work and sits down, with a very dissatisfied, sulky, ugly look in his
face.

"It would be hard for anybody to look more unlike the dwarf than the
person I see now coming into the cave. He is a boy, or perhaps he would
rather be called a young man, and I shall be glad to call him whatever
he likes. He is dressed in skins and wears a little silver horn at his
side. If the dwarf is short and ugly, he is tall and handsome; if the
dwarf's face has a scowl of wicked hatred and cunning, his has a smile
that beams with kindliness and candor; if the dwarf is old and crooked
and rough and hairy, he is young and straight and graceful and fair. In
short, you surely never saw a young man who looked more free, happy,
generous, noble, strong, and bold than he. It makes one more good-
humored to look at him, and the sunlight follows him straight into the
cave. Something else follows him too, for he is leading a big brown
bear by a cord twisted around its neck. He sends the bear at the dwarf,
who screams and runs away in terror. The young man seems to have caught
the bear in the woods just to frighten the dwarf, and he lets it go
again when the dwarf tells him that the sword is finished and ready for
him. He takes the sword and looks at it scornfully. It is good for
nothing, he says. He strikes it upon the anvil and breaks it into a
dozen pieces. He is a little particular about his swords; he does not
like them unless he can chop anvils with them.

"Before we try to see any more, perhaps I ought to tell you something
about this wonderful youth and why he lives here in the cave with the
dwarf. He was born here. This is the forest where the treasure is
hidden that was paid to the giants for building the castle of the gods.
It is guarded, as you know, by the giant who killed his brother so that
he might have the whole of it, and he has changed himself into a