“He is a monster, and he keeps the treasure but to gloat upon its glittering richness. I will use it to make myself a name upon the earth. I will not hoard it away. But I am weak, and he is strong and terrible. Will you help me?”
“To-morrow,” said Siegfried, “be ready to go with me to the Glittering Heath. The treasure shall be thine, and also the curse.”
“And also the curse,” echoed Regin.
Adventure IV. Fafnir, the Dragon.
Regin took up his harp, and his fingers smote the strings; and the music which came forth sounded like the wail of the winter’s wind through the dead treetops of the forest. And the song which he sang was full of grief and wild hopeless yearning for the things which were not to be. When he had ceased, Siegfried said,—
“That was indeed a sorrowful song for one to sing who sees his hopes so nearly realized. Why are you so sad? Is it because you fear the curse which you have taken upon yourself? or is it because you know not what you will do with so vast a treasure, and its possession begins already to trouble you?”
“Oh, many are the things I will do with that treasure!” answered Regin; and his eyes flashed wildly, and his face grew red and pale. “I will turn winter into summer; I will make the desert-places glad; I will bring back the golden age; I will make myself a god: for mine shall be the wisdom and the gathered wealth of the world. And yet I fear”—
“What do you fear?”
“The ring, the ring—it is accursed! The Norns, too, have spoken, and my doom is known. I cannot escape it.”