eg, promptly throwing flint and steel between the
severed limb and trunk, and thereby hindering any further sorcery. The
peasants were immensely relieved to find that their enemy was slain,
and ever after they considered Loki the mightiest of all the heavenly
council, for he had delivered them effectually from their foe, while
the other gods had lent only temporary aid.

The Giant Architect

Notwithstanding their wonderful bridge Bifroest, the tremulous way,
and the watchfulness of Heimdall, the gods could not feel entirely
secure in Asgard, and were often fearful lest the frost giants should
make their way into Asgard. To obviate this possibility, they finally
decided to build an impregnable fortress; and while they were planning
how this could be done, an unknown architect came with an offer to
undertake the construction, provided the gods would give him sun, moon,
and Freya, goddess of youth and beauty, as reward. The gods were wroth
at so presumptuous an offer, but when they would have indignantly
driven the stranger from their presence, Loki urged them to make a
bargain which it would be impossible for the stranger to keep, and
so they finally told the architect that the guerdon should be his,
provided the fortress were finished in the course of a single winter,
and that he accomplished the work with no other assistance than that
of his horse Svadilfare.

"To Asgard came an architect,
And castle offered to erect,--
A castle high
Which should defy
Deep Jotun guile and giant raid;
And this most wily compact made:
Fair Freya, with the Moon and Sun,
As price the fortress being done."

Valhalla (J.C. Jones).

The unknown architect agreed to these seemingly impossible conditions,
and immediately set to work, hauling ponderous blocks of stone by
night, building during the day, and progressing so rapidly that
the gods began to feel somewhat anxious. Ere long they noticed that
more than half the labour was accomplished by the wonderful steed
Svadilfare, and when they saw, near the end of winter, that the work
was finished save only one portal, which they knew the architect
could easily erect during the night:

"Horror and fear the gods beset;
Finished almost the castle stood!
In three days more
The work be o'er;
Then must they make their contract good,
And pay the awful debt."

Valhalla (J. C. Jones).