you anything you may ask," hastily answered Loki.

Hreidmar then called his sons, and bade them strip the skin from the
otter's body. When this was done, they brought the furry hide and
spread it upon the ground; and Hreidmar said, "Bring shining gold and
precious stones enough to cover every part of this otter skin. When
you have paid so much ransom, you shall have your freedom."

"That we will do," answered Odin. "But one of us must have leave to go
and fetch it: the other two will stay fast bound until the morning
dawns. If, by that time, the gold is not here, you may do with us as
you please."

Hreidmar and the two young men agreed to Odin's offer; and, lots being
cast, it fell to Loki to go and fetch the treasure. When he had been
loosed from the cords which bound him, Loki donned his magic shoes,
which had carried him over land and sea from the farthest bounds of the
mid-world, and hastened away upon his errand. And he sped with the
swiftness of light, over the hills and the wooded slopes, and the deep
dark valleys, and the fields and forests and sleeping hamlets, until he
came to the place where dwelt the swarthy elves and the cunning dwarf
Andvari. There the River Rhine, no larger than a meadow brook, breaks
forth from beneath a mountain of ice, which the Frost giants and the
Winter-king had built long years before; for they had vainly hoped that
they might imprison the river at its fountain head. But the baby brook
had eaten its way beneath the frozen mass, and had sprung out from its
prison, and gone on, leaping and smiling, and kissing the sunlight, in
its ever-widening course toward the distant sea.

Loki came to this place, because he knew that here was the home of the
elves who had laid up the greatest hoard of treasures ever known in the
mid-world. He scanned with careful eyes the mountain side, and the
deep, rocky caverns, and the dark gorge through which the little river
rushed; but in the dim moonlight not a living being could he see, save
a lazy salmon swimming in the quieter eddies of the stream. Anyone but
Loki would have lost all hope of finding treasure there, at least
before the dawn of day; but his wits were quick and his eyes were very
sharp.

"One salmon has brought us into this trouble, and another shall help us
out of it!" he cried.

Then, swift as thought, he sprang again into the air; and the magic
shoes carried him with greater speed than before down the Rhine valley,
an