In the high heavens, Walhalla’s stately towers appeared in a bright ring of fire. The fagots made from the World-Ash had at last caught fire. Dimly could be seen the great array of gods and heroes awaiting the Last Twilight, and the end.
Wildly, and still more wildly, leaped the flames. Walhalla was surrounded with red fire—it could no longer be seen. A fearful light glowed upon earth and heaven.
Lo! the Dusk of the Gods was come.
And that was how the Last Twilight came to Walhalla, and how Brünnhilde lifted the spell off the world and expiated the old sins of so many years before.
And that was how the Golden Age came to an end, and a better and nobler era of truth and happiness reigned upon the earth.
So the enchanted Rhinegold came back to the hands of its first guardians—the maidens of the river; and, after great sorrow and turmoil, there was at last peace.
Motif of Brünnhilde’s Expiation