Fire Temple Boss:  Valvagia

This boss requires a little patience.  What he basically does is go down a hole then pop up and perform 1 of 3 attacks.  Either he'll just poke his head out and swipe at you, fly up and try to bite and breathe fire on you, or fly to the ceiling and start making rocks fall down on you.  He alternates between swiping at you and one of the other two attacks.  Also, sometimes it will seem like he's going to pop out of a certain hole and then he'll suddenly change his mind and come out a different one.  Sometimes he'll change his mind 3 or 4 times before finally popping out.  Now, the way to kill him is, you'll have to wait until he just pokes his head out to swipe at you.  As soon as his head pokes out, push your hammer button twice to whip out the hammer and smack him one with it.  Then back off while he flails around for a second, then you can use the hammer, sword, or a bomb to get him again (I've heard a jump-attack with the Big Goron's sword works good).  When he does his other two attacks, Z target him and just hold your shield button and he can't hurt you.  NOTE: If you push your shield button while you have the hammer ready it won't do any good.  Quickly tap B first to whip out your sword.  This puts away the hammer, whips out the sword, and readies the shield in one quick motion.  Then you can safely hold down your shield button.  Also, for the falling rocks attack don't worry, they rarely if ever actually hit you, you don't have to run around dodging them or anything.  Once you've smacked him on the noggin enough with the hammer he'll go down.  Grab your heart container and off you go into the blue light for another story sequence.