiful boy and very strong. He had a tutor to be with him,
and once the tutor bade him go to the King and ask for a horse.

'Choose a horse for yourself,' said the King; and Sigurd went to the
wood, and there he met an old man with a white beard, and said, 'Come!
help me in horse-choosing.'

Then the old man said, 'Drive all the horses into the river, and choose
the one that swims across.'

So Sigurd drove them, and only one swam across. Sigurd chose him: his
name was Grani, and he came of Sleipnir's breed, and was the best horse
in the world. For Sleipnir was the horse of Odin, the God of the North,
and was as swift as the wind.

But a day or two later his tutor said to Sigurd, 'There is a great
treasure of gold hidden not far from here, and it would become you to
win it.'

But Sigurd answered, 'I have heard stories of that treasure, and I know
that the dragon Fafnir guards it, and he is so huge and wicked that no
man dares to go near him.'

'He is no bigger than other dragons,' said the tutor, 'and if you were
as brave as your father you would not fear him.'

'I am no coward,' says Sigurd; 'why do you want me to fight with this
dragon?'

Then his tutor, whose name was Regin, told him that all this great hoard
of red gold had once belonged to his own father. And his father had
three sons--the first was Fafnir, the Dragon; the next was Otter, who
could put on the shape of an otter when he liked; and the next was
himself, Regin, and he was a great smith and maker of swords.

Now there was at that time a dwarf called Andvari, who lived in a pool
beneath a waterfall, and there he had hidden a great hoard of gold. And
one day Otter had been fishing there, and had killed a salmon and eaten
it, and was sleeping, like an otter, on a stone. Then someone came by,
and threw a stone at the otter and killed it, and flayed off the skin,
and took it to the house of Otter's father. Then he knew his son was
dead, and to punish the person who had killed him he said he must have
the Otter's skin filled with gold, and covered all over with red gold,
or it should go worse with him. Then the person who had killed Otter
went down and caught the Dwarf who owned all the treasure and took it
from him.

Only one ring was left, which the Dwarf wore, and even tha