"All that e'er was, know I," pronounces Erda:
"How all things are;
How all things shall be.
Hear me! hear me! hear me!
All that e'er was, endeth:
A darksome day
Dawns for your godhood!
Be counseled; give up the Ring."
She vanishes, the all-wise one; and Wotan surrenders the Ring. Freia is redeemed, and the gods glow again with youth. No sooner have the giants gained possession of the Ring than they proceed to quarrel over it. Fafner strikes out with his staff and stretches Fasolt on the ground. From the dying man he hastily wrests the Ring, puts it into his sack, and goes on quietly packing the gold. In a solemn silence the gods stand horrified. Care and fear fetter the soul of Wotan. That he may shake himself free of them he determines to descend to Erda; she yet can give him counsel. But first,—for Donner has cleared with his thunder and lightning the clouds that had overspread the scene,—he will enter "Valhalla," his castle, golden-gleaming in the evening sunlight.
"What meaneth the name, then?" asks Fricka, as they cross the rainbow bridge.
Wotan evades the question, for he still dreads the curse pronounced by the Nibelung upon all who have owned the Ring; and that name, "Valhalla," indicates just the means by which he hopes to escape the curse. He has thought to avert the doom of the gods by gathering in this Valhalla, or Hall of the Slain, the spirits of heroes fallen in battle—especially of heroes of a race that shall spring from himself, the Volsungs (or Wälsungs) yet to be born. They shall do battle for the gods when sounds the crack of doom. But of all this Wotan says naught. He will say in the hour of his triumph.
As the gods enter Valhalla the plaints of the Rhine-maidens for the loss of their gold arise from the river below.
286. In The Valkyrie Wotan proceeds with his plan. During his wanderings on earth, under the name of Wälse, he has become the father of twin children, Siegmund and Sieglinde. These have, in early youth, been separated by the murderous turmoil of warring clans, but now they are to be reunited; and Wotan, with a primitive disregard of the fact that they are brother and sister, intends to make them man and wife, in order that from them may issue the heroic race that, in the latter days, shall defend Valhalla from the onslaught of the powers of evil.
The play opens with the interior of a woodland lodge. In the center rises the stem of a mighty ash tree, about which has been built an apartment of roughly hewn logs. It is toward evening and a violent thunderstorm is just subsiding. This is the home of Hunding, chieftain of the Neiding clan. The door opens, and Siegmund, flying from his enemies, wounded and weaponless, enters. Seeing no one, he closes the door, strides toward the fire, and throws himself wearily down on a bearskin:
"Whoe'er own this hearth,
Here must I rest me."