Thor stepped aside; and the frightened culprit fled from the hall, and
was soon out of sight. The feast was broken up. The Asas bade Aegir a
kind farewell, and favoring winds wafted them swiftly home to Asgard.

Loki fled to the dark mountain gorges of Mist Land, and sought for a
while to hide himself from the sight of both gods and men. In a deep
ravine by the side of a roaring torrent, he built himself a house of
iron and stone, and placed a door on each of its four sides, so that he
could see whatever passed around him. There, for many winters, he
lived in lonely solitude, planning with himself how he might baffle his
enemies and regain his old place in Asgard. Now and then he slipped
slyly away from his hiding-place, and wrought much mischief for a time
among the abodes of men. But when Thor heard of his evil-doings, and
sought to catch him, and punish him for his evil deeds, he was nowhere
to be found. At last the Asa-folk determined, that, if he could ever
be captured, the safety of the world required that he should be bound
hand and foot, and kept forever in prison.

Loki often amused himself in his mountain home by taking upon him his
favorite form of a salmon and lying listlessly beneath the waters of
the great Fanander Cataract, which fell from the shelving rocks a
thousand feet above him. One day while thus lying, he bethought
himself of former days, when he walked the glad young earth in company
with great Odin. And among other things he remembered how he had once
borrowed the magic net of Ran, the Ocean-queen, and had caught with it
the dwarf Andvari, disguised, as he himself now was, in the form of a
slippery salmon.

"I will make me such a net!" he cried. "I will make it strong and
good; and I, too, will fish for men."