He stared, bewildered. She let go of him and withdrew by one of her long paces. Still he saw her towering, clad merely in a shift, her bare feet catching at the earth and her arms raised high above the tousled black hair. She broke into a chant.

Why and for what have you whiled away

Your life all alone, this length of years?

Your wish is for war, you want naught else.

No loveliness lures; you’ve left it aside,

Willful and wanton and wild as you are.

You’ve hardened your heart against happiness,

You seek but to slake your sword in blood,

Never to know a night at peace,

Bedding a bride who brings you joy.

Grim are you grown, and gruesome your ways.

Wrong have you wrought in your recklessness,

Scathefully scorning and scoffing at love.

Empty this anger out of your soul,

Give now to goodwill and gladness a home,

Be moody no more, but make me your bride!

For I bore you, a bairn, at my breast one time.

Remember my mothering, the milk I gave you,

And how I held you and helped you thrive,

Awake to keep watch on your welfare always.

And he wanted her. With his whole being he did. Of late, when he woke at night to the growls and grunts, the thuds and thumps that meant the giants were coupling, it had been well-nigh more than he could beat His daydreams about Hardgreip flogged him into running for miles, plunging into icy waters, wolfishly hunting and slaying. Yet he had known they were hopeless, and today he could only stammer, “It cannot be. You, you are a jotun. I am a man. You are too big for me.”

She threw back her head. Her laughter bellowed like the call of a cow elk in heat. “You are big enough, my love. Yes, I am a jotun, but I’m also a witch, and can be whatever I want and you want.”

A new stave rang out.

Be fearless, youth, and follow in friendly wise to bed.

Soon shall you see me shifting my shape to what you wish.

Lengthening my limbs, or lessening my tallness,

Ever do I alter in every way myself,

My height as I would have it, to heaven raising me

Up through the clouds where Thor goes on thunder-booming
wheels.

But next, if it be needful, back near to earth I draw

My head that loomed on high, and humanlike I am.

Featly I reforge me from form to form at once,

Manifold the makings. It may be that I. go

To littleness and lowness ere leaping forth anew

In scope until I scan the sky around my brows.

Now am I short and shrunken, then shoot aloft once more.

Moonlike waxing, waning, I wear no sameness ever.

If word you’ve had of werebears, you’ll wonder not at this.

I dwindle in my dwelling to dwarf, who was a giant,