Thus, like a beautiful dream, the happy days of childhood glided by. Ingeborg blossomed into maidenhood, and Frithiof became a stalwart youth. The King’s daughter spent more time in her own chamber now, learning the tasks of women, chief of which was the weaving of garments, while Frithiof was often abroad with the men in quest of game or booty. Inheriting not only his father’s strength and daring, but also his discretion and cheerfulness, he was beloved by all and soon aroused the wonder of his companions in the chase by the boldness with which he would attack the fiercest beasts, felling them with a blow from his spiky club, or piercing them through with the sharp-pronged spear. As in earlier days he had been wont to bring his playmate gifts of flowers or fruit as greetings of the season, so now he laid at her feet the trophies of his prowess—shaggy bears or grisly wild boars, often revealing upon his body bloody traces of the struggle. Admiringly Ingeborg’s gaze would rest at such times on the young hero, while her heart beat fast in terror for his life. And when on cold winter nights they sat together in the great hall by the blazing hearth fire listening to the legends old Hilding told them of the gods, or, when the King’s daughter would sing of the deeds of some great hero long at rest beneath his grassy mound, she seemed to Frithiof like a goddess sent by the great All-Father for a brief space to the darksome earth to awaken a foretaste of Valhalla’s delights. “Praises of Frigga’s golden hair are sung throughout the land,” he would say to himself, “but surely it can be no more beautiful than Ingeborg’s fair tresses.” And when he gazed into those soft eyes, so full of heaven’s own light and hue, he doubted Hilding’s declaration that the eyes of the goddess Frigga were the most beautiful in all the world. Chapter II The Death of Balder Again the Spring had come. Frigga, the radiant Earth-goddess, had decked meadow, hill, and vale with bloom and verdure, and summoned the various warblers of grove and wood. One mild evening Ingeborg and Frithiof repaired with Hilding to a hillside overlooking the sea and seated themselves on the mossy stones. There, while the waves roared at their feet, the master told them of the gentle god Balder, and how envy and malice brought him to his death.