“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;
    For belike no fixed semblance we had in the days of old,
    Till the Gods were waxen busy, and all things their form must take
    That knew of good and evil, and longed to gather and make.

    “So dwelt we, brethren and father; and Fafnir my brother fared
    As the scourge and compeller of all things, and left no wrong undared;
    But for me, I toiled and I toiled; and fair grew my father’s house;
    But writhen and foul were the hands that had made it glorious;
    And the love of women left me, and the fame of sword and shield: 
    And the sun and the winds of heaven, and the fowl and the grass of
      the field
    Were grown as the tools of my smithy; and all the world I knew,
    And the glories that lie beyond it, and whitherward all things drew;
    And myself a little fragment amidst it all I saw,
    Grim, cold-heart, and unmighty as the tempest-driven straw. 
    —­Let be.—­For Otter my brother saw seldom field or fold,
    And he oftenest used that custom, whereof e’en now I told,
    And would shift his shape with the wood-beasts and the things of land
      and sea;
    And he knew what joy their hearts had, and what they longed to be,
    And their dim-eyed understanding, and his wood-craft waxed so great,
    That he seemed the king of the creatures and their very mortal fate.

    “Now as the years won over three folk of the heavenly halls
    Grew aweary of sleepless sloth, and the day that nought befalls;
    And they fain would look on the earth, and their latest handiwork,
    And turn the fine gold over, lest a flaw therein should lurk. 
    And the three were the heart-wise Odin, the Father of the Slain,