“The gods upon this dispatched messengers throughout the world, to beg everything to weep, in order that Baldur might be delivered from Hel.  All things very willingly complied with this request, both men and every other living being, as well as earths and stones, and trees and metals, just as thou must have seen these things weep when they are brought from a cold place into a hot one.  As the messengers were returning with the conviction that their mission had been quite successful, they found an old hag named Thaukt sitting in a cavern, and begged her to weep Baldur out of Hel.

“It was strongly suspected that this hag was no other than Loki himself who never ceased to work evil among the AEsir.”

THE FLIGHT AND PUNISHMENT OF LOKI.

61.  “Evil are the deeds of Loki truly,” said Gangler; “first of all in his having caused Baldur to be slain, and then preventing him from being delivered out of Hel.  But was he not punished for these crimes?”

“Ay,” replied Har, “and in such a manner that he will long repent having committed them.  When he perceived how exasperated the gods were, he fled and hid himself in the mountains.  There he built him a dwelling with four doors, so that he could see everything that passed around him.  Often in the daytime he assumed the likeness of a salmon, and concealed himself under the waters of a cascade called Franangursfors, where he employed himself in divining and circumventing whatever stratagems the AEsir might have recourse to in order to catch him.  One day, as he sat in his dwelling, he took flax and yarn, and worked them into meshes in the manner that nets have since been made by fishermen.  Odin, however, had descried his retreat out of Hlidskjalf, and Loki becoming aware that the gods were approaching, threw his net into the fire, and ran to conceal himself in the river.  When the gods entered the house, Kvasir, who was the most distinguished among them all for his quickness and penetration, traced out in the hot embers the vestiges of the net which had been burnt, and told Odin that it must be an invention to catch fish.  Whereupon they set to work and wove a net after the model they saw imprinted in the ashes.  This net, when finished, they threw into the river in which Loki had hidden himself.  Thor held one end of the net, and all the other gods laid hold of the other end, thus jointly drawing it along the stream.  Notwithstanding all their precautions the net passed over Loki, who had crept between two stones, and the gods only perceived that some living thing had touched the meshes.  They therefore cast their net a second time, hanging so great a weight to it that it everywhere raked the bed of the river.  But Loki, perceiving that he had but a short distance from the sea, swam onwards and leapt over the net into the waterfall.  The AEsir instantly followed him, and divided themselves into two bands.  Thor, wading along in mid-stream, followed the net, whilst