o scale the walls of the fortress
unseen, and hurled down the ponderous machines used to throw stones,
arrows, boiling pitch, and oil. Thus he greatly helped Ortnit, who, in the
mean while, was performing unheard-of deeds of valor, which excited the
admiration of Princess Sidrat, watching him from her tower.

[Sidenote: Ortnit and Liebgart.] Alberich next glided to this maiden's
side, and bade her hasten to the postern gate early on the morrow, if she
would see the king. As Ortnit had been told that he would find her there,
he went thither in the early dawn, and pleaded his cause so eloquently that
Sidrat eloped with him to Lombardy. There she became his beloved queen, was
baptized in the Christian faith, and received the name of Liebgart, by
which she was ever afterward known.

[Sidenote: The magic eggs.] The happiness of Ortnit and Liebgart was very
great, but the young queen did not feel that it was quite complete until a
giant and his wife came from her father's court bringing conciliatory
messages, and a promise that Machorell would visit his daughter in the
early spring. They also brought countless valuable presents, among which
were two huge eggs, which the giants said were priceless, as from them
could be hatched magic toads with lodestones in their foreheads. Of course
Liebgart's curiosity was greatly excited by this gift, and learning that
the giant couple would see to the hatching of the eggs and the bringing up
of the toads if a suitable place were only provided for them, she sent them
into a mountain gorge near Trient, where the climate was hot and damp
enough for the proper hatching of the toads.

Time passed by, and the giantess Ruotze hatched dragons or lind-worms from
the huge eggs. These animals grew with alarming rapidity, and soon the
governor of the province sent word to the king that he could no longer
provide food enough for the monsters, which had become the terror of the
whole countryside. They finally proved too much even for the giants, who
were obliged to flee. When Ortnit learned that ordinary weapons had no
effect upon these dragons, he donned his magic armor and seized his sword
Rosen. He then bade Liebgart a tender farewell, telling her that if he did
not return she must marry none but the man who wore his ring, and sallied
forth to deliver his people from the ravenous monsters whom he had
thoughtlessly allowed to be bred in their midst.

Ortnit soon dispatched the giant and giantess, w