Siegmund is weaponless. The firelight sends a sudden glow upon the ash tree, and a sword-hilt there sends back an answering gleam. But Siegmund knows not what it means. Clad in white, Sieglinde steals from the inner room. She has left Hunding asleep, overcome by a slumberous draft.
"Thy coming is life," cries Siegmund.
"A weapon, now, let me show thee," she replies. And she tells how, on the day of her unhappy wedding, a stranger, all in gray, low-hatted and one-eyed, had entered the Hunding hall and struck into the ash stem a sword that none but the bravest of heroes could win, and how all in turn had tried in vain to draw forth the sword. Now she knows for whom it was ordained,—
"It was for thee, my deliverer, my hero held in my arms!"
They embrace. He declares his lineage. He is son of him whose eye proudly glistened from under the low-brimmed hat,—son of Wälse, the wanderer. He is Siegmund, the Victorious. For him, the sword Nothung.—And he draws it easily forth.
"Art thou Siegmund?" she cries; "Sieglinde am I. Thine own twin sister thou winnest at once with the sword."
"Bride and sister be to thy brother; then nourish the Wälsungs for aye!"
So the twain make their compact.
In the second act we are transported to a wild and rocky place. Before Wotan, fully armed and carrying his spear, stands Brünnhilde, the warrior maid, likewise fully armed. She is one of the nine Valkyries, daughters of Wotan and Erda, fostered for battle that they might forfend the doom foretold by Erda herself,—the shameful defeat of the gods. Well have the Valkyrs, choosers of the slain, performed their task, stirring mortal hearts to battle and riding through the air above to designate the bravest for death, and with their spirits to fill the halls on Valhalla's height. Now, however, Wotan is ordering Brünnhilde to haste to the fray,—not on death's errand but on errand of life,—to shield Siegmund the Wälsung in the fight. The Valkyrie springs shouting from rock to rock, and disappears behind the mountain crags.
All seems to be arranged. But lo, Fricka, in her ram-drawn car! She descends and strides toward her scheming spouse. The goddess has heard the cry of Hunding, calling for vengeance on the twinborn pair who have rashly wrought him wrong; and as guardian of wedlock she demands the death of Siegmund in the coming conflict. Wotan tries to persuade her that Siegmund's success is needful to the gods,—the warrior band of mortal souls gathered by the Valkyries in the heights of Valhalla cannot alone suffice to avert the onslaught of the powers of darkness.