“Why do you laugh at me?” asked the boy. “Listen, old questioner! Tell me the way, or, if you cannot do that, say nothing at all,” for he was in a thoroughly bad humor, and in the woods he had never been taught to accord old age much honor. So he strode up to the Wanderer and demanded that he should tell him the way, threatening to serve him like Mime if he insisted on barring the pass. For Wotan was standing directly before the rocky way, and, as Siegfried was in great haste, it exasperated him.
“You will not tell me, then?” he said, finally. “Then get out of my way! I will find the rock for myself. My little bird-friend showed me in which direction the slumbering woman lies.”
“The bird!” said Wotan, wrathfully. “It fled to save its life. The King-Ravens barred its way.”
For the god had sent his two great birds to turn back the little guide, just as he himself intended to attempt to turn back Siegfried.
He had said in his spell, when he left Brünnhilde sleeping on the rock: “Only one who fears not my spear can pass through the fire bar.” Now, this must be the test. Would this strong, beautiful boy recoil before the haft made of the World-Ash, or would the Dusk of the Gods come through human courage, overthrowing the might of the gods?
The Wanderer stretched out his great spear, the spear which had strange figures upon it representing Law and Knowledge; the spear which was typical of the wisdom and the power of the gods; the spear upon which Nothung, the sword, had once been shattered.
“The weapon you swing,” said the Wanderer, “was once shivered upon this haft. It will again snap on the Eternal Spear.”
Siegfried drew his sword.
“Then you are my father’s enemy!” he cried. “Then you broke his defence! Stretch out your spear! My sword shall break it in pieces!”
And a great peal of thunder crashed among the hills as Nothung broke the Eternal Spear with which Wotan had ruled the world.