"What easy questions these are, to be sure! The dwarf says at once:
'The magic sword that the Father of the Gods made.'

"Now the stranger looks stern and says: 'But who shall mend the sword
that it may be fit for the fight?'

"At this the dwarf is frightened indeed. He cries out in terror that he
cannot do it, he knows no better smith than himself, and he does not
see how it can be done. 'Then you should have asked me that,' says the
stranger, 'instead of foolish questions about things that you knew
already. Yet I will tell you: as none but the best of heroes could pull
that sword out of the tree where it once stuck, so now none but a hero
who knows no fear can put its broken pieces together. Your poor head,
which belongs to me, I will leave to the same hero, and so good-by.'

"The dwarf falls upon the ground in a trembling heap, and so the young
man finds him when he comes back to ask if he has yet mended the sword.
'I can never mend it,' he cries. 'Have you ever known fear?'

"'Fear?' he answers; 'no, what is fear? Is it something I ought to know
how to do, something you ought to have taught me and have not? Is it a
pleasant thing to have or to know or to do? What is it like?'

"'I cannot teach you fear,' says the dwarf, 'but I know one who can, or
else you never can learn it. It is the dragon that lives in the cave at
the end of the wood. I will take you to him and if he will not teach
you fear then you may kill him.'

"'Very well,' says the young man, 'I will go; but first mend the sword