Furthermore, we find in the _rímur_ another of the characteristic traces that the author left when he tampered with the dragon story. In the saga, in connection with Bjarki's early life, it is said that when the bear was hunted, it killed all the dogs, but was itself soon after killed by the men. From this the author concluded that it was death on dogs, but could not contend successfully with men. Hence, he says, "Bjarki was told that it had killed the herdsmen's dogs;[121] it was not much used to contending with men." This statement must, therefore, mean, if it means anything, that the bear was not really dangerous to men or, at any rate, not as dangerous as one would naturally suppose. Hjalti must have known this as well as Bjarki, for it was probably he who gave Bjarki the information about the beast, as he did in the corresponding situation in the saga and in the story of the slaying of the wolf. If this was the case, the bravery that Hjalti displays in attacking the animal suffers considerably. The statement reminds us of the situation in the _Hrólfssaga_. Just as Hjalti knocked over a dragon that was not dangerous because it was dead, so, in the _rímur_, he dispatched a bear that was not particularly dangerous because "it was not much used to contending with men." In the former instance, however, the feat was not the real test of his courage; in the latter instance, it was. In the saga, Bjarki knew that the dragon was harmless, because he had killed it; and his knowledge of its harmlessness is vital to the latter part of the dragon story. In the _rímur_, he is informed that the bear is not so dangerous as one would suppose. But his knowledge of this circumstance has no bearing on the story whatever; everything would have proceeded just as it did if he had been without this information. But in spite of the fact that the bear "was not much used to contending with men," "the men fled" when it "ran from its lair and shook its baleful paws." The author is evidently trying to ride two steeds going in different directions. On the one hand, he has in mind the story of the bear with which Bjarki's father was identified and which was killed by the king's men, and the story of the dead propped-up dragon, which was, of course, not dangerous; on the other hand, he wishes to represent Hjalti's feat of killing the bear, which, in the _rímur_, the king's men avoided, as, in the saga, they avoided the dragon, as a notable achievement.