The Wagner Story Book | Page 9

of the pictures before you could see them
reflected in the fire."
The little girl sat still and thought about it again for a time. "I don't
believe you saw any pictures in the fire at all," she said at last.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE GOD
"If you say you can see all those things in the fire," said the little girl,
with an air of doubt not yet quite overcome, "I suppose I shall have to
believe it, but I don't see how. I try to think of them the way you said,
but I don't see them in the fire a bit. Can you see them all the time?"
"It makes a good deal of difference how I feel about it," I answered,

"and a little difference how the fire burns. To-night, you see, the fire
does not burn quite as it usually does. It is cold out of doors, and there
is a wind that comes in gusts and blows different ways. It gives the fire
a good draught, and on the whole it burns rather fiercely, but when the
wind goes down the fire goes down a little too, and when the wind
changes it blows a puff of smoke down the chimney now and then.
Altogether it is not a well-behaved fire at all, and I am afraid if we try
to see things in it, some of them will be rather rough and rude, and
none of them very cheerful. Still, if you would like to try--"
"Oh, do try," the child said, "I like nice gloomy things."
"Very well. Just now the fire is so fierce and hot that it seems to me
nothing less than a house on fire. It is a house that stands all alone in
the woods. Before it was set on fire a boy and a girl lived there. Neither
of them had any mother, but the boy's father lived with them and took
care of them, going out hunting and leaving the boy and the girl
together, till the boy was old enough to go hunting with him, and then
the girl was left alone. They were very happy there together, all three of
them, and the father always thought that the girl would sometime grow
up and be his son's wife. But now, while they are hunting, a robber has
come and has burned the house, and he takes the girl with him and
carries her off to his own house, far away among the mountains.
"After this it is not so pleasant roaming the woods and hunting all day,
with no house to go back to and no greeting of a bright face in the
evening. To make it still worse, one day, while they are hunting, the
poor boy loses sight of his father and never finds him again. So now he
is quite alone, but he still lives in the woods in the old way till he grows
to be a tall, strong, handsome young man. Perhaps he is all the stronger
and the better fighter because the most of his enemies, and his friends
too, for that matter, have been wild beasts. That he has had one good
enemy I know, because the coat that he wears is the skin of a bear.
"And all this time the girl has been kept a prisoner at the house of the
robber, and she has grown up as well, now, to be a tall, beautiful
woman. At times, no doubt, the robber has treated her well enough, and
at times, I am afraid, not so well. But always he has urged her and has
tried to make her promise to be his wife, and now, after all these years,
at last she has promised. She has never forgotten the brave boy whom
she used to love, but the robber has told her that he is dead, and finally

she has come to believe it and has no more any hope of ever being
happy.
"I am looking right into the robber's house now. It is a strange house,
for right in the middle of it stands a large tree, which grows up through
the roof and spreads its branches over the house. And more wonderful
still, there is a sword sticking in this tree, up to the hilt. Perhaps I might
better tell you something about this sword before we go any farther. Do
you remember the gold that was stolen from the river nymphs, the other
night, when we were watching the fire, and the magic ring that the
dwarf made of it? Of course you do, and you remember too how the
Father of the Gods got it and paid it to the giants for building his castle,
and would not give it