And Alexander the king spoke with their wise men of the combat with the dwarfs from the desert of the north, since the men of that land were exceeding wise, and they told him of the way by which he could fall on them at unawares; and when they knew that he had with him in the host the griffins they rejoiced and told him of a marvellous thing. Then the Lord of Macedon caused his smiths to make him a chair of black iron, and on the top of it at each corner was a large smaragd stone, and they brought the chair to the top of an exceeding high mountain in that land, and when they had come thither they bound the griffins to each corner of the chair at the bottom with great and very strong chains, for Alexander was minded to be carried up into the air by the griffins that he might see all lands. So when he was set in his chair and covered round with great bars of iron, he bade them uncover the eyes of the griffins, and they saw the smaragd stones fixed high above them and all at once they flew up towards the stones, for the sight of that stone is meat and drink to these animals, and they hunger to gather it together and to bear it off to their dens, neither care they for any hurt they receive in the getting of it. So they flew and soon Alexander was borne out of sight of men, high above the clouds, and he saw the earth below him like a basin, and the lands, and the way to the dwarfs, the men of Gog and Magog, and still they flew higher and the earth grew small like a mill-stone and the ocean and the rivers seemed like a writhing adder, and then the gods struck the griffins with fear, and they shut their eyes and stretched out their wings, and sunk lower and lower till they lay at the last on the ground in a green field in a strange land, and Alexander looked round and saw far on the towers of Jerusalem. But the griffins arose, and flew away till they came to their nest in the mountains, and when they came thither the Lord of Macedon left his seat and made his way through the hills till he came to the river, when he crossed it and came to his army again.
Then marched the host on its way and at the last it came near the country of the ambassadors where the abominable dwarfs were, and when they came there the ambassadors went forward to bring the news of the coming of the Greeks. It chanced that the third day after the coming of the ambassadors was a feast of the dwarf-folk, and all the men of that country kept the news of the coming of the Greeks from them so that they met in all their number in one place. It was of custom among them that every feast some one should be slain in torment that the chief men of the dwarf-folk might give a presage of what should befall the folk, and that feast one of them was to be slain for he had given food to a man that was starving in a prison cell. So the ambassadors returned and told Alexander what was to be done; and he deemed it well to fall on them when they were all in one place. And this he did, and the fight was long and sore between him and the dwarfs, for the dwarfs were so small that they escaped the lance point, and they ran under the horses and houghed them, and their skins were so tough that the arrows glanced off them, if they did not hit straight, and the sword edges slipped, but the claws of the dwarfs and their teeth and their arrows availed them little against the armour of the Macedonians.