The Song of Fafnir -- A Norse Mythology Novella

2. An Old Traveller on the Road

I was a violent youth.

An unforeseen slam to the gut or a bucket of icy water over the head was what the men in the mountain guard could expect from me if their attention waned for even a moment. It was an exciting game to provoke one of them and be chased. And a challenge to hide myself so well that he could not find me, no matter how many work stations he upset or how much he screamed and cursed my name.

I initiated fights with other dwarves my own age, and even those older than I was, simply for the thrill. The test of skill and aggression churned up my blood and made me laugh even as I was pummelling one of my poor fellows or being punched raw myself. 

When I could find no one to fight and the guards locked the heavy, iron doors to their stations, I would wander into the Upper World searching for something to occupy me, to satisfy the itching in my hands. 

Sprinting and jumping with the rams and shaggy goats that made their home between the boulders and crags of the Mountain Palace was all that I had in my mind then, my kinsmen forgotten. And not just one ram or billy goat twice my size did I send screaming and sprawling down into a fold of rock in a test of strength and boldness! 

Eventually, however, they all shied away from challenging me, preferring to butt heads with their own kind, and moving off when they spied me clambering over the rocks towards them.

During that time, every hand span of the high peak that domes over the Mountain Palace became familiar to me. I knew where to find water trickling from cracks in the rock and which grasses and herbs were sweet to the tongue. The neighbouring peaks that cover the extended Kingdom gradually became familiar to me, too, but soon grew too small and known. 

The older I became, the more bored with my own home I became, and the farther I ventured to see what was over the next peak, to see what adventure lay just beyond the horizon. Sometimes I wandered hundreds of leagues away from the Mountain Palace to satisfy my curiosity for adventure and the richness of the world around me.

There are but a few events of note I can recall from that time, not nearly as much as I would prefer. 

Once I came upon a village of men by the water of a deep and green fjord dotted with small purple flowers, and filled of the tangy scent of earth and fire.

For a while, it delighted me to circle silently around their houses and hide in a wicker fishing basket, or in an open linen chest, behind a door or in the drifting smoke billowing from a cooking fire. I would wait until one of the people drew close enough, then I would slowly begin to show myself, peeking out of my hiding place ever so slowly: my hair appearing first, then my eyes, then my nose and finally my mouth that I'd stretch into a horrible grimace.

It was a delight to hop from my hiding place and scurry away into the rocks and bramble of the hillside as the human fled, their terrified screams and the sounds of other humans running to their aid echoing after me. 

Even better was to escape with a rind of cheese or a fresh fish which I could consume as I huddled under a rock, the humans beating the grass around me, hoping to flush me out or drive me off while calling on the Aesir to spare them from my devilment.

When I grew tired of that, I travelled up the fjord to other villages where I took to bending their tools in the night and throwing over fences to allow pigs and chickens to roam freely, rooting up the vegetable patches and pecking away at the corn. I howled and babbled under their leather-blinded windows when the moon hung as a sliver in the sky and frost crunched under my feet.  When the moon shone full and round from the depths of the heavens, I  would clack wooden blocks together and dance in plain sight in the middle of their villages.