(Skipping to the right.)
You'd see me sweeping along the sky;
I'd straddle the moon and ride her down.
Zip—Be quiet, Zory.—You'd better not. You hear?
(Zory goes out.)
Suk—The fairies too are bolder now.
Every hour you can hear them call
From forest and bracken and water-fall.
Even at midday, when I've been clearing
Ore from the mountains and stood a peering
Through cracks in the cliff, I have seen them at play
Catching the drops of silvery spray,
Running with emeralds and amethysts
To the stones where the purple iris rests.
With hands to their mouths, from the mossy ledge,
They boom to the bittern far down in the sedge
On the river bank. They are in the air.
Woodland and water—everywhere.
Gimel—And there's not a place even down in the ground,
No matter how dark, but that elves are found
Whispering and prying, their little eyes
Darting and glancing like fireflies.
Suk—They say that's the cause of Loki's fright.
Zip—And well it might be, if this tale is true.
Sleeping he lay on the ground one night—
He had guzzled his fill of Granny's brew—
When, thinking he heard his bellows blow,
He opened his eyes and spied the glow
Of flames on his forge, the sparks a leaping,
And a score of elves—-they thought him sleeping—
On trough and anvil and on the ground
Clapping their hands as they fell around.
Then he stirred, when lo! there was not a spark;
The bellows was still, the stithy was dark.
Kilo— (Rising quickly to a sitting posture.)
The tale is as true as the master's steel.
Here on the stones I lay that night,
Curled like a cat in the fire-light,
While there by the wall with a whirring sound
Granny's old spinning wheel went round.
It whirred and it whirred so I could not sleep,
So I lay and yawned and began to peep
And nudge the fire, for the night was cool.
Around the big wheel the wether's wool
Ran black, the dame's foot under her skirt
Paddling the pedal for Sigurd's shirt.
The wheel stopped a moment, and during the hush
I had dropped to a doze, when there came a rush
Of the coldest air that ever warped skin,
And Loki, frightened, dashed up and in
From the rift in the rocks. (He rises to one knee.)
His face was white
And the smut upon it showed black as night
And his limbs were so weak that he almost fell.
When he got his breath he began to tell
How, roused from his sleep by a noise in his shop—
Then Granny spied me and nudged him to stop,
And the two went out. I leaped to the ledge
And peered through the crack. Far up on the edge
Of the cliff where the hazel bushes grow,
The pines were glossing; the gnomes, I trow,
Were choking the caves to get in the ground
And hide in the dark lest they should be found
When Balder should roll his bright wheel on high.
Already his lances waved in the sky
Bedabbled with blood. The heavens were pale
And the peaks were bright with his burning mail.
I lost not a trice. As quick as a wink
I rushed to the roots and out through the chink
With the Devil's herb I followed the pair.
Darting invisible through the air,
I squatted toad-like on the turf and heard
Them babble their plans, heard every word,
Heard Granny wheeze and the master say—As
they rose from the rock and turned away—"We
must nag on the gnomes or the cross will rise.
They must take the monk's life or put out his—"
Zory—(Rushing in.) Look out!