.

"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 head and the 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 great 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 hill-top. 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 glad 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.

And 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
praised Mimer and his knowing skill, and the fiery edge of the sunbeam
blade, no one knew that it was the boy Siegfried who had wrought that
piece of workmanship.

But after a while it was whispered around that not Mimer, but one of his
pupils, had forged the sword. And, when the master was asked what truth
there was in this story, his eyes twinkled, and the corners of his mouth
twitched strangely, and he made no answer. But Veliant, the foreman of
the smithy, and the greatest of boasters said, "It was I who forged the
fire-edge of the blade Balmung." And, although none denied the truth of
what he said, but few who knew what sort of a man he was believed his
story. And this is the reason, my children, that, in the ancient songs
and stories which tell of this wondrous sword, it is said by most that
Mimer, and by a few that Veliant, forged its blade. But I prefer to
believe that it was made by Siegfried, the hero who afterwards wielded
it in so many adventures. [EN#3] Be this as it may, however, blind hate
and jealousy were from this time uppermost in the