Now old Ægir’s feast was over and all the Æsir and the Vanir prepared to return to Asgard. However two went another way, Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, and Loki the Mischievous.
Loki and Odin hid their godly powers and strength. They were going into the World of Men, and they would be merely men. Together they went through Midgard, mingling with men of all sorts, kings and farmers, outlaws and true men, warriors and householders, labourers and councilors, courteous men and men who were ill-mannered. One day they came to the bank of a mighty river and there they rested, listening to the beat of iron upon iron in a place nearby.
Presently, on a rock in the middle of the river, they saw an otter appear. The otter went into the water and came back to the rock with a catch of salmon. He devoured it there. Then Odin saw Loki do a senseless and evil thing. Taking up a great stone he threw it at the otter. The stone struck the beast on the skull and knocked him over dead.
“Loki, Loki, why have you done a thing so senseless and evil?” Odin said. Loki only laughed. He swam across the water and came back with the creature of the river. “Why did you take the life of the beast?” Odin said.
“The mischief in me made me do it,” said Loki. He drew out his knife and ripping the otter up he began to skin him. When the skin was off the beast he folded it up and stuck it in his belt. Then Odin and he left that place by the river.
They came to a house with two smithies beside it, and from the smithies came the sound of iron beating upon iron. They went inside the house and they asked if they could eat and rest themselves there.
An old man who was cooking fish over a fire pointed out a bench to them. “Rest there,” he said, “and when the fish is cooked I will give you something good to eat. My son is a fine fisherman and he brings me the best salmon.”
Odin and Loki sat on the bench and the old man went on with his cooking. “My name is Hreidmar,” he said, “and I have two sons who work in the smithies outside. I have a third son also. It is he who does the fishing for us. And who are you?”
Loki and Odin gave names to Hreidmar that were not the names by which they were known in Asgard or on Midgard. Hreidmar served fish to them and they ate. “What adventures have you met on your travels?” Hreidmar asked. “Few folk come this way to tell me of happenings.”
“I killed an otter with a stone,” Loki said with a laugh.
“You killed an otter!” Hreidmar cried. “Where did you kill it?”
“Where I killed him is of no importance to you, old man,” said Loki. “His skin is a good one, however. I have it in my belt.”
Hreidmar snatched the skin out of Loki’s belt. As soon as he held the skin before his eyes he shrieked out, “Fafnir, Regin, my sons, come here and bring the workers from your smithies. Come, come, come!”
“Why do you make such an outcry, old man?” said Odin.
“You have killed my son Otter,” shrieked the old man. “This in my hands is the skin of my son.”
As Hreidmar said this two young men carrying the forehammers of the smithies came in followed by the workers. “Strike these men dead with your forehammers, Fafnir, Regin,” their father cried. “Otter, who used to stay in the river, and whom I changed by enchantment into a river beast that he might fish for me, has been killed by these men.”
“Peace,” said Odin. “We have killed your son, it would seem, but it was unwittingly that we did the deed. We will give compensation for the death of your son.”
“What compensation will you give?” said Hreidmar, looking at Odin with eyes that were small and sharp.
Then Odin, the Eldest of the Gods, said something that was unworthy of his wisdom and his power. He might have said, “I will bring you a drink of Mimir’s well water as compensation for your son’s death.” But instead of thinking wisely, Odin All-Father thought of gold. “Set a price on the life of your son and we will pay that price in gold,” he said.
“Maybe you are great kings traveling through the world,” Hreidmar said. “If you are you will have to find gold that will cover every hair on the skin of him whom you have killed.”
Then Odin, his mind being fixed on the gold, thought of a certain treasure, a treasure that was guarded by a Dwarf. No other treasure in the nine worlds would be great enough to make the compensation that Hreidmar claimed. He thought about this treasure and he thought about how it could be taken and yet he was ashamed of his thought.
“, Loki, do you know of Andvari’s hoard?” he said.
“I know of it,” said Loki sharply, “and I know where it is hidden. Will you, Odin, let me fetch Andvari’s hoard?”
Odin spoke to Hreidmar. “I will stay with you as a hostage,” he said, “if you will let this one go to fetch a treasure that will cover the otter’s skin hair by hair.”
“Very well,” said old Hreidmar with his sharp and cunning eyes. “Go now,” he said to Loki. Then Loki left the house.
Andvari was a Dwarf who, in the early days, had obtained for himself the greatest treasure in the nine worlds. He changed himself into a pike so that he could guard this treasure and he swam in the water in front of the cave where the hoard was hidden.
Everyone in Asgard knew of the Dwarf and of the hoard he guarded. They all believed that this hoard was not to be meddled with and that some evil was joined to it. However Odin had given his word that it was to be taken from the Dwarf. Loki set out for Andvari’s cave rejoicingly. He came to the pool in front of the cave and he watched for Andvari. Soon he saw the pike swimming cautiously in front of the cave.
He would have to catch the pike and hold him till the treasure was given for ransom. As he watched ,the pike became aware of him.
Suddenly he flung himself forward into the water and went speedily down the stream.
Loki could not catch that pike with his hands or with any hook and line. How, then, could he take him? Only with a net that was woven by magic. Then Loki thought of where he might get such a net.
Ran, the wife of old Ægir, the Giant King of the Sea, had a net that was woven by magic. In it she took all that was wrecked at sea. Loki thought of Ran’s net and he turned and went back to Ægir’s hall to ask for the Queen. But Ran was seldom in her husband’s house. She was now down by the rocks of the sea.
He found Ran, the cold Queen, standing in the flow of the sea, drawing out of the depths with the net that she held in her hands every piece of treasure that was washed that way. She had made a heap of the things she had drawn out of the sea, corals and amber, and bits of gold and silver, but still she was plying her net greedily.
“You know me, Ægir’s wife,” Loki said to her. “I know you, Loki,” said Queen Ran.
“Lend me your net,” said Loki. “That I will not do,” said Queen Ran.
“Lend me your net so that I may catch Andvari the Dwarf who boasts that he has a greater treasure than you will ever take out of the sea,” said Loki.
The cold Queen of the sea stopped plying her net. She looked at Loki steadily. Yes, if he were going to catch Andvari she would lend her net to him. She hated all the Dwarfs because this one and that one had told her they had greater treasures than she would ever have. But she especially hated Andvari, the Dwarf who had the greatest treasure in the nine worlds.
“There is nothing more to gather here,” she said, “and if you will swear to bring me back my net by tomorrow I shall lend it to you.”
“I swear by the sparks of Muspelheim that I will bring your net back to you by tomorrow, Queen of Ægir,” Loki cried. Then Ran put into his hands the Magic Net. Then he went back to where the Dwarf, was guarding his marvelous hoard.
The pool in which Andvari floated as a pike was dark but to him it was all golden with the light of his marvelous treasure. For the sake of this hoard he had given up his companionship with the Dwarfs and his delight in making and shaping the things of their workmanship.
For the sake of his hoard he had taken on himself the dumbness and deafness of a fish.
Now as he swam about in front of the cave he was aware again of a shadow above him. He slipped toward the shadow of the bank. Then as he turned round he saw a net sweeping toward him. He sank down in the water. But the Magic Net had spread out and he sank into it.
Suddenly he was out of the water and was left gasping on the bank. He would have died had he not undone his transformation.
Soon he appeared as a Dwarf. “Andvari, you are caught.It is one of the Æsir who has taken you,” he heard his captor say.
“Loki,” he gasped.
“You are caught and you shall be held,” Loki said to him. “It is the will of the Æsir that you give up your hoard to me.”
“My hoard, my hoard!” the Dwarf shouted. ” I will never give up my hoard.”
“I will hold you till you give it to me,” said Loki.
“Unjust, unjust,” shouted Andvari. “It is only you, Loki, who is unjust. I will go to the throne of Odin and I will have Odin punish you for trying to rob me of my treasure.”
“Odin has sent me to fetch your hoard,” said Loki.
“Can it be that all the Æsir are unjust? Ah, yes. In the beginning of things they cheated the Giant who built the wall round their City. The Æsir are unjust.”
Loki had Andvari in his power and after the Dwarf had raged against him and defied him, he tormented him. At last, trembling with rage and with his face covered with tears, Andvari took Loki into his cavern, and, turning a rock aside, showed him the mass of gold and gems that was his hoard.
At once Loki began to gather into the Magic Net lumps and ingots and bracelets of gold with gems that were rubies and sapphires and emeralds. He saw Andvari snatch at something on the heap, but he made no sign of noticing. At last it was all gathered into the net, and Loki stood there ready to carry the Dwarf’s hoard away.
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