back a part of the treasure? Give me the ring thou hast!"

But the dwarf shook his head, and made answer, "I have given thee all
the riches that the elves of the mountain have gathered since the world
began. This ring I cannot give thee, for without its help we shall
never be able to gather more treasures together."

Loki grew very angry at these words of the dwarf; and he seized the
ring, and tore it by force from Andvari's finger. It was a wondrous
little piece of mechanism shaped like a serpent, coiled, with its tail
in its mouth; and its scaly sides glittered with many a tiny diamond,
and its ruby eyes shone with an evil light. When the dwarf knew that
Loki really meant to rob him of the ring, he cursed it and all who
should ever possess it, saying:

"May the ill-gotten treasure that you have seized to-night be your
bane, and the bane of all to whom it may come, whether by fair means or
by foul! And the ring which you have torn from my hand, may it entail
upon the one who wears it sorrow and untold ills, the loss of friends,
and a violent death!"

Loki was pleased with these words, and with the dark curses which the
dwarf pronounced upon the gold; for he loved wrong-doing for
wrong-doing's sake, and he knew that no curses could ever make his own
life more cheerless than it always had been. So he thanked Andvari for
his curses and his treasures; then, throwing the magic net upon his
shoulder, he sprang again into the air, and was carried swiftly back to
Hunaland; and, just before the dawn appeared in the east, he alighted
at the door of the farmhouse where Odin and Hoenir still lay bound with
thongs, and guarded by the watchful Fafnir and Regin.