ved in
the very deepest blue of the sky, came down and lay in the grass to
watch the place where he thought it was.

Now this gold was hidden in the very deepest rocky gorge, and a dragon
that everyone feared lay upon it night and day. Almost all the people in
the world were wanting and seeking this gold; it really seemed sometimes
that they were forgetting everything else, even the sweet message and
the deed they had brought the world. Some of them went about dreaming
and thinking of all the ways there were of finding it. But they seldom
did anything of all they thought, so they were called the Mist-men. And
there were others, who worked always, digging in the darkest caverns of
the mountains, and lived underground and almost forgot the real light,
watching for the glow of the gold. These were called the Earth-dwarfs,
for they grew very small and black living away from the light. But there
were a great many blessed ones who lived quite free and glad in the
world, loving and serving one another and not thinking very much of the
gold.

There was a boy whose name was Siegfried, and though he lived with an
Earth-dwarf in the deep forest, he knew nothing of the magic gold or the
world. He had never seen a man, and he had not known his mother, even,
though he often thought of her when he stood still at evening and the
birds came home. There was one thing she had left him, and that was a
broken sword. Mimi, the Earth-dwarf, strove night and day to mend it,
thinking he might slay the dragon. But though he worked always, it was
never done, for no one who feared anything in the world could weld it,
because it was an immortal blade. It had a name and a soul.

Each evening when Siegfried thought of his sword he would come bounding
down the mountains, blowing great horn-blasts. One night he came
laughing and shouting, and leaped into the cave, driving a bear he had
bridled, straight on the poor frightened Mimi. He ran round and round,
and darted here and there, until Siegfried could go no more for
laughing, and the bear broke from the rope and ran into the woods. When
Siegfried turned he saw that the poor little dwarf was crouched
trembling behind the anvil, and he stopped laughing, and looked at him.

"Why do you shake and cry and run?" he asked. The dwarf said nothing,
but the fire began to glow strangely, and the sword shone.

"Do you not know what fear is?" cried the dwarf at last.

"No," said the boy, and he went over an