Anna Alice Chapin

“ It is, like themselves, heavy, lumbering, with a slur that is like the stumbling of heavy feet. Clumsy and ungraceful, it and what it represents cross the idyllic beauty of the motifs of Friea, Walhalla, the Ring, the Rhinegold, and the rest, with a harsh and disagreeable sense of an inharmonious element. How different from the majestic gods, and the clever, small-souled Nibelungs, are these great creatures who are all bodies and no brains, and who are so ably represented by the music allotted them in the operas! ”

“ As afternoon darkened into evening Brünnhilde sat on her high rock looking at the Ring on her finger with loving eyes, and thinking tenderly of the hero who had placed it there, and who was perhaps, even then, leaving the paths of men to come to her side once more.
Suddenly a flash of lightning appeared across the sky and a clap of thunder sounded far away. Strange sounds broke the stillness, sounds well remembered by her: the hoofs of wind-horses speeding through the clouds, the whistling of rushing blasts, the ring of steel armor. ”

“ A Cap of Darkness, called the Tarnhelm, is mine, to change me into whatever shape I wish, and also to hide me at any time. So, my friend, guard I my Ring, sleeping or waking, as I wish.”
“Wondrous above all it seems!” cried Logi. “Prove it, O Dwarf!”
“That I will. What shape shall I take?”
“Whatever you wish,” answered Logi. “It is sure to be wonderful.”
Alberich placed the metal cap upon his head and became a great dragon, writhing on the ground.
“Wonderful!” cried the gods.
“Yet I should again like to behold its magic. Is it possible to become small as well as large by its aid?” asked Logi. ”

“ Again Waltraute besought her, for the sake of the gods, the bright mighty gods, who were going to destruction, to give up the magic circlet.
Brünnhilde answered quietly that she prized love more than the welfare of all the gods, and that the Ring was dearer to her than the palace of Walhalla; and she bade Waltraute be gone, refusing once for all to give up Siegfried’s gift.
“Woe! woe!” wailed the Walküre, speeding wildly away. “Woe for you, sister! Woe for the gods in Walhalla! Woe!”
She was gone, amid thunder and rushing winds. ”

“ On the top of a tall black rock in the river Rhine there rested a magical treasure, more wonderful than any of the Nibelung hoards, or the possessions of the gods themselves—a bright, beautiful Gold, the radiance of which was so great that when the sun shone down into the river and-5- touched it the gray-green water was filled with golden light from depth to depth, and the fairies of the Rhine circled about their treasure, singing and laughing with delight. ”

“ You stole it from the Rhine Children,” said Wotan. “Do you call it, then, yours?” and he tore the Ring from Alberich’s finger and placed it on his own.
“Let him go!” he said to Logi, who obeyed, and the Nibelung was free. Rising from the ground, he glared horribly at the gods.
“Listen to the spell I cast on the Ring!” he said, with a peal of wild laughter. “None who possess it shall ever through it come to happiness. Sorrow attends it, and whoever owns it shall know grief. His death shall be sad, his life a failure. This doom shall attend the Ring until it comes back to my hand. ”

“ Remember that this is a fairy tale—a day-dream—such as might come to you while watching the sunlit ripples dancing on the water, and hearing the little waves lapping on the pebbles—a fairy tale, that is all.
The Golden Age, as I think of it, seems a period in which anything might have happened. Closing my eyes, I can picture the majestic gods moving, great kings and queens among human beings; great kings and queens made young by Friea’s apples of youth. Friea was the Goddess of Love, Youth, and Beauty. ”

“ Siegfried! See!” she cried—and her voice echoed both far and near. “Gladly greets thee thy bride!”
Into the flames sprang Grani, the stanch war-horse, and the Walküre was gone from the eyes of men forever. But, behold! Her deed brought release from the sin and sorrow of many years.
The flames, rising high and higher, made a great fiery wall between the earth and sky. The Rhine Maidens swam up to the shore and caught a bright circlet lying near in the midst of a heap of ashes. Hagen, springing after it, was lost in the Rhine’s rushing waters forever. ”

“ The Wanderer burst out into laughter.
“But who will mend the sword?” he asked.
Mime sprang to his feet in despair, filled with terror and rage; for that was the one question he could not answer—that was his riddle, his everlasting mystery.
Quietly Wotan rose from the hearth where he had been sitting.
“I gave you three chances to ask me the question which I have now asked you. Foolishly, you let them all slip by. Listen while I answer it! Only he who has never felt fear can forge Nothung anew.”
He strode to the door of the cave, and there paused, looking back.
“Guard well your head, O Dwarf! ”

“ As Siegfried took a step forward, he suddenly stopped short in overpowering surprise. For before-97- him, upon a rock, lay a figure clad in brightest steel, with shield and spear and helmet gleaming in the sun.
“Is it a warrior?” thought the young Volsung, drawing near—for Mime had described to him the bright armor the great heroes wore in battle. “Perhaps,” thought Siegfried, as he bent over the sleeper, “he would rest better if his helmet were loosened.” And he unfastened it carefully and took it off. Masses of golden curling hair gleamed like sunny clouds about the fair face of the Walküre. ”

“ She did not know that the Wanderer had been none other than the first father of all the race of Volsungs—Wotan, the king of the gods.
Siegmund, the boy, as he grew to manhood, became a very wolf in wildness, but a great warrior, and a stanch hero. He led a roving life, with few friends, and, alas! many enemies. His generous heart brought him into sad dilemmas sometimes; as, for instance, when, at a maiden’s request, he defended her from her relations, who wished to marry her to some one whom she hated. ”

“ Laughing at his ignorance, the nymphs told him that it was a magical Gold; that whoever made a Ring from it would have greater power than any one else alive; that he could possess all the wealth of the world if he wished; and they so described the fairy powers of the treasure that Alberich’s wicked soul began to thrill with desire to have it as his own. ”

“ The gods assented.
“But,” said Wotan, “what good does it do you, here in Nibelheim?”
Alberich glared at him, and then laughed.
“Ha! ha! But wait!” he said. “You gods! You gods! You have looked down upon us Nibelungs. Now we, with the help of the Golden Ring, will sway the whole world. We will storm the gates of Walhalla! Beware! Ha! ha! Do you hear me? Beware!”
Wotan, in anger, started forward, but Logi slipped in front of him.
“Most wonderful are you, O Nibelung!” he said, admiringly. “I salute you as the mightiest creature alive. ”

“ She gave him Grani, her stanch war-horse, and he placed on her finger as a parting love-gift the beautiful bright Ring that he had won at Hate Hole, and then he bade her farewell, and blithely-106- passed down the mountain-side, blowing a clear, merry blast on his horn.
Brünnhilde stood on the Walküres’ rock and gazed yearningly after him, and the young hero went forth into far lands to know men and do great deeds, and find at last that strange place called the world. ”

“ To indicate Wotan, the King of the gods and the ruler in Walhalla, Wagner has constantly made use of this motif.
Its melody is measured, strong, and simple, and the nobility of those worshipped gods of primeval years seems to breathe through it.
The Nibelungs were so intimately associated with their work that they were scarcely more than living machines—soulless exponents of the art of the forge and the anvil; so when we hear in the music the beat of hammers—the sharp, metallic clang in measured time, our first thought is that the hammers are swung by the Nibelungs. ”

“ Again Mime pondered.
“Now, Wanderer, since you know so much of the earth’s depths,” he said, “tell me what is the race that dwells upon its surface?”
“The giants dwell upon its surface. Two of them, Fasolt and Fafner, fought for Black Alberich’s hoard. Fafner guards it now as a dragon. Put your third question!”
“What race dwells in the sky above?” demanded Mime.
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And the Wanderer answered, majestically:
“The gods dwell above in Walhalla. Their King is Wotan, who owns a spear made of the World-Ash. With that spear he rules the world.” ”

“ No one could change the histories wound into their golden cord, until the Dusk of the Gods had come, when they also would, in the Last Twilight, be gone forever. So, feeling as he did, it mattered very little whom he aided, whom he harmed. He even went so far as to arouse Fafner for Alberich, and ask him to give the Dwarf the Ring. The old Dragon snarled and yawned and went to sleep again. The Wanderer turned to the Nibelung, with a great laugh.
“Listen!” he said. “Remember, O Alberich, what I say. All things work in nature’s course. You can alter nothing.” ”

“ He finally confessed that he did not know why he ever returned to the cave, because, he said frankly, he could not help detesting the Dwarf, and was much happier when away from him. And then he broke into a passionate description of the wood-life he loved so well; the mating of the birds in the spring-time, and the way they loved and helped each other; the care that the mother deer lavished upon her little ones; the tenderness among all the forest creatures that seemed so beautiful and mysterious to him.
“I learned watching them,” said Siegfried, almost sorrowfully, “what love must be. ”

“ We have, all of us, read of the Golden Age, when the gods ruled over the world, and giants and dragons, dwarfs and water-fairies inhabited the earth and mingled with mortals. The giants were then a strong, stupid race, more rough than cruel, and, as a rule, generous among themselves. They were very foolish creatures, and constantly did themselves and others harm; but their race, even at that time, was dying out, and there were left of it only two brothers, Fasolt and Fafner. ”

“ Siegfried is their son—the strongest Volsung who ever lived.”
“Well answered!” said the Wanderer. “Now listen and reply! A sly Nibelung watches Siegfried, knowing that he is fated to kill Fafner, the Dragon. What sword must he use to kill him?”
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“Nothung!” cried Mime, eagerly. “Nothung is the name of the sword. Siegmund once drew it from a great tree. It was broken by the spear of Wotan. Now a clever smith”—and he rubbed his hands gleefully—“understands all this, and he hoards well the splinters, knowing that with these alone can Siegfried kill the Dragon.” ”

“ Now, of course, the Rhine Chief had never even seen the Ring, and thought, not unnaturally, that Siegfried had taken it from Brünnhilde and then kept it for himself from a feeling of greed and a desire to possess it. The young hero, when questioned, merely answered that it was one he had found at Hate Hole, and that he had won it from no woman, but a monster worm which he had killed. ”

“ Up in the mountains near a rocky gorge, where the wind swept and the wild pines grew, stood Wotan, king of the gods, and before him, awaiting his orders, was his favorite daughter, Brünnhilde, the Walküre.
She was very beautiful, more beautiful than any woman who ever breathed. Her hair was golden bright, her figure queenly. When she moved, the motion of a bird was not more fleet and graceful, and her face was what you might suppose the face of a goddess would be. She-46- wore long white robes and glistening armor, and the wings in her bright helmet were like snow. ”

“ But I am all alone. I have no brothers nor sisters, and my father and mother are both dead. Tell me where I may find a loving friend. I have called one so often, but none ever comes.” He sighed. “Sing now, sing,” he begged; and again the bird’s twitter sounded from among the leaves above him.
“Hey! Siegfried has slain now the wicked Dwarf. I know where he’ll find a glorious bride. On a rock she sleeps amid fire. If he passed through the blaze and awakened her, Brünnhilde would then be his.” ”

“ Hunding relented a little; and, after handing her his shield and weapons, said quietly to Siegmund:
“Safe is my hearth! Safe for you is my house!” Then, turning to Sieglinde, he roughly bade her hasten with the supper. She bore away the heavy weapons and rested them against the tree in the centre of the hall; then went about arranging the evening meal. As they sat down on the rough seats around the scantily spread table, Hunding asked his guest his name, and whence he had come on so stormy a night. ”