In one minute Thor had lifted the kettle off his head and put it on the ground, in another he was swinging the hammer among the giants, and in another, when the lightnings had gone out and the thunder had died in awful echoes among the hills, Tyr and Thor were alone on the field. They went on to Egil, mounted the chariot and drove the goats swiftly on to Æger's, where the gods were impatiently waiting for the kettle. There was straightway a mighty brewing of ale, Thor told the story of his adventures in search of the kettle, and the feast went merrily on. BALDUR Annie and Eliza Keary PART I THE DREAM Upon a summer's afternoon it happened that Baldur the Bright and Bold, beloved of men and Æsir, found himself alone in his palace of Broadblink. Thor was walking low down among the valleys, his brow heavy with summer heat; Frey and Gerda sported on still waters in their cloud-leaf ship; Odin, for once, slept on the top of Air Throne; a noonday stillness pervaded the whole earth; and Baldur in Broadblink, the wide-glancing, most sunlit of palaces, dreamed a dream. The dream of Baldur was troubled. He knew not whence nor why; but when he awoke he found that a new and weighty care was within him. It was so heavy that Baldur could scarcely carry it, and yet he pressed it closely to his heart and said, "Lie there, and do not fall on any one but me." Then he rose up and walked out from the splendor of his hall, that he might seek his own mother, Frigga, and tell her what had happened to him. He found her in her crystal saloon, calm and kind, waiting to listen, and ready to sympathize; so he walked up to her, his hands pressed closely on his heart, and lay down at her feet, sighing. "What is the matter, dear Baldur?" asked Frigga, gently. "I do not know, mother," answered he. "I do not know what the matter is; but I have a shadow in my heart." "Take it out, then, my son, and let me look at it," replied Frigga. "But I fear, mother, that if I do it will cover the whole earth." Then Frigga laid her hand upon the heart of her son that she might feel the shadow's shape. Her brow became clouded as she felt it; her parted lips grew pale, and she cried out, "Oh! Baldur, my beloved son! the shadow is the shadow of death!" Then said Baldur, "I will die bravely, my mother." But Frigga answered, "You shall not die at all; for I will not sleep tonight until everything on earth has sworn to me that it will neither kill nor harm you."