e wise man had choked
by reason of his great wisdom. But All-Father Odin knew well that this
absurd tale was not true, and was on the watch to see what mischief
Fialar and Galar had been brewing.

Meantime, the dwarfs did not taste a drop of the Magic Mead, but hid
it away in a secret place, while they went off in search of further
adventures.

After awhile they found the Giant Gilling fast asleep by the seashore,
and they began to pinch him till he was wide awake.

"Take us for a row on the sea, Gilling," they shouted, in their
impudent little voices.

So the Giant Gilling, who was good-natured and stupid, got into a
boat, and being very lazy, allowed the dwarfs to take the oars and row
where they would.

Then Fialar and Galar rowed on to an unseen rock and upset the boat,
so that the giant, who could not swim, was drowned; but they
themselves perched astride on the keel, and the boat soon drifted
ashore.

Hurrying to the giant's house they told his wife, with a fine pretence
of sympathy, that her husband had fallen into the sea and was drowned.
At this the poor giantess began to sob and groan until the walls shook
with the noise. Then Fialar said to his brother:

"Tired am I of this bawling. I will now take her out, and as she
passes through the doorway, drop a millstone on her head; and then
there will be an end to them both."

Forthwith he asked if it would not comfort her to look upon the sea
where her dear husband lay drowned; and she said it would. But as she
passed through the doorway wicked Galar, who had scrambled up above
the lintel, dropped a millstone on her head, and so she too fell an
easy victim to the malice of the cruel brothers.

Now while the two dwarfs were jumping and skipping about in their
wicked glee at the success of their evil plans, the Giant Suttung, son
of Gilling, came home, and finding that his mother and father were
both dead, he quickly guessed who were at the bottom of the mischief,
and determined to put an end to the wretches.

Before they could evade his wrath, he grasped one of the dwarfs in
each of his great hands, and, wading out into the ocean, he set them
down upon a rock which he knew would be flooded at high tide, and
there left them.

Then Fialar and Galar began to scream with terror, and to offer
anything that Suttung chose to ask for, if only he would spare their
lives.

Now Suttung had heard, as most people had done, of the Magic Mead, and
he thought that