But Siegfried was not to be caught. As the dragon leaped across the chasm, the young prince jumped into it, and thrust his sword up from below into the body of the monster. The sword pierced the heart of the dragon and he lay dead across the chasm. The dragon’s blood touched Siegfried’s lips and suddenly he felt a wonderful change. He heard the voice of a bird telling him where the treasure was. He followed the voice, found the treasure, the helmet, and the ring of which Mimer had told him, and was now ready for the many adventures which befell him.
MOSES IN THE BULRUSHES
The great lawgiver of Israel saved from destruction by the protection of the king’s daughter.
The people of Israel had been living in Egypt for a long time, and Pharaoh, the king, made them labor very hard. Indeed, they were enslaved and were made to do the hardest kind of work. Joseph was no longer there to help them, for he had been dead many years before Pharaoh became king.
Pharaoh made the people of Israel build treasure houses to hold grain. He made them work with brick and mortar, and in the fields, and do all manner of services. He set task masters over them to beat them if they refused to work or did not labor fast enough.
Finally he gave an order that all boy children should be killed as soon as they were born, but that the girl children should be allowed to live. He did that because he was afraid to have too many Hebrew men in the kingdom since they might rise up and rebel against his cruelty.
But there was a Hebrew woman who had a beautiful little boy, and she hid him until she made a little ark or cradle of bulrushes, and daubed it with mud and pitch.
She then took the little boy and wrapped him warmly and put him in the cradle and hid him in the reeds and flags along the banks of the river. She hoped to keep him there in case the officers of Pharaoh came to her house to see if there were any male children whom they could destroy.
The boy’s sister was set to watch the cradle to see that nothing happened to the little boy. One day the daughter of Pharaoh came down to the river to bathe. She and her maidens walked along the side of the river until they came to the place where the cradle was hidden.