away, and so, finding it impossible to keep the
matter hidden, Loki confessed, with a mocking laugh, that he had
betrayed her into the power of the Storm Giant.

Then all the Asas arose in hot wrath and threatened Loki with death or
torture if he did not at once restore the beautiful Goddess of Youth
with her magic fruit. And at length, being fairly frightened, he
undertook to bring her back, if Freya would lend him her falcon plumes
that he might disguise himself as a bird.

Thus equipped, Loki flew off to Giantland, and arrived, fortunately
for him, just as Thiassi had gone out a-fishing.

High up at the window of a great stone castle fair Idun looked with
tearful eyes upon the stormy sea, and, as she thought of the sunny
groves of Asgard, suddenly the plumage of a great falcon almost
brushed against her face. Drawing back in alarm, she saw the cunning
red eyes of Loki looking at her from the bird's head.

"See how kind am I!" he jeered. "I am come to take thee back to
Asgard."

Then Idun almost wept for joy, till she remembered that she was a
prisoner, and so cried pitifully:

"I cannot win forth from this cold stone tower, O Loki, and even if I
could, thou canst never carry me and my casket back to Asgard. And
lo! I cannot outrun the wicked Storm Giant, and though the fruit be
heavy, I will not leave it behind."

Then Loki soothed her, and by his magic arts he changed her into a
nut, which he took up in one talon, while the casket he carried with
the other, and so set off to fly back to Asgard.

Now Thiassi, the Storm Giant, was ill at ease that day, for he felt
the pangs and pains of old age upon him as he went a-fishing. So he
determined to return earlier than usual, in order to try once more to
get the magic fruit from Idun.

Judge then of his dismay when he found his prisoner flown!

Hastily transforming himself into an eagle, Thiassi began to scour the
regions of the air, looking everywhere for the maiden, and before long
he noted the steady flight of a falcon towards the walls of Asgard.

Sweeping towards him through the air, the keen eyes of the eagle saw
the gleam of a golden casket in his talons, and he knew that it was an
Asa who had come to the rescue of Idun.

And now it seemed that Loki would be hard put to it to reach Asgard
before he was overtaken; for the eagle swept through the air with his
great wings much faster than the falcon could fly, and the Asas, who
had assembled on the batt