ic, the fallen
Mischief-maker was carried. The Asas bound him firmly to the sharp
rocks, with his face turned upwards toward the dripping roof; for they
said that nevermore, until the last dread twilight, should he be free
to vex the world with his wickedness. Skade, the giant daughter of Old
Winter, took a hideous snake, and hung it up above Loki, so that its
venom would drop into his upturned face. But Sigyn, the loving wife of
the suffering wretch, left her home in the pleasant halls of Asgard,
and came to his horrible prison house to soothe and comfort him; and
evermore she holds a basin above his head, and catches in it the
poisonous drops as they fall. When the basin is filled, and she turns
to empty it in the tar-black river that flows through that home of
horrors, the terrible venom falls upon his unprotected face, and Loki
writhes and shrieks in fearful agony, until the earth around him shakes
and trembles, and the mountains spit forth fire, and fumes of sulphur
smoke.

And there the Mischief-maker, the spirit of evil, shall lie in torment
until the last great day and the dread twilight of all mid-world things.

THE HUNT IN THE WOOD OF PUELLE

RELATED BY THE MINSTREL OF LORRAINE[1]

Charles the Hammer was dead, and his young son Pepin was king of
France. Bego of Belin was his dearest friend, and to him he had given
all Gascony in fief. You would have far to go to find the peer of the
valiant Bego. None of King Pepin's nobles dared gainsay him. Rude in
speech and rough in war, though he was, he was a true knight, gentle
and loving to his friends, very tender to his wife and children, kind
to his vassals, just and upright in all his doings. The very flower of
knighthood was Bego.

Bitter feuds had there been between the family of Bego and that of
Fromont of Bordeaux. Long time had these quarrels continued, and on
both sides much blood had been spilled. But now there had been peace
between them for ten years and more, and the old hatred was being
forgotten.

One day Bego sat in his lordly castle at Belin; and beside him was his
wife, the fair Beatrice. In all France there was not a happier man.
From the windows the duke looked out upon his broad lands and the rich
farms of his tenants. As far as a bird could fly in a day, all was
his; and his vassals and serving-men were numbered by the tens of
thousands. "What more," thought Bego, "could the heart of man wish or
pray for?"

His two y