THOR.
XI.
THE THEFT OF THE HAMMER.
It was to the sweet and loving god Baldur that the earth owed its warmth and beauty, its rich fruit and its rare harvests. How the frost giants hated Baldur, and how they struggled year after year to wrest the earth from him!
They hated the warmth Baldur brought with him, for it destroyed their power. They hated the sweet flowers and the soft grass and the tiny leaves that everywhere peeped out when the winds whispered, “Baldur is coming, Baldur is coming.”
But no sooner had Baldur turned away and said, “Good-bye, dear Earth, for a little time, remember Baldur loves you and will come back again to you,” than the frost giants would creep out from their mountain gorges, and burst forth upon the fields and forests.