Then Sigurd awhile was silent; but at last he answered and said: 
  “Thou shalt have thy will and the treasure, and shalt take the curse on
       thine head
  If a curse the gold enwrappeth:  but the deed will I surely do,
  For today the dreams of my childhood hath bloomed in my heart anew: 
  And I long to look on the world and the glory of the earth
  And to deal in the dealings of men, and garner the harvest of worth. 
  But tell me, thou Master of Masters, where lieth this measureless wealth;
  Is it guarded by swords of the earl-folk, or kept by cunning and stealth? 
  Is it over the main sea’s darkness, or beyond the mountain wall? 
  Or e’en in these peaceful acres anigh to the hands of all?”

  Then Regin answered sweetly:  “Hereof must a tale be told: 
  Bide sitting, thou son of Sigmund, on the heap of unwrought gold,
  And hearken of wondrous matters, and of things unheard, unsaid,
  And deeds of my beholding ere the first of Kings was made.

  “And first ye shall know of a sooth, that I never was born of the race
  Which the masters of God-home have made to cover the fair earth’s face;
  But I come of the Dwarfs departed; and fair was the earth whileome
  Ere the short-lived thralls of the Gods amidst its dales were come.

* * * * *

  “It was Reidmar the Ancient begat me; and now was he waxen old,
  And a covetous man and a king; and he bade, and I built him a hall,
  And a golden glorious house; and thereto his sons did he call,
  And he bade them be evil and wise, that his will through them might be
       wrought. 
  Then he gave unto Fafnir my brother the soul that feareth nought,
  And the brow of the hardened iron, and the hand that may never fail,
  And the greedy heart of a king, and the ear that hears no wail.

  “But next unto Otter my brother he gave the snare and the net,
  And the longing to wend through the wild-wood, and wade the highways wet: 
  And the foot that never resteth, while aught be left alive
  That hath cunning to match man’s cunning or might with his might to strive.

  “And to me, the least and the youngest, what gift for the slaying of ease? 
  Save the grief that remembers the past, and the fear that the future sees;
  And the hammer and fashioning-iron, and the living coal of fire;
  And the craft that createth a semblance, and fails of the heart’s desire;
  And the toil that each dawning quickens and the task that is never done;
  And the heart that longeth ever, nor will look to the deed that is won.

  “Thus gave my father the gifts that might never be taken again;
  Far worse were we now than the Gods, and but little better than men. 
  But yet of our ancient might one thing had we left us still: 
  We had craft to change our semblance, and could shift us at our will
  Into bodies of the beast-kind, or fowl, or fishes cold;