THE curse which the dwarf Andvari had placed upon the hoard, and particularly upon the serpent ring which Loki had wrested from him, did not end with the sinking of the treasure in the river. Both Hagen and Kriemhild had been wearers of the ring, and evil soon fell upon them as it had upon Fafnir, Regin, Siegfried and Brunhilde. Some years after Siegfried’s death, Kriemhild married Etzel, king of the Huns, and was slain by one of his knights. Before this, however, she herself had struck the blow that killed the treacherous and cruel Hagen. With the burial of Kriemhild, the ill-fated ring passed forever from the sight of men, and the curse of Andvari was never again visited upon its unfortunate possessors.

Any other of the gods than Loki would have regretted the greed which made him tear the serpent ring from Andvari’s finger, and thus bring misfortune upon so many innocent people; but Loki did not care whether human lives were wrecked by his misdoing any more than he felt one moment’s remorse for having slain the shining Balder. The gods had never forgiven Loki for this wicked deed, and they longed very much to drive him out of their beautiful city, which had never harboured any other evil thing. But Loki was Odin’s brother, and they dared not punish him until the All-Wise One was ready to give his consent. Odin knew as well as they, that the slayer of Balder was not fit to live among the gods; but he waited for Loki to commit one more act of cruelty before he drove the offender out of Asgard. This occasion came, at last, sooner than Odin expected.

One day all the gods were invited to a feast in the halls of Æger, the sea-king; and a bounteous supply of ale was brewed in the great kettle that Thor had brought from Hymer’s castle. Thor was not present at the feast, for he had been obliged to go on a long journey; but Loki was there, looking sullen and angry. No one spoke to him, and he sat silent and alone, trying to appear indifferent to the hostile looks that were directed toward him.

The palace of the sea-god was very beautiful, with its walls and ceiling made of mother-of-pearl so delicately laid that the light filtered softly through it. On the floor was strewn the finest golden sand, and all the food was placed in opal-tinted sea-shells. The only thing that marred the beauty of the scene was Loki’s ugly, wicked face.

As the meal progressed and the gods grew merry over their cups, they almost forgot the presence of the unwelcome guest; but Loki brooded in angry silence, waiting for some chance to wreak his ill-will upon the whole company. A servant stopped beside him to refill his horn with the foaming ale; and one of the gods, as he watched this, said to old Æger: “Your servants have been well instructed. They are as careful to wait upon Loki as if he were an honoured guest.” When Loki heard these words, he flew into a mad rage; and, seizing a knife that was lying on the table, he struck the unoffending servant dead.

At this wanton cruelty the gods sat speechless; but Odin rose, looking stern and awful in his wrath, and with a relentless voice he bade Loki be gone. “Never dare to tread our sacred halls again, nor pollute the pure air of Asgard with your presence,” he cried. So terrible did Odin look that Loki slunk away out of the hall, and the gods returned again to their feasting. Soon a great noise was heard outside the hall, and all the servants came running in, looking very much frightened. Behind them walked Loki, who came boldly up to the table and dared Odin to send him out before he had spoken the words he had come back to say.

Then he began to talk to each one of the gods in turn, telling them of all the foolish or mean or wicked things they had ever done—ridiculing their mistakes, and laying bare all their faults in such a dishonest way that each small offence seemed an act of monstrous wickedness. Not content with trying to shame the heroes of Asgard, Loki began to speak slightingly of the goddesses; and attributed to them all the hateful things that his malicious imagination could invent. He was just telling some shameful lie about Sif when a rumbling of chariot wheels was heard outside, and in a moment Thor rushed into the hall brandishing his hammer. He had heard Loki’s last words, and he made straight for the slanderer, intending to crush him with one blow of MjÖlner. Loki, however, quickly changed himself into a sea-serpent, and slid out of the room before Thor’s vengeful hammer could descend upon his head.

Taking his own shape, he made his way to the mountains of the north, and there he built a hut with four doors, opening north, east, south and west, so that he could see any one approaching and could easily make his escape. The hut was close beside a swift mountain stream, and here Loki spent many days in fishing—for there was little else to do to beguile the long hours. Remembering how easy it had been to catch Andvari after he had obtained the help of Ran, Loki made himself a net like the one which he had borrowed from the ocean queen. It took him a long time to weave the net; and one day, just as it was nearly finished, he saw two figures standing on the brow of the hill. He did not need a nearer view to tell him that the tall forms so clearly outlined against the sky were those of Thor and Odin. He knew that they had come to punish him for his many evil deeds; but he did not intend to be caught without making every possible effort to escape. So he threw the net which he was making into the fire, and, hurrying down to the stream, he quickly changed himself into a salmon.

When Odin and Thor reached the hut where they knew Loki had been in hiding, they found that he had escaped them. Then Thor by chance stumbled over the logs on the hearth, and, in doing so, he discovered the half-burnt net. Picking it up, he cried to Odin: “So this is what our crafty Loki has been doing to fill his idle hours. There must be some brook near by.”

“Yes,” replied Odin, “and that is where he has just gone. He has changed himself into a fish.”

So the two gods went to the mountain stream, and there they saw a salmon lurking in the depths of a pool. Odin had already mended the burnt net so that it was serviceable, and he quickly threw it over the fish which was now darting here and there among the rocks. He did not catch the wily salmon, however, for it slid into a narrow opening between two stones. Then Odin cast again, and this time the fish gave a great leap over the net and darted up the stream. Determined that the tricky Loki should not outwit them, Odin and Thor followed the salmon a long distance until the stream finally narrowed into a tiny rivulet. The salmon now gave another leap into the air in a vain effort to escape the enclosing net which Odin threw over it. Then, finding itself caught, with incredible quickness it began to work its way through the meshes of the net, and would have slid out of the gods’ hands had not Thor suddenly caught it by the tail. Since that time, so the story goes, all salmon have their tails pointed.

Odin now changed Loki into his proper form, and he and Thor dragged the wicked god to a cave in the mountain. Here they bound Loki hand and foot with iron chains, and fastened these firmly to the rock. Then Odin placed over his head a venomous serpent which dropped its poison upon the face of the fettered god, causing him great pain. So, chained and suffering, he lay there in the cave, unpitied by either gods or men. Only Sigyn, his faithful wife, felt any sorrow for his pain, and she sat always beside him to catch the venom in a cup so that it should not fall on the captive’s face. When she was obliged to turn away to empty the cup, the drops of poison fell upon Loki, and he shook and writhed so terribly in his agony that the whole earth trembled.

So Loki lay chained in the cave until the day when, according to the decree of the Norns, he was allowed to break his fetters and become the leader in that terrible battle which ushered in the last great day—Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods.