d;
For his death of my wold hath bereft me and every highway wet.
--Nay, Loki, naught avails it, well-fashioned is the net.
Come forth, my son, my war-god, and show the Gods their work,
And thou who mightst learn e'en Loki, if need were to lie or lurk!'

"And there was I, I Regin, the smithier of the snare,
And high up Fafnir towered with the brow that knew no fear,
With the wrathful and pitiless heart that was born of my father's will,
And the greed that the Gods had fashioned the fate of the earth to
fulfill.

"Then spake the Father of Men: 'We have wrought thee wrong indeed,
And, wouldst thou amend it with wrong, thine errand must we speed;
For I know of thine heart's desire, and the gold thou shalt nowise
lack,
--Nor all the works of the gold. But best were thy word drawn back,
If indeed the doom of the Norns be not utterly now gone forth.'

"Then Reidmar laughed and answered: 'So much is thy word of worth!
And they call thee Odin for this, and stretch forth hands in vain,
And pray for the gifts of a God who giveth and taketh again!
It was better in times past over, when we prayed for nought at all,
When no love taught us beseeching, and we had no troth to recall.
Ye have changed the world, and it bindeth with the right and the wrong
ye have made,
Nor may ye be Gods henceforward save the rightful ransom be paid.
But perchance ye are weary of kingship, and will deal no more with
the earth?
Then curse the world, and depart, and sit in your changeless mirth;
And there shall be no more kings, and battle and murder shall fail,
And the world shall laugh and long not, nor weep, nor fashion the
tale.'

"So spake Reidmar the Wise; but the wrath burned through his word,
And wasted his heart of wisdom; and there was Fafnir the Lord,
And there was Regin the Wright, and they raged at their father's back:
And all these cried out together with the voice of the sea-storm's
wrack;
'O hearken, Gods of the Goths! ye shall die, and we shall be Gods,
And rule your men beloved with bitter-heavy rods,
And make them beasts beneath us, save today ye do our will,
And pay us the ransom of blood, and our hearts with the gold fulfill.'

"But Odin spake in answer, and his voice was awful and cold:
'Give righteous doom, O Reidmar! say what ye will of the Gold!'

"