. . .this, and with a hearty relish he ate the coarse brown bread and bowl of milk which Mimi brought to him.

The next morning the blacksmith showed Siegfried how to blow the bellows, and swing the sledge-hammer, and also how to shape a horseshoe.

"Now, you try it," he said, laying a red-hot piece of iron on the anvil.[14]

Siegfried was eager to try. He raised the hammer above his head, and brought it down with such force that the iron flew to pieces and the anvil was buried in the ground.

Mimi was very angry. He gave the boy a box on the ear that nearly knocked him over. Now, Siegfried was a king's son, and never before in all his life had any one but his parents dared to punish him. Therefore he was indignant, and without giving Mimi a moment's warning, he[15] seized the dwarf by the collar and dashed him to the ground.

When Mimi came to his senses, he was almost dead with pain and fright. He made up his mind th. . . Read More