grew red and pale. "I will turn winter into summer; I will
make the desert-places glad; I will bring back the golden
age; I will make myself a god: for mine shall be the wisdom
and the gathered wealth of the world. And yet I fear"--

"What do you fear?"

"The ring, the ring--it is accursed! The Norns, too, have
spoken, and my doom is known. I cannot escape it."

"The Norns have woven the woof of every man's life,"
answered Siegfried. "To-morrow we fare to the Glittering
Heath, and the end shall be as the Norns have spoken."

And so, early the next morning, Siegfried mounted Greyfell,
and rode out towards the desert-land that lay beyond the
forest and the barren mountain-range; and Regin, his eyes
flashing with desire, and his feet never tiring, trudged by
his side. For seven days they wended their way through the
thick greenwood, sleeping at night on the bare ground
beneath the trees, while the wolves and other wild beasts of
the forest filled the air with their hideous howlings. But
no evil creature dared come near them, for fear of the
shining beams of light which fell from Greyfell's gleaming
mane. On the eighth day they came to the open country and to
the hills, where the land was covered with black bowlders
and broken by yawning chasms. And no living thing was seen
there, not even an insect, nor a blade of grass; and the
silence of the grave was over all. And the earth was dry and
parched, and the sun hung above them like a painted shield