"How do you feel now?" asked Mimer in a half-mocking tone.

"Rather strangely, as if cold iron had touched me," faintly answered
the giant.

"Shake thyself!" cried Mimer.

Amilias did so, and, lo! he fell in two halves; for the sword had cut
sheer through the vaunted war coat, and cleft in twain the great body
incased within. Down tumbled the giant's head and his still folded
arms; and they rolled with thundering noise to the foot of the hill,
and fell with a fearful splash into the deep waters of the river; and
there, fathoms down, they may even now be seen, when the water is
clear, lying like gray rocks among the sand and gravel below. The rest
of the body, with the armor which incased it, still sat upright in its
place; and to this day travellers sailing down the river are shown on
moonlit evenings the luckless armor of Amilias on the high hilltop. In
the dim, uncertain light, one easily fancies it to be the ivy-covered
ruins of some old castle of feudal times.

The master, Mimer, sheathed his sword, and walked slowly down the
hillside to the plain, where his friends welcomed him with cheers and
shouts of joy. But the Burgundians, baffled, and feeling vexed, turned
silently homeward, nor cast a single look back to the scene of their
disappointment and their ill-fated champion's defeat.

Siegfried went again with the master and his fellows to the smoky
smithy, to his roaring bellows and ringing anvil, and to his coarse
fare, and rude, hard bed, and to a life of labor. And while all men