know some things better than I know
them. Come now, and help me temper this soft metal.
Bring me a drop of your honey; bring the sweet liquor
which you suck from the meadow flower; bring the magic
dew of the wildwood. Give me all such things that I may 20
make a mixture to harden Iron."

The bee answered not--it was too busy with its own
affairs. It gathered what honey it could from the blossom
and then flew swiftly away.

Under the eaves above the smithy door an idler was 25
sitting--a mischief-making hornet who heard every word
that the Smith said.

"I will help him make a mixture," this wicked insect
muttered. "I will help him to give Iron another temper."

Forthwith he flew to the thorny thickets and the miry 30
bogs and the fever-breeding marshes, to gather what evils
he might. Soon he returned with an arm load--the poison
of spiders, the venom of serpents, the miasmata of swamps,
the juice of the deadly nightshade. All these he cast into
the tub of water wherein the Smith was vainly trying to
temper Iron.

The Smith did not see him, but he heard him buzzing 5
and supposed it was the honeybee with sweets from the
meadow flowers.

"Thank you, pretty little bird," he said. "Now I hope
we shall have a better metal. I hope we shall make edges
that will cut and not be dulled so easily." 10

Thereupon he drew a bar of the metal, white hot, from
the forge. He held it, hissing and screeching, under the
water into which the poisons had been poured. Little
thought he of the evil that was there. He heard the hornet
humming and laughing under the eaves. 15

"Tiny honeybee," he said, "you have brought me much
sweetness. Iron tempered with your honey will be sweet
although sharp. Nothing shall be wrought of it that is
not beautiful and helpful and kind."

He drew the metal from the tub. He thrust it back 20
among the red coals. He plied the bellows and the flames
leaped up. Then, when the metal was glowing again, he
laid it on the anvil and beat it with strong, swift strokes;
and as he worked he sang:

"Ding! Ding! Ding-a-ling, ding! 25
Of Iron, sharp Iron, strong Iron, I sing,
Of Iron my servant, of Iron my king--
Ding! Ding-a-ling, ding!"

Forth