Now it happened that some years before this trouble had arisen between King Rhine and the giants, and before his talk with the wise woman, some gnomes while digging in a cave for gold, found buried in the earth the skeleton of an immense head. Astonished at this sight they determined to let gold hunting alone for a while, and to see if they could not find the rest of the animal to which the head belonged. They worked carefully and industriously for many months with their little picks and spades, and, finally they laid bare the whole skeleton of a monstrous creature of the very queerest shape the gnomes had ever seen. I say the whole of it, but there were a few bones wanting here and there, for which the gnomes searched in vain in the earth around the spot where the creature lay. This animal measured thirty-three feet in length. It was shaped somewhat like a great lizard, but it had the back-bone of a fish, and the fins of a dolphin, with the head and teeth of a crocodile. But what eyes it must have had while living! The gnomes amused themselves by crawling in and out of the sockets! The ball of the eye must have been as large as a man’s head! When the gnomes had finished this great piece of work they did not know what to do with the huge creature they had found. It was of no use to them, and, after they had taken a few of the smallest bones for drum-sticks, they would have nothing more to do with it. After a time, the sight of this terrible, fleshless monster was hateful to them, and they could not move it away. In this dilemma they went to King Rhine to know what it was best to do with this fruit of their long labors. He told them they had been very foolish gnomes to spend so much time on a thing that was of no use to anybody, and that ought to be covered up from the sight of men. He advised them to put all the earth and stones back again, and bury the horrid creature. The gnomes could not make up their minds to do this, and they moved out of the cave into another part of the same mountain, and left the lizard in possession of their old home. Soon after a wood-cutter, being caught in a storm, took refuge in this cave; and the sight of this gigantic skeleton frightened him more than the storm. He ran to his village with the wonderful news. A very learned man who lived there, hearing the story, went to look at the skeleton, and was filled with astonishment, for he had never even imagined such an animal. He immediately wrote a book about it. And then old Rhine found that, in this case, the gnomes were wiser than their king. For, so far from this creature they had dug out of the ground being of no account, it caused a greater stir than anything that had happened in his kingdom since the last army had been driven across the river a good many years ago. People flocked from all quarters to the cave, and business was lively the whole length of the river.