A step lower than the gods, yet gifted with supernatural power and far removed from the characteristics of human beings, were the dwarfs and the giants. The giants, we are told, were creatures belonging properly to the Age of Stone, which explains the fact that there were left but two representatives of the race at the time of the Golden Age. The dwarfs come under the head of elves. They were gifted with the utmost cleverness and skill. The giants were stupid and clumsy, and, save for their superhuman strength and size, entirely inferior to the small, sly dwarfs. The world was strangely peopled in those days; many of the heroes were demi-gods, that is, descended from some god or goddess, and witches, dwarfs, and sorcerers mingled with human beings. Many mortals, also, had magic power then. Otter, the son of Rodmar, changed himself into the animal for which he was named, and while in the shape of the otter he was caught and killed by three of the gods who were wandering over the earth in disguise. Rodmar demanded weregild,[A] and Loki, with a net, caught Andvari, a rich and malignant dwarf, and commanded him to pay a ransom of gold and gems, enough to cover the skin of the otter; for such was the weregild demanded by Rodmar. Andvari, of necessity, gave the gold for his own release, even adding a wonderful wealth-breeding Ring to cover up a single hair in the skin which the rest of the treasures had left unconcealed. The dwarf cursed the Ring, and the curse attended it through all its manifold ways of magic, to the end of the story. [Footnote A: _Weregild_ is almost untranslatable. It may mean payment, tax, forfeit, or ransom.]