Now Mani saw a little woman, old as the hills, passing by with a small, boiling pot. She came walking on a knotty stick and had wild shaggy hair, which was white as snow.
From her pot she strew new showers of hail and fog into the mountain-forests so that the giants, pushed down by the dwarfs, lost their way in them, with their senses directed outwards, and turned within.
Her feet overgrown with moss, the old woman went to the giants and presented them with yellow leaves which later turned into gleaming gold, showing them the way through the showers of hail and fog.

A wild-hissing, fire-spitting, vigilant dragon followed the woman like a mighty, black-glistening, kind domestic animal.
He laid himself down, girding the stormy sea which flooded around the mountain, and it looked as if the dragon wanted to guard a treasure that was hidden in the mountain.