The Wagner Story Book | Page 4

GOLD SHINES OUT SO BRIGHT AND
BEAUTIFUL."]
"But you see they fall only for a moment, and now, as they blaze up
again, brighter than ever, I see another picture. It is on the hilltop above
the river. The grass there is soft and fresh, the trees are cool and green,
and the mellow light of morning is over them all. A light, white
morning mist comes up from the river, and the sun, which has just risen
from behind the purple hills, away off where the sky touches them,
turns the mist into shifting and shimmering silver, so that it makes the
whole scene look brighter instead of dimmer. On the hill across the
river is a glorious sight. It is a castle, the grandest and most beautiful
you ever saw. Its walls are thick and strong enough for a fortress, yet its
towers and battlements look so light and graceful that you would think
they might hold themselves up there in the air, or rest on the silver river
mist, if there were no walls under them. As I look at the castle through
the mist it seems half clear and solid and firm, and half wavering and
dim, mysterious and magical, like a castle in a dream.
"There is something magical about it, for it was all built in one night by
two giants, and they built it for the gods themselves. And now you
must be prepared to meet some very fine company, for right here before
us are the great Father and the great Mother of the gods, looking across
the river at their splendid new home."

"Do you mean Jupiter and Juno?" the little girl asked.
"No, these are not Jupiter and Juno; and the other gods whom we shall
see soon, if the fire burns right, are not the gods you know already, but
they are a good deal like them in some ways. The Father of the Gods is
full of joy at having such a glorious castle, and the Mother of the Gods
is full of dread at the price that must be paid to the giants for building it.
A terrible price indeed it is, as she does not hesitate to remind him, for
the gods have promised to give the giants the beautiful Goddess of
Love and Youth. It was a foolish and wicked promise for them to make,
foolish because if they kept it they could never in the world get on
without her, and wicked because they did not intend to keep it. The
homes of the gods, like any other homes, would be dreary enough
without the Goddess of Love, but it is worse than that, for she has a
garden where apples grow for the gods to eat; it is eating these apples
that makes the gods always young, and nobody but her knows how to
care for them, so that if she goes away the gods will begin to grow old
at once and will soon die."
"Were the apples like that--oh, what was it? you know the name of it--
that the other gods used to eat?"
"Ambrosia? Yes, something like it, but not quite. You know the gods
who ate ambrosia would live forever and are living still; we have seen
some of them ourselves up among the stars. But these gods have to eat
the apples often, and they must get them from the Goddess of Love.
This is much the better story of the two, I think, because it shows us
how gods and other people, as long as they keep love with them, will
be always young, no matter how many years they may live; and how, if
they let it go away from them, they will be old at once, no matter how
few their years.
"All this the Father and the Mother of the Gods are talking over
together now, and he tells her how the Fire God, who proposed the
bargain in the first place, said that the price need never be paid and that
he trusts the Fire God may yet find some way out of the trouble. Yet
the giants must be made in some way to give up their price of
themselves, for the Father of the Gods has the words of the promise cut
upon his spear, and he cannot break a promise that he has once made.
The Fire God has gone away now to search through the world for
something that may be offered to the giants instead of the Goddess of

Love. And now I see her come, running to the Father of the Gods for
protection, and the other gods are here, to help her if they can, and the
giants themselves have come to claim her for the building