young and eager, and his light heart makes the way almost as easy for
him as it is for the bird. Yet the bird is the faster, and by and by it
flies so far ahead that he cannot see it at all, and then his way is
barred by a mighty form that stands before him. It is the Father of the
Gods. The young man does not know what a terrible person he has met,
though it is fair to say that if he did know he would not care, and he
asks him if he knows where he may find the beautiful woman with the
fire all about her.

"The Father of the Gods asks him in turn how he heard of this woman,
what taught him to understand the song of the bird, who forged the
sword with which he killed the dragon. All these things he answers, and
the Father of the Gods is sure that the hero who knows no fear has come
at last. Yet one test remains for him. 'There is the place you seek,'
he says, as he points to the mountain-top, where the bright flames are
whirling and dancing and leaping up into the very sky, 'there is your
way, yet not another step upon it shall you go.' and he stretches his
spear across the path to keep the young man back.

"Ah, once before that spear was raised against this magic sword. It was
a mighty arm that swung the sword then, the arm of the best of heroes
living, but the hero had done a wrong, he had helped to break a
promise, and he who breaks promises can never break the spears of the
gods. His arm had not the young strength of that which masters the
sword to-day. Fierce and brave and noble was he, yet he had seen many
sorrows, and he knew what fear was; the glad, free hope of the new hero
was not his. The sword then was true of temper, bright and sharp, but
the heat and the light of the fire of a new manhood had not been forged
into it then, and it was not aflame with the glory of youth and the
promise of love. And so, with a sweep and a flash as of lightning, the