The Pirate King

THE MASTER BUILDER

Thor had long gone to the east to fight trolls. Asgard turned into greater non violent without

him, but it changed into additionally unprotected. This became inside the early days, quickly after the

treaty between the Aesir and the Vanir, while the gods have been still creating a home

for themselves and Asgard became undefended.

“We can't usually depend upon Thor,” said Odin. “We need safety. Giants

will come. Trolls will come.”

“What do you propose?” requested Heimdall, the watchman of the gods.

“A wall,” stated Odin. “High enough to preserve out frost giants. Thick enough

that now not even the most powerful troll could batter its manner thru.”

“Building such a wall,” stated Loki, “so excessive and so thick, might take us many

years.”

Odin nodded his settlement. “But still,” he said, “we need a wall.”

The subsequent day a newcomer arrived in Asgard. He became a massive guy, dressed as a

smith, and at the back of him trudged a horse—a stallion, huge and gray, with a extensive

returned.

“They say you want a wall constructed,” stated the stranger.

“Go on,” said Odin.

“I can build you a wall,” stated the stranger. “Build it so excessive that the tallest

giant could not climb it, so thick that the strongest troll couldn't batter through

it. I can build it so nicely, by placing stone upon stone, that no longer an ant ought to locate

area sufficient to move slowly via it. I will build you a wall so as to final for a

thousand thousand years.”

“Such a wall could take a very long term to build,” stated Loki.

“Not in any respect,” said the stranger. “I can build it in three seasons. Tomorrow is

the first day of winter. It could simplest take me a winter, a summer time, and every other

iciness to build.”

“And if you can try this,” said Odin, “what might you ask in go back?”

“I want little enough charge for what I am imparting,” stated the person. “Only

three matters. First, I would really like the beautiful goddess Freya’s hand in marriage.”

“That is not a little factor,” said Odin. “And it would now not surprise me if Freya

had her own evaluations about the matter. What are the other two things?”

The stranger grinned a cocky grin. “If I construct your wall,” he said, “I want the

hand of Freya, and I also want the sun that shines inside the sky through day, and I want

the moon that offers us light at night. These three things are what the gods will

supply me if I build your wall.”

The gods checked out Freya. She stated not anything, but her lips have been pressed

together and her face become white with anger. Around her neck turned into the necklace

of the Brisings, which shone just like the northern lighting fixtures because it brushed her pores and skin, and

her hair become banded in gold, which was almost as vivid as the hair itself.

“Go and wait outdoor,” stated Odin to the stranger. The guy walked away, no longer

before asking in which he should find meals and water for his stallion, which turned into

called Svadilfari, because of this “one that makes an unlucky adventure.”

Odin rubbed his forehead. Then he became and checked out all the gods.

“Well?” requested Odin.

The gods started to speak.

“Quiet!” shouted Odin. “One at a time!”

Each of the gods and the goddesses had an opinion, and each considered one of them

became of the identical opinion: that Freya, the sun, and the moon had been all too

crucial and too precious to take delivery of to a stranger, even if he could build them

the wall they needed in three seasons.

Freya had a further opinion. She felt that the person ought to be crushed for

his impertinence, then thrown out of Asgard and despatched on his manner.

“So,” stated Odin the all-father, “we're determined. We say no.”

There turned into a dry cough from a corner of the corridor. It turned into the sort of cough

intended to attract interest, and the gods turned to see who had coughed. They

discovered themselves searching at Loki, who stared returned at them, and who smiled and

held up a finger as if he had something vital to divulge.

“It is well worth my mentioning,” he stated, “that you are ignoring some thing

huge.”

“I do not assume we've got left out a single factor, troublemaker of the

gods,” stated Freya tartly.

“You are all overlooking,” he stated, “that what this stranger is offering to do

is, to make no bones approximately it, pretty impossible. There is not any-one alive who ought to

build a wall so excessive and so thick as the one he described and feature it completed in

eighteen months. Not a massive or a god may want to do that, let alone a mortal guy. I

could stake my pores and skin on it.”

At this the gods all nodded and grunted and regarded impressed. All of them

except for Freya, and he or she looked irritated. “You are fools,” she stated. “Especially

you, Loki, due to the fact you think your self smart.”

“What he says he can do,” stated Loki, “is an impossible assignment. So I propose

this: we agree to his needs and to his price, however we set him stiff situations—

he may also don't have any assist constructing his wall, and rather than 3 seasons to build his

wall, he has but one. If on the primary day of summer time any of the wall is unfinished

—and it'll be—then we pay him nothing at all.”

“Why might he conform to that?” asked Heimdall.

“And what advantage might that give us over no longer having a wall in any respect?”

asked Frey, Freya’s brother.

Loki attempted to suppress his impatience. Were all of the gods fools? He commenced to

give an explanation for, as if he have been explaining to a small child. “The smith will start to build

his wall. He will not end it. He will work for 6 months, unpaid, on a fool’s

errand. At the cease of six months we are able to force him away—we'd even beat

him for his presumption—after which we will use some thing he has done up to now as

the rules of the wall that we will whole in the years to come. There is

no chance to us of dropping Freya, not to mention the sun or moon.”

“Why could he say yes to building it in a season?” asked Tyr, god of conflict.

“He may not say sure,” said Loki. “But he appears conceited and positive of

himself, and not the kind to refuse a challenge.”

All the gods grunted, and clapped Loki at the lower back, and advised him that he become

a very cunning fellow and it was a great issue that he became crafty and on their side,

and now they could get their foundations built for nothing, and they

congratulated each other on their intelligence and their bargaining potential.

Freya stated not anything. She fingered her necklace of light, the present of the

Brisings. This became the equal necklace that have been stolen from her by way of Loki in

the shape of a seal, while she become bathing, and that Heimdall had fought in seal

form with Loki to return to her. She did now not trust Loki. She did now not take care of the

manner this conversation had long past.

The gods called the builder into their corridor.

He seemed round at the gods. They all seemed in precise humor, grinning and

nudging every other and smiling. Freya, but, did now not smile.

“Well?” requested the builder.

“You asked for three seasons,” stated Loki. “We will give you one season, and

one season most effective. Tomorrow is the primary day of winter. If you are not finished on

the primary day of summer time, you leave right here, unpaid. But if you have finished

constructing the wall, as excessive and as thick and as impregnable as we've agreed,

then you'll be given the whole lot you've got requested for: the moon, the solar, and the

stunning Freya. You can also have no assist in constructing your wall from each person; you

must construct this wall on my own.”

The stranger stated not anything for a few moments. He stared away into the

distance and seemed to be weighing Loki’s words and conditions. Then he

looked at the gods, and he shrugged. “You have said I may additionally have no out of doors help.

I would like my horse, Svadilfari, to assist me haul the stones here, the stones I

will use to build the wall. I do no longer consider this to be an unreasonable request.”

“It isn't unreasonable,” agreed Odin, and the other gods nodded and informed

every other that horses had been precise for hauling heavy stones.

They swore oaths then, the mightiest of oaths, the gods and the stranger, that

neither side could betray the alternative. They swore on their weapons, and that they swore

on Draupnir, Odin’s golden arm-ring, and that they swore on Gungnir, Odin’s spear,

and an oath sworn on Gungnir become unbreakable.

The subsequent morning, because the solar rose, the gods stood to look at the person paintings. He

spat on his hands and he commenced to dig the ditch into which the primary stones would

move.

“He digs deep,” stated Heimdall.

“He digs rapid,” stated Frey, Freya’s brother.

“Well, yes, obviously he's a effective digger of ditches and trenches,” said Loki grudgingly. “But believe how many stones he will need to haul right here from

the mountains. It is one thing to dig a trench. It is another to haul stones many

miles, unaided, and then to vicinity them, one stone upon the subsequent, so tightly outfitted

that now not an ant ought to move slowly among them, better than the tallest massive, to make a

wall.”

Freya looked at Loki with disgust, but she said nothing.

When the sun set, the builder hooked up his horse and prompt for the

mountains to gather his first rocks. The horse dragged an empty stone-boat

behind it, a low sled that it pulled across the soft earth. The gods watched them

go away. The moon become excessive and pale in the early wintry weather sky.

“He could be lower back in per week,” said Loki. “I am curious to peer how many rocks

that horse can haul. It looks robust.”

The gods went to their ceremonial dinner corridor then, and there was plenty merriment and

laughter, but Freya did no longer snort.

It snowed before sunrise, a light dusting of snowflakes, a presentiment of the

deep snows that could come further into the iciness.

Heimdall, who noticed the entirety coming near Asgard and who neglected not anything,

woke the gods inside the darkness. They accumulated through the ditch the stranger had dug

the day prior to this. In the collection dawn they watched the builder, on foot beside

his horse, coming in the direction of them.

The horse turned into gradually dragging a score of blocks of granite, so heavy that

the sled made deep ruts in the black earth.

When the man noticed the gods he waved and known as desirable morning cheerfully.

He pointed to the growing solar, and he winked at the gods. Then he unhitched his

horse from the rocks and let it graze whilst he started out to manhandle the first of the

granite blocks into the trench he had already dug to acquire it.

“The horse is indeed sturdy,” stated Balder, most beautiful of all of the Aesir.

“No normal horse should be able to pull rocks that heavy.”

“It is more potent than we imagined,” stated Kvasir the smart.

“Ah,” stated Loki. “The horse will soon tire. This became its first day at the process. It

will not be able to haul that many stones every night time. And iciness is coming. The

snows could be deep and thick, the blizzards will be blinding, and the manner to the

mountain will be hard. There is nothing to worry about. This is all going

according to devise.”

“I hate you a lot,” said Freya, who stood unsmiling beside Loki. She

walked returned to Asgard inside the dawn and did no longer live to look at the stranger construct

the rules of his wall.

Each night the builder and the pony and the empty stone-boat left for the

mountain. Each morning they again, with the pony dragging some other twenty blocks of granite, every block large than the tallest guy.

Each day the wall grew, and by way of night it changed into larger and greater enforcing

than it were before.

Odin called the gods to him.

“The wall is growing apace,” he stated. “And we swore an unbreakable oath, a

ring-oath and a weapon-oath, that if he finishes constructing his wall in time, we will

give him the solar and the moon and the hand in marriage of Freya the lovely.”

Kvasir the smart said, “No man can do what this grasp builder is doing. I

suspect that he have to be something aside from a man.”

“A large,” said Odin. “Perhaps.”

“If only Thor had been right here,” sighed Balder.

“Thor is hammering trolls, away in the east,” said Odin. “And even though he

have been to go back, our oaths are potent and binding.”

Loki tried to reassure them. “We are like vintage ladies, getting ourselves all

concerned approximately nothing. The builder can not end the wall earlier than the primary day of

summer season, although he is the maximum effective giant within the land. It is not possible.”

“I want Thor had been right here,” stated Heimdall. “He would realize what to do.”

The snows fell, but the deep snow did no longer stop the wall-builder, and it did

no longer gradual Svadilfari, his horse. The gray stallion pulled his sled, piled high with

rocks, thru snowdrifts and through blizzards, up steep hills and down again,

via icy gorges.

The days started to get longer.

Dawn got here earlier each morning. The snows started out to soften, and the wet mud

that turned into exposed became thick and heavy, the type of mud that adheres for your boots

and drags you down.

“The horse will by no means be capable of haul those rocks via the dust,” said

Loki. “They will sink, and he'll lose his footing.”

But Svadilfari turned into certain-footed and implacable, even in the thickest, wettest

mud, and he hauled the rocks to Asgard, despite the fact that the stone-boat was so heavy it

cut deep gashes into the sides of the hills. Now the builder turned into hauling the rocks

up hundreds of toes and manhandling every rock into area.

The mud dried and the spring vegetation got here out: yellow coltsfoot, and white wood anemones in great quantity—and the wall being constructed around Asgard turned into a wonderful, imposing aspect. When it was finished it'd be impregnable: no

giant, no troll, no dwarf, no mortal might be capable of breach that wall. And the stranger persisted to construct it with relentless top humor. He did not appear to care if it rained or it snowed, and neither did his horse. Each morning they would bring the rocks from the mountains; each day the builder could lay the granite blocks upon the previous layer.