CHAPTER IV
THE WALKÜRES’ ROCK
The fire rolled and surged about him, the great red flames twisted around him, and in many colors the vistas opened here and there like rainbow avenues. For the colors in fire are more beautiful than those in an opal.
As he passed up the steep way, and trampled the flames and beat them back, laughing at their scorching heat, they began to burn lower and sank into a narrow, bright circle of fire behind him; unobtrusive and not at all fierce, just, in fact, what they had been until a hero drew near to pass through them. Then they had done their best to keep him from their fair, sleeping captive; but they were conquered, the wild, bright flames; and they died down to almost nothing as the Volsung, still blowing a merry call on his horn, sprang up the rocks to the summit of the mountain.
It was quiet and calm there, full of deep peace and silence. It seemed as if even the trees and flowers were asleep. No sound broke the stillness, no leaf moved or insect darted. It was as though Nature were laying her finger on her lip and saying, “Hush—hush! This place is enchanted.”
It was broad day, and the blue sky, reaching overhead, seemed to smile down on the young hero as he stood gazing wonderingly about him.
On one side stretched the dark wood, reaching down the mountain-side—the wood into which his mother had run, bearing the splinters of Nothung, so many years before. As he looked into the dark depths he was amazed to see a war-horse asleep under the trees. It was Grani, who had fallen under the same spell as his mistress. As Siegfried took a step forward, he suddenly stopped short in overpowering surprise. For before 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.
“Ah, how beautiful!” cried Siegfried, softly. “The face is like that of the sun smiling between mists.”
He bent down still lower.
“How heavily he breathes! I would better open his armor,” said the boy. Drawing his sword, he cut off the mail in which the sleeper was arrayed. When the last ring was loosened and he had lifted off the suit of mail-armor, he started erect, filled with a strange, wonderful feeling that he had never known before. The sleeping Walküre, no longer dressed in steel like a warrior, but in long, white, womanly robes, was so marvellous and beautiful that this lion-hearted young Volsung felt fear at last in the presence of the first woman he had ever seen.
Timidly he drew near, wondering how he should arouse her.
“Awaken, beautiful woman!” he cried, tremulously. But she did not hear. At last he bent over her and kissed her.
Brünnhilde opened her eyes.
Starting up, she lifted both arms towards the sky, and cried, in glad though solemn tones,
“Hail, O sun! Hail, O light! Hail, O glorious day! Long was my sleep—I am awakened! Where is the hero who awakes me?”
The young Volsung, drawing timidly near, answered that it was he who had come through the fire and awakened her, and that his name was Siegfried; and he said, too, that, as she had first aroused fear in his heart, she must bring his courage back to him. Passionately, he told her that he loved her; but Brünnhilde could not remember that she was no longer a Walküre, and at first she did not want to be a woman and a mortal’s wife—however great that mortal might be.
But, after a time, with a sudden great rush of passion, she felt in some strange way that she cared no longer for the gods and their glory, and loved only Siegfried, and longed to serve him and be his wife. So she promised to marry him, and she said that the Norns might break their rope of histories, for the Dusk of the Gods drew near.
She taught Siegfried many strange things and much wisdom—the wisdom of the gods. And she gave him her weapons, forgot that she had ever been a Walküre, and loved him with all her heart.
[Music: Motif of Peace]
Part IV
THE DUSK OF THE GODS, OR _GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG_
[Music: Motif of the World-Ash-Tree]
PRELUDE
Holding in his hand his broken spear, the king of the gods wended his way to Walhalla. He sent forth stanch messengers to hew the World-Ash into a thousand pieces and pile them high about the gods’ palace. Then he assembled round him his heroes and the Walküres and the rest of the divinities, and sat in silence awaiting the Dusk of the Gods.
All the gods, far and wide, knew that the Last Twilight was impending; and fate relentlessly led all things to the end. To the Walküres’ rock came the Norns in the gray of dawn to spin. From hand to hand passed the golden cord. Each told a history in gloomy, chanting measures.
The oldest Norn sang of the days when the World-Ash was green and the Fountain of Wisdom purled softly in the shadow of the wide branches. She sang of Wotan’s coming to the spring and drinking; of the tearing of the limb from the World-Ash; of the withering of the great tree. Her song ceased. She flung the cord to her sister.
The second Norn wound slowly as she sang. Her tale was of the making of the great spear with which Wotan had ruled the world until one stronger than the gods had shivered the haft and overpowered the Ruler. She sang of how Wotan had now ordered that the World-Ash should be broken and piled about Walhalla. She paused, and the youngest Norn took the rope.
She sang of the bright palace where Wotan sat among the gods and heroes, with the great fagots from the World-Ash heaped around him. She sang that, when these fagots should be lighted and Walhalla burned, the Dusk of the Gods would come.
They sang of many strange events—these Norns—events of the past, of the present, of the future. They sang of the circle of fire lit by Logi about the rock. They sang of the Rhinegold stolen by Alberich; they sang long and sadly of the gods and their king.
“The web is tangled,” said the first Norn.
“Alberich’s spell tears at the strands,” said the second, and flung it to the third.
[Illustration: BRÜNNHILDE ON THE WALKÜRES’ ROCK]
“I cannot reach the rope—it is too short,” said the youngest, putting out her hand.
The cord snapped. It had stretched across the past, but it could not touch the future. It was, indeed, too short.
“It breaks!” wailed the Norns, crouching in dread, as the faint light of day appeared.
“At an end is our wisdom!” they murmured in chorus, and wound the broken bits of the rope about their gray-shrouded bodies; then fled like mist into the earth, down to their mother, Erda, the all-wise one, she who had first prophesied the Dusk of the Gods.
* * * * *
When she had taught him all the wisdom that she knew, and given him all she had, Brünnhilde bade her hero go forth into the world and win fame and honor by great deeds. He must journey to the far lands peopled by brave men and high heroes and prove his courage and his strength. She would wait for him patiently, and he would come back to her when he had made all men know and honor him.
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 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.
[Music: Motif of Brünnhilde]
[Music: Motif of the Gibichungs]
[Music: Motif of Hagen]