Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings,
For sun and wind have plighted faith to her:
Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold,
In the butt's heart her trembling messenger!

"The song is old and simple that I sing:
Good were the days of yore, when men were tried
By ring of shields, as now by ring of gold;
But, while the gods are left, and hearts of men,
And the free ocean, still the days are good;
Through the broad Earth roams Opportunity
And knocks at every door of hut or hall,
Until she finds the brave soul that she wants."

He ceased, and instantly the frothy tide
Of interrupted wassail roared along.

TOLD BY THE NORTHMEN:

CHAPTER I

How All Things Began

_This is the tale which the Northmen tell
concerning the Beginning of Things._

Once upon a time, before ever this world was made, there was neither
earth nor sea, nor air, nor light, but only a great yawning gulf, full
of twilight, where these things should be.

To the north of this gulf lay the Home of Mist, a dark and dreary
land, out of which flowed a river of water from a spring that never
ran dry. As the water in its onward course met the bitter blasts of
wind from the yawning gulf, it hardened into great blocks of ice,
which rolled far down into the abyss with a thunderous roar and piled
themselves one on another until they formed mountains of glistening
ice.

South of this gulf lay the Home of Fire, a land of burning heat,
guarded by a giant with a flaming sword which, as he flashed it to and
fro before the entrance, sent forth showers of sparks. And these
sparks fell upon the ice-blocks and partly melted them, so that they
sent up clouds of steam; and these again were frozen into hoar-frost,
which filled all the space that was left in the midst of the mountains
of ice.

Then one day, when the gulf was full to the very top, this great mass
of frosty rime, warmed by the flames from the Home of Fire and frozen
by the cold airs from the Home of Mist, came to life and became the
Giant Ymir, with a living, moving body and cruel heart of ice.

Now there was as yet no tree, nor grass, nor anything that would serve
for food, in this gloomy abyss. But when the Giant Ymir began to grope
around for something to satisfy his hunger, he heard a sound as of
some animal chewing the cud; and there among the ice-hills he saw a
gigantic cow, from whose udder flowed four great strea