"The saying ran through the district, nay, all the provinces by the lake. Wherever my granddaughter went, to pick berries in summer, to comb the flax, to glean, to mow, to thresh--everywhere the jeering couplet greeted her. That was not kind. Or wise!" she added in a lower tone.
"Mother Waldrun, you are right: it was not well done, but no harm was meant."
"Yes, yes, Odin placed the song in your reckless lips and gave you the winged words, the biting jest. You cannot help it! Wherever you see a tempting mark, the arrow of a mocking speech whizzes from your mouth."
"But unvenomed, unbarbed. A blunt little shaft like that with which we strike the pretty red-breast, Donar's favorite, not to harm it, nay, only to capture it unhurt and bear it home to our hearths that it may sing sweetly to us year after year."
"Beware! Everything that has the red hue is passionate, swift to revenge, and slow to forgive.
"Yes," replied the youth laughing. "How runs another verse?
"'Dost vex little Red Hair?
I bid thee beware!
The fair one fear.
She's false and spits her ire