“Well,” said Birger, “it took all the Œsir together to land the aboriginal salmon; and, I must say, Thor himself could not have handled him better than you did.”
“What is your story?” said the Captain; “sit down there and tell it us. You will lose no time,” he added—for Birger, having once tasted blood, looked very much as if he wished to be at work again—“you will lose no time, I tell you, for I must crimp this fish for our dinners. Who can tell if we are to catch another to-day? Parson, lend me your crimping-knife; I left mine in the boat.”
The Parson produced from his slip-pocket that formidable weapon, called by our transatlantic brethren a bowie knife; and the Captain, having first put the fish out of his misery, proceeded to prepare him scientifically for the toasting-skewers.
“Now, Birger, for the story. So much I know, that it is something about diabolical agency. Loki, I believe, is the Devil of Scandinavian mythology.”
“Not exactly,” said Birger; “though we must admit that he and his progeny, the Wolf Fenrir and the Midgard Serpent, are the origin of evil, and will eventually cause the destruction of the world. But Loki really was one of the Œsir, or gods, and had sworn brotherhood with Odin himself; and thus, though he often played them mischievous tricks, they seem to have associated with him, as one is in the habit of doing with a disreputable brother-officer—not exactly liking him, far less approving of his ways, but still consorting with him, and permitting him to be a participator of their exploits. At last, however, when he had gone so far as to misguide poor blind Hodur, so as to make him kill Baldur, they determined that this really was too bad. Baldur was a general favourite; everything good or beautiful, either in this world or in Asgard, was called after him; and the unanimous vote was, that Loki should be brought to justice, and made to suffer for this. Loki, however, who rather suspected that he had gone too far, himself, was no where to be found. He had quitted Asgard in the form of a mist,—whence, I presume, we derive the expression ‘to mizzle,’—and had betaken himself to the great fall called Fränängars Foss, where he lived by catching salmon;—for Loki, it is said, was the first inventor of nets.”
“I have not a doubt of it,” said the Captain. “I always did think that those stake nets must have been invented by the Principle of Evil himself.”
“Well, so it was, at all events,” said Birger. “Odin, however, one day, while sitting upon his Throne of Air, Hlidsjälf, happened to fix his eye upon him—I say eye, for you know Odin had but one, having left the other in pledge at the Mimir Fountain. No sooner did he see him, than he called to Heimdall, the celestial warder, to blow his horn, and summon the gods to council at the Well of Urdar.
“Loki, perceiving that something was suspected, burnt his nets, and, changing himself into a salmon, took refuge under the fall; so that, when the gods arrived at Fränägngar, they found nothing but the ashes of the nets. It so happened, however, that the shape of the meshes was left perfect in the white ash to which it was burnt, and the god Kvasir, who, I presume, must be the god who presides over the detective police of Heaven, saw what had happened, and set the gods weaving nets after the pattern of the ashes.[6]
“When all was ready, they dragged the river; but Loki placed his head under a stone—as that clever fish, the salmon, will do,—and the net slipped over his smooth, scaly back. The Œsir felt him shoot through, and tried another cast, weighting the net with a spare heap of new shields, which the Valkyrir had brought the day before from a battle-field, in order to mend the roof of Valhalla. Loki, however, leaped the net this time gallantly, and again took refuge under the foss.
“This time the gods dragged down stream; Thor wading in the river behind the net. Thor did not mind wading; he was obliged to do that every day that he went to council, for the bridge of Bifrost would not bear him. In the meanwhile Vidar, the God of Silence, in the form of a seal, cruised about at the river’s mouth.