Burial-wife. Yet he was blustering and drew his sword and demanded with storm and threat that I should grant a wish for him. Still thou knowest him, my dear son?
Hans. Do I know him!
Burial-wife. "Thou desirest the fairest of women for thy bride?" I said. "She is not here; but if thou dost not shrink before the danger, I can show thee the way, my son."
Hans. The way to death!
Burial-wife. "There lies an isle in the northern seas, where day and night are merged in dawn; never more shall he rejoice at sight of home who loses his path there in a storm. There lies thy path. And there, where the holy word is never taught, within a crystal house there lives a wild heron, worshiped as a god. From that heron thou must pluck three feathers out and bring them hither."
Hans. And if he brings them?
Burial-wife. Then I will make him conscious of miraculous power, through which he shall find and bind her to himself who awaits him in night and need; for by this deed he grows a man, and worth the prize.
Hans. And then? When he has got her, and sighs and coos and lies in her bosom half a hundred years, when he turns himself a very woman, I shall be the last to wonder at it. Look! [he picks up a piece of amber] I shovelled this shining glittering bauble out of the dune-sand. I have heaped up whole bushels of it in my greedy zeal. Now, as I toss from me this sticky mass of resin, that borrows the name and place of a stone, so with the act I hurl away in mocking laughter these many-colored lies of womankind. [He tosses the lump to the ground.] Now go and brew my evening draught. I will to the sea to seek my master. [He goes out to the right. The Burial-wife looks after him grinning and goes into the tower.]
Ottar [sticking his head through the bushes]. Holloa, Gylf!
Gylf [coming out]. What is it? [The others also appear.]