I shook my head. I had heard never a word of it until I met my friends. "We will teach you," he said eagerly. "Sit here, my children, in this warm place, and let me tell you somewhat thereof. It may be the last time I may teach the heathen. Aye, I have done it in days long ago." I spoke to Gerda then, telling her what the old father wished, and she smiled at the thought. "We have naught to do," she said, "and if it will give him pleasure we may as well bide here." So we sat down on the bank in the sun amid the quiet of the woodland, and listened. The wood flowers carpeted the ground, and Gerda plucked those that were in reach and played with them while the father began his words. Presently he saw that Gerda was paying no heed, and he bade me translate, hearing that she did not understand. And by that time he spoke the old tongue of his youth, and the Erse way of speaking was forgotten. Then he told us things which every Christian child knows; but which were new and wonderful and very good to hear, to us two. Soon Gerda had forgotten the flowers, and was listening, and presently asking questions as might a child who hears the sweetest tale ever told. So still we were, and so soft the voice of the old man, that the birds the hermits were wont to feed came close to us, and a robin perched on the shoulder of the father, and he smiled at it. "See," he said, "the breast of the little bird is red because it had compassion on its Maker as He suffered, and would pluck the cruel thorns away." And so with all homely words and simple he taught us, and we were fain to listen. Odin and the Asir seemed far off at that time and in that place, and I half blamed myself for harkening. "What of our Asir?" I said at last. "Heroes of the old days," he said. "Heroes whom their sons have worshipped; because a man must needs worship the greatest whom he knows." "And what has become of them?" He shook his head. "They are in the hands of the true Allfather," he answered. "I cannot tell more than that. It is enough." "I have heard it said," I went on, for here was somewhat which troubled me, "that you Christians hold that we worship fiends--that the Asir are such." "That were to wrong the heroes of the past, my son," he answered. "It is meant that you know not what you worship under those honoured names. There are those among you who know that the Asir were your forefathers. Did you ever hear that Alfred, the wise and most Christian king of England, was ashamed of that ancestry of his?" "I myself cannot be ashamed thereof. I am from the line of Odin," I said. "If you speak truth, father, one count against Christians has passed, from my mind at least." But now Gerda spoke timidly, for she too had her question at this time. "What of women, father? Is there a place for them in the heaven of which you speak? Was it won for us?" "Most truly, my daughter. It is for the woman as for the man. There is no difference."