ODIN AND THE DWARFS

A legend of the Norsemen in which the dwarfs are made to work for the good of mankind.

Odin was the head of all the gods. He sat upon the Air Throne and looked down on the earth and the sea. One morning he said:

“The earth is very beautiful, but the men on it are very idle and stupid. I see dwarfs who play tricks with the farmers. I see a farmer sowing wheat, and a dwarf comes after him and changes the wheat into stones. I see two ugly dwarfs who are holding the head of a wise man under water until he is dead. They are mixing his blood with honey and putting it into stone jars. I will attend to them this very day.” And so he called Flying Word and sent him down to earth to make all the dwarfs come before him.

The dwarfs were very frightened when they came before Odin. He was powerful and big, and they were tiny and weak. But they were not scared long, and began to scamper and dance and laugh right in his face. Odin frowned and looked very fiercely at them. There were, however, a few good little dwarfs who looked very serious. Odin spoke to the dwarfs who were drowning the wise man.

“Whose blood was that you were mixing with honey and putting into jars?” The dwarfs clapped their hands.

“Oh, that was Kvasir, who was so wise. We found him lying in a meadow, drowned in his own wisdom!”

But Odin knew that they had killed the wise man, and so he sent all those bad dwarfs away down into the earth. He made some of them put fuel on the earth’s fires, and he made the others dig in the gold and diamond mines. They might come up at night, but by daybreak they had to go back to their underground work. And so the dwarfs scampered off and burrowed in the ground.

The good little dwarfs hung around, weeping and wailing by turns like “a morning shower.”

“We have never done anybody any harm; let us stay on the earth; we will be very good,” they begged and promised. And Odin said: “You must help then with the flowers and insects and wild bees, and help the farmers, or down you go, too.”

“If we only had some one to teach us,” said they. “We are such tiny foolish little people!” Odin looked at them a while, and then sent Niord out to find them a teacher. Niord left the great hall and went out and sat on the side of a mountain. He whistled for a long time a low sweet note, and then out of the sky came two forms—a brother and sister—one named Frey and the other Freyja. Summer and Beauty were their other names. Niord brought Frey to Odin and said:

“Here is my son, the genius of sunshine and flowers, and forests and harvests. He will teach the dwarfs to work.”

Odin liked the gentle Frey and said: “It is well. Take your little people away and put them to work.” And so began the work of all the dwarfs and they are working to this very day.