Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/230

202 tribes by living together in villages or burgen (from whence their name); which caused them to be looked down upon by the Teutonic race, and accused of degeneracy, in leading a life more adapted for the business of blacksmith or carpenter than that of a soldier. Sidonius Apollinaris, nevertheless, speaks of them as an army of giants; and it appears certain that they were not only good artisans, but also brave warriors, in the intervals of peace earning a sufficient livelihood by their handicrafts; and that at the period of their residence among the ruined Gallo-Roman villas they shod their horses' feet with iron shoes. The discovery, in the tombs of these warriors, of the 'scramasax'—a large cutlass, sharpened only on one edge, and a characteristic weapon of the ancient Germans, with knives belonging to the same period (between the 4th and 5th centuries), all having long deep grooves on both sides corresponding with that in their horse-shoes—indicates that with the Burgundians, as with the Gauls and Celts, the same individual was at once armourer and farrier. The earliest tradition we have of this people, and which belongs to the period preceding their invasion of Gaul, would lead us to believe that they were skilled horsemen and workers in metals. 'The dwarf Regin fled from the Burgundians to the court of the Frankish king Hialprek (Chilpéric), who reigned on the banks of the Rhine, and there he undertook the duties of 'maréchal' (master of the horse and farrier). At this time he met the young Sigurd, son of King Sigmund, a descendant of Odin, who had miraculously escaped from the murderers of his father. The