202 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



tribes by living together in villages or biirgen (from 

 whence their name); which caused them to be looked 

 down upon by the Teutonic race, and accused of degen- 

 eracy, 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 handi- 

 crafts ; 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 (Chilperic), 

 who reigned on the banks of the Rhine, and there he 

 undertook the duties of ' marechal' (master of the horse 

 and farrier). At this time he met the young Sigurd, son 

 of King Sigmund, a descendant of Odin, who had mira- 

 culously escaped from the murderers of his father. The 

 ' Carmen xii. apud Scrip. Franc, i. 811. 



