“All right, if you are afraid,” said Thor, with a shrug of his shoulders.  And the wolf replied, “To show that I am no more cowardly than the gods, I will suffer myself to be bound if one of you will put his hand into my mouth.”

To refuse to do this was, as the gods knew, to admit that they had meant trickery, and thus to make Fenris hate them worse than ever.  But what one of them was willing to sacrifice his hand?  Thor was no coward, but he knew that he was the chief defender of the gods, and he could not let himself be maimed.  However, they did not have to wait long, for Tyr came forward, and thrust his hand into the wolf’s mouth.

The wolf, his suspicions quieted, let himself be wrapped and bound with the cord; and then, as he had done with the other chains, he stretched himself—­or tried to.  For the magic rope but drew tighter and tighter for all his struggling, until it cut into his very skin.  Enraged, he brought his great teeth sharply together, and bit off Tyr’s hand at the wrist.  Then he howled and snapped and growled, until the gods, unwilling to have their peace disturbed, thrust a sword into his mouth, so that the hilt rested upon his lower jaw and the point pierced the roof of his mouth.  They next fastened the cord to a rock, and left the wolf to writhe and struggle and shake the earth.  So they were freed for a time from their enemy, but at the cost of Tyr’s hand.

THE DEATH OF BALDER

Adapted by Anna McCaleb

Of all the gods in Asgard, Balder was most beloved; for no one had ever seen him frown, and his smile and the light of his eyes made all happy who looked at him.  And of all who dwelt in Asgard or ever gained admission there, Loki was most hated.  Clever as he was, he used his cleverness to harass the other gods and to make them wretched, and often he attempted real crimes against them.  It was natural enough that Loki, slighted and frowned upon, should hate Balder the beautiful, even though Balder himself had never spoken an unkind word to him.

“I cannot bear the sight of his shining hair and happy eyes,” muttered Loki to himself.  “If I could just blot them out of Asgard I should be revenging myself upon the gods for their bitterness toward me, for harm to Balder would hurt them more than harm to themselves.”

One morning the assembled gods noticed that when Balder came among them he looked less radiant than usual, and they gathered about him, begging that he tell them what was wrong.

“It’s nothing!  It’s nothing!” said Balder; and he forced a smile, but it was not his old smile.  It reminded them all of the faint light the sun sheds when a thin cloud has drifted before it.

All day long, as they went about their tasks and their pleasures, the gods were conscious of a feeling of gloom; and when they stopped and questioned themselves, they found that the cause lay in the diminished brightness of Balder’s smile.  When, the next morning, Balder again came slowly to the great hall of the gods and showed a careworn face, Odin and Frigga, his father and mother, drew him apart and implored him to tell them the cause of his grief.