[Anguirel]

"I..I know I should have been here long ago and I am sorry that I was unable to come sooner. Yet master Dag had other things on his hands, errands more pressing than the mending of a mere farmer's knife. So I had to wait."

So ran the words of Tora, the only daughter, and decidedly the least favourite child, of Torguar Torgaltling. The father frowned in response, holding his peace for a while, but evidently not exactly mollified. His wife was quieter still, scarcely seeming to breath; she hung about only until Torguar dismissed her back into the homestead's inner room with a baleful look. Then the farmer took the newly-repaired knife from his daughter, and began to reply in a surly voice.

"'Mere farmer', thou say'st, girl? I am your father and I do not like the sound of that word, that mere. What mighty errand did that no-good smith go running after, then? Dropped in on by an elvenking, was he?" Torguar chuckled, his mood a little mellowed by the excellence of his little joke.

"Well, next time I'll send one of the lads. By my father's beard, a man can't trust a girl to look after his knife, can't he, isn't that right, wife? Confound it, where's she got to now?" he barked, forgetting that it was he who had sent her off moments before. Sure enough, the woman came scuttling back, her head bowed.

"Well, now you're here, wife, can't think why, actually, we might as well come down to it. You, Tora, undutiful daughter though you might be," he said in a kinder tone, "I think I've made a good settlement for you, girl. Now, what do you say to the idea of getting married?"