It happened one day when the summer was nearly gone that Loki found Sib alone and sleeping on a bank near the river, so he drew his knife, and creeping softly nearer and nearer, cut off her beautiful flowing hair quite close to her head.  Then he joyfully rushed away and strewed it far and wide over the whole earth, so that it became no longer living and golden but faded and turned a dull color as the winds blew it about and the rains beat upon it, and crushed it in between the rocks and stones.  When Sib awoke and was about to push the hair from her face, she felt that something was wrong.  Wonderingly she ran to the water and looking at her reflection in the clear depths, saw that nothing but a short stubble stood up all over her head.  All her lovely hair was gone!  Only one would have dared to treat her so badly, and in her grief and anger she called upon Thor to come to her aid.

Loki had of course fled and was hiding far away in another country among the rocks when he heard the distant rumblings of thunder, and tried to shrink deeper into the crevices between the great stones, but the awful sound grew louder, and at last the angry flash from Thor’s eyes darted to the very spot where the mischievous one lay.  Then Thor pulled him out and shook him from side to side in his enormous hands, and would have crushed his bones upon the hard rocks had not Loki in great terror asked what good his death would do, for it certainly would not bring Sib’s hair back.  Then Thor set the mischief-maker on his feet, though still keeping a tight hold on him, and asked what he would do to repair the evil which he had done.  Loki promptly answered that he would go down into the mountains to the dwarfs, and get Iwald’s sons to make some golden hair for Sib, as good as that which he had destroyed.  Now Iwald had had seven sons, and these all lived deep below the earth in the great caverns which lie below the mountains, and these sons were small and dark; they did not like the daylight for they were dwarfs who could see best without the sun to dazzle their eyes; they knew where gold and silver grew, and they could tell where to find beautiful shining stones, which were red, and white, and yellow, and green; they knew the way all over the world by running through caverns and passages under the mountains, and wherever they could find precious stones or metals they built a furnace, and made an anvil, and hammer and bellows, and everything that was wanted in a smithy; for they knew how to fashion the most wonderful things from gold and iron and stone, and they had knowledge which made them more powerful than the people who lived above the ground.