At last, one day when he was sitting in the middle of his house looking alternately out of all the four doors and amusing himself as well as he could by making a fishing-net, he spied in the distance the whole company of the gods approaching his house.  The sight of them coming all together—­beautiful, and noble, and free—­pierced Loki with a pang that was worse than death.  He rose without daring to look again, threw his net on a fire that burned on the floor, and, rushing to the side of the little river, he turned himself into a salmon, swam down to the deepest, stillest pool at the bottom, and hid himself between two stones.  The gods entered the house, and looked all round in vain for Loki, till Kvasir, one of Odin’s sons, famous for his keen sight, spied out the remains of the fishing-net in the fire; then Odin knew at once that there was a river near, and that it was there where Loki had hidden himself.  He ordered his sons to make a new net, and to cast it into the water, and drag out whatever living thing they could find there.  It was done as he desired.  Thor held one end of the net, and all the rest of the gods drew the other through the water.  When they pulled it up the first time, however, it was empty, and they would have gone away disappointed had not Kvasir, looking earnestly at the meshes of the net, saw that something living had certainly touched them.  They then added a weight to the net, and threw it with such force that it reached the bottom of the river, and dragged up the stones in the pool.

Loki now saw the danger he was in of being caught in the net, and, as there was no other way of escape, he rose to the surface, swam down the river as quickly as he could, and leaped over the net into the waterfall.  He swam and leaped quick as a flash of lightning, but not so quickly but that the gods saw him, knew him through his disguise, and resolved that he should no longer escape.  They themselves divided into two bands.  Thor waded down the river to the waterfall; the other gods stood in a group below.  Loki swam backwards and forwards between them.  First he thought he would dart out into the sea, and then that he would spring over the net back again into the river.  This last seemed the easiest way of escape, and with the greatest speed he attempted it.  Thor, however, was watching for him, and as soon as Loki leaped out of the water he stretched out his hand and caught him while he was yet turning in the air.  Loki wriggled his slippery, slimy length through Thor’s fingers; but the Thunderer grasped him tightly by the tail, and, holding him in this manner in this hand, waded to the shore.  There Father Odin and the other gods met him; and, at Odin’s first searching look, Loki was obliged to drop his disguise, and, cowering and frightened, to assume his proper shape before the assembled lords.  One by one they turned their faces from him; for, in looking at him, they seemed to see over again the death of Baldur the Beloved.