playing in the moonlight near the shore. Of them he asked the way to
Aegir's hall.

"Seven days' journey westward," said they, "beyond the green Isle of
Erin, is our father's hall. Seven days' journey northward, on the
bleak Norwegian shore, is our father's hall. Seek it not."

And they stopped not once in their play, but rippled and danced on the
shelving beach, or dashed with force against the shore.

"Where is your mother, Ran, the Queen of the Ocean?" asked Loki.

And they answered:

"In the deep sea-caves
By the sounding shore,
In the dashing waves
When the wild storms roar,
In her cold green bowers
In the northern fiords,
She lurks and she glowers,
She grasps and she hoards,
And she spreads her strong net for her prey."

Loki waited to hear no more; but he sprang into the air, and the magic
shoes carried him onwards over the water In search of the Ocean-queen.
He had not gone far when his sharp eyes espied her, lurking near a
rocky shore against which the breakers dashed with frightful fury.
Half hidden in the deep dark water, she lay waiting and watching; and
she spread her cunning net upon the waves, and reached out with her