Six of these Tales, namely, The Magic Apples, The Dwarf's Gifts, The Quest of the Hammer, In the Giant's House, Balder and the Mistletoe, and The Punishment of Loki are, by the courteous permission of the publishers of The Churchman, reprinted from that magazine.
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
| PAGE | |
| "I am the giant Skrymir" (page 150) | [Frontispiece] |
| He flapped away with her, magic apples and all | [62] |
| The third gift—an enormous hammer | [88] |
| "Ah, what a lovely maid it is!" | [122] |
| Each arrow overshot his head | [232] |
| "Kill him! Kill him!" | [256] |
IN THE DAYS OF GIANTS
THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
The oldest stories of every race of people tell about the Beginning of Things. But the various folk who first told them were so very different, the tales are so very old, and have changed so greatly in the telling from one generation to another, that there are almost as many accounts of the way in which the world began as there are nations upon the earth. So it is not strange that the people of the North have a legend of the Beginning quite different from that of the Southern, Eastern, and Western folk.