wicked. All these years the dwarf has never told him anything about his
mother or how he came to be living with him here in the cave. But now
of a sudden the young man asks the dwarf some questions and shows that
he means to treat him very roughly if he does not answer them. So the
dwarf tells him a little of what I have told you, and to prove that
what he says about his mother is true he shows him the pieces of the
broken sword.

"The young man gets interested in these at once, you may be sure. 'That
was a good sword,' he cries; 'that is the sword I must have; mend it
for me, dwarf, and mend it quickly. I will go into the forest, and, if
it is not done when I come back, you shall be sorry that you worked so
badly.'

"Then away he goes to play with the bears, perhaps, in the forest. Now
you can be quite sure that the dwarf has not kept that broken sword all
these years without ever trying to mend it. He has tried many times,
and he can no more put the pieces together than he can look as handsome
as the fiery youth who has just left him here frightened half to death.
So he simply sits down and lets himself get more frightened till he
looks up and finds that he has a visitor.

"The visitor is a tall old man whom he does not know, but I know him;
he is the Father of the Gods. He asks the dwarf to let him sit down and
rest, but the dwarf is even more ill-natured than usual and bids him go
away and not trouble him. The Father of the Gods replies that he might
perhaps tell the dwarf something that would be of use to him if he
would let him stay. Now you see what a good chance this would be for
the dwarf to ask how to mend the broken sword, but he is so cross and
surly that he thinks of nothing but how to be as disagreeable as