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Scudding along in front of them was the familiar figure of Miss Wort in her work-a-day costume a drab cloak and poke bonnet, her back up, and limp petticoats dragging in the dust. She turned swiftly in at the neat garden-gate that had a green space before it, where numerous boles of trees, lopt of their branches, lay about in picturesque confusion.
"I give thee the horse that will bear thee through the dark magic waverlowe, and the sword that will fight of itself if he is bold who bears it." The connexion of both with the Midsummer fires, originally part of an agricultural ritual, can hardly be doubted. Loki, or Lopt, is a strange figure.
Grettir was very pleased to see his horse and his property, and went to meet him and asked him his name. He said it was Lopt, and added: "I know what your name is; you are Grettir the Strong, son of Asmund. Whither are you going?" "I have not made up my mind yet about that," said Grettir. "My present business is to know whether you will lay off some of the property which you are travelling with."
The groans of the elder for the fate of her only boy, now suspended on the scales of justice one branch of the balance to be lopt off by Nemesis, and the other left with a noose in the string whereon to hang that erring, yet still beloved son; hysterical laughs from Jeannie in her dreams, as she saw herself undo the kench, and Charlie let out, clapping his hands, and praying too, and kissing Jeannie, and other fantastic tricks of fancy in her own domain, unburdened with heavy clay which soils and presses upon her wings and binds her to earth, and to these monstrous likenesses of things, which she says are all a lying nature under the bonds of a blind fate, from where she cannot get free, even though she screams of murder and oppression and cruelty, and all the ills that earth-born flesh inherits from the first man.
He answered: "To the storm-driven den, over ice-clad heights, I ride to the rock and the rest of the hand." Grettir said: "There is no certainty to be had from asking where your dwelling is if you do not speak more clearly." Then Lopt spake and said: "I seek not to hide thy ways from thy ken. 'Tis the place which the Borgfirdings Balljokull call." Then they parted.
With dreadful steel, the part I wou'd have lopt, Thrice from my trembling hand the razor dropt. Now, what I might before, I could not do, For cold as ice the fearful thing withdrew; And shrunk behind a wrinkled canopy, Hiding his head from my revenge and me. Thus, by his fear, I'm baulkt of my design, When I in words more killing vent my spleen.
I've sailed the seas for many a year; east, west, north and south, as the saying is; Blacks, Indians, Moors, Morattos, and Sepoys; but smite my timbers, never such a man of music have I drawn alongside of before." Runnles blushed like a girl, and said never a word, but blew the moisture out of his flute, ready for the next stanza. An' when my precious leg was lopt.
Then might you have seen cords broken, and stakes plucked up as the Christians came to the tents; my Cid's people drove King Bucar's through their camp, and many an arm with its sleeve-mail was lopt off, and many a head with its helmet fell to the ground; and horses ran about on all sides without riders. Seven full miles did the pursuit continue.
Lopt reached down along the cheek-strap and got hold of the reins between the end ring and Grettir's hands, pulling with such force that Grettir let go, and at last Lopt wrenched the whole bridle away from him. Grettir looked at his palms and thought that this man must have strength in his claws rather than not. Then he looked at him and said: "Where are you going to now?"
When Lopt made his essay, the fact was this: he was very hungry, and ate voraciously; but he who was called Loge, was FIRE, which consumed the trough as well as the meat. When thou drankest from the horn, and thoughtest that its contents grew no less, it was, notwithstanding, a great marvel, such as I never believed could have taken place.
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