Mimer laughed loud, in pride and scorn, as he gazéd
at his task,
And in the sun, a clashing heap, he threw it down to
bask;
Then stretched himself beside his door, to sing (he
cared for naught):
Just then Æmilias wandered by absorbed in gloomy
thought.

"Behold my work," rough Mimer roared, " it is for
Odin fit;
No sword, even by mine-dwarf made, could dint its
links one whit."
"I'll forge a blade," Æmilias said, " that shall shear
through this steel,
And cleave the braggart wearing it from helmet
down to heel."

"Go, beat away," rough Mimer cried, wrath rising
in his gorge,
"We care not what you village smiths upon your
stithies forge."
So saying, he arose and smote an anvil clean in
twain,
And dashed the fire out with his foot, then dashed it
in again.

Silent, but wrath, Æmilias passed, his face hid in his
hood,
Striding through thorns and hemlocks tall, to where
his black forge stood;
Then fanned his sleeping charcoal fires, and dragged
his anvil forth,
And sorted out his choicest ore from the far-frozen
North.

It was a lonely forest dell, walled in with fir-trees
dark,
Paved with dead leaves and resinous cones, but lit
by no star-spark;
The black bear's growl, the badger's cry, were the
only sounds to cheer,
The squirrel gambolled overhead: no woodsman's
hut was near.

Three moons had passed away and gone, when to the
king in state,
Æmilias brought the potent sword: glad was he and
elate.
'Twas smoky blue, nor polished yet, but fit for gods
to wield;
He brought it with a warrior's pride, beating it on
his shield.

A woollen thread that floated by upon the river's
tide
He severed with a keen-drawn stroke, laughing
aloud in pride.
Then, without courtesy or sign, strode off unto his
den:
He was the churliest of the brood of mighty
hammermen.

'Mid crimson blaze and yellow gleams, and sharp
keen darting spires,
Amid the brightness and the gloom of never-
quenched fires,
He beat and hammered, filed and ground, still
tempering the blade,
The night-wolves, baying, fled away from that re-
echoing glade.

He sawed the trusty steel to shreds, and welded
the fine ore;
He tempered it in ice and milk, and bear's and fox's
gore;
Laid it in nests of scarlet coals, and in the golden
blaze,
And smote it on his ringing forge for two-and-twenty
days.

Then with its razor's fine " fire-edge" he severed at
a blow
A bale of wool that floated white on the thawed
water's flow;
But, still unsatisfied, he strode back to his murky
den,
More steadfast at his chosen art than all the
hammermen.

Ten months he toiled amid the blaze of those loud-
roaring fires,
Amid the flames that round him leaped with their
keen wavering spires;
He then went forth, and with his blade a floating
pack of wool
Carved clean in twain and at one stroke. His work
was ripe and full.

Æmilias long ago had learned that in all worthy
art,
Patience and Wisdom must combine each in its
several part:
Either away, the craftsman's work remained mere
wood or stone,
And that wise Patience is to art as flesh is to our
bone.

Now, then, at last the perfect sword he hid beneath
his cloak,
And went to where the king and court and all the
warrior folk,
Had gathered, praising Mimer; then, with a stealthy
smile,
Æmilias bade him meet the test, and this he said in
guile.

King Siegfried sat upon a throne carved out of
ivory;
The lords and ladies round him grouped, a goodly
sight to see;
On their rich robes the emerald stones shone with
eternal spring,
'Cross cloth of gold the belts of gems were proudly
glistening.

Mimer, in mail undinted, scoffed, sitting erect and
proud,
Impatient for the trial blow: "Strike hard!" he
cried aloud.
While he yet spoke the giant sword flew like a
windmill round,
And smote him, keen and rude and fierce, and bore
him to the ground.

"Unhurt!" cried Mimer, " yet I feel a creeping
kind of cold,
From brain to heart, from head to foot, stealing
from fold to fold."
"Then shake thyself!" Æmilias cried, with a sour
sturdy laugh,
And lo! the bleeding hammerman fell cloven fair
in half;