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Unna, grow thou white as snow! The draught is drugged and Groa, Ran's gift! Groa the Witch-Wife! Groa, Asmund's love! hath drugged it!" And ere ever a man might lift a hand to stay her Groa glided past the high seat and was gone. For a space all stood silent. Asmund ceased clutching at his breast. Rising he spoke heavily: "Now I learn that sin is a stone to smite him who hurled it.
Then Eric sang this song: "Swift and sure across the Swan's Bath Sped Sea-stag on Raven's track, Heav'd Ran's breast in raging billows, Stream'd gale-banners through the sky! Yet did Eric the war-eager Leap with Baresark-mate aboard, Fierce their onset on the foemen! Wherefore brake the grapnel-chain?"
So he took again his proper shape, and went back to his cheerless home in the ravine. And he gathered flax and wool and long hemp, and spun yarn and strong cords, and wove them into meshes, after the pattern of Queen Ran's magic net; for men had not, at that time, learned how to make or use nets for fishing.
"We won't talk about it now," he said lightly. "We will talk instead of your career. You remember that night at Ran's when you recited for me? I can hear you now saying those lines: 'Or if thou think'st I am too quickly won I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay.
To them indeed Eric seemed as a God, for few such deeds as his had been told of since the God-kind were on earth. But Brighteyes thought little of his deeds, and much of Gudruda. At times also he thought of Swanhild, and of that witch-dream she sent him: for it was wonderful to him that she should have saved him thus from Ran's net.
Out of Ran's net I came to thee, and, if thou drivest me hence, I tell thee that I will lie down and die upon thy threshold, and when thou sinkest into eld surely the memory of it shall grieve thee." Thus she spoke and wept much, till Asmund's heart softened in him, and, though with a doubting mind, he said it should be as she willed.
"This, that he shall safely pass the Firth, for the gale falls, and come safely to Fareys, and from Fareys isles to Gudruda's arms." "And what canst thou do, Goblin?" "This: I can lure Eric's ship to wreck, and give his comrades, all save Skallagrim, to Ran's net, and bring him to thy arms, Swanhild, witch-mother's witch-child!" She hearkened. Her breast heaved and her eyes flashed.
Then Loki thought of where he might get such a net. Ran, the wife of old Ægir, the Giant King of the Sea, had a net that was woven by magic. In it she took all that was wrecked on the sea. Loki thought of Ran's net and he turned and went back to Ægir's hall to ask for the Queen. But Ran was seldom in her husband's dwelling. She was now down by the rocks of the sea.
Loki, sitting with his hands meekly folded like a girl, chuckled as he glanced up at Thor's angry face; but he said nothing, for he knew it was not good to joke too far with Thor, even when Milönir was hidden twelve leagues below the sea in Ran's kingdom. So off they dashed to Jotunheim, where Thrym was waiting and longing for his beautiful bride.
"I will make it strong and good; and I, too, will fish for men." So he took again his proper shape, and went back to his cheerless home in the ravine. There he gathered flax and wool and long hemp, and spun yarn and strong cords, and wove them into meshes, after the pattern of Queen Ran's magic net; for men had not, at that time, learned how to make or use nets for fishing.
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