"My bride, my sister!" he said, "brother and bridegroom long for you. For the blood of the Wolsungs will blossom yet."
[CHAPTER V]
THE STRIFE OF WOTAN AND FRICKA
Not far from the house of Hunding, but above the great wood of pines that with their dark plumes fringed the hillside opposite, there was a region of wild and bleak rocks, where, if any breeze stirred below, here it was as a strong wind. And if storm was coming over the earth, here above all would the clouds gather, and gloom and mix together till the power of the heavens willed that they should go on their appointed journeys of wrath or mercy to the thirsty earth. Thus the Valkyries, the wild maidens of the storm, were often wont to come here, riding on the wings of the wind, for their joy was in tempest and strife, and they cared little for peace and content, and their home was with the thunder, and the lightning was the lantern they loved best. At other times, when the heavens were clear, and the benediction of the sun brooded over the earth, here, above the woods and the damp and sorry lowlands, was its light the most serene and bright. Pure blew the airs as they blew to the mariner in the shrouds of his ship, and on all sides carved out to infinite distance lay vales and mountain peaks and ridges of hills, folded and knit the one into the other as the muscles of a strong man's arm rise and fall into ridge and furrow where his strength abides.
Thus it way that Wotan the king of the gods often came here, for here it was that he would be like to find his daughter Brunnhilde, the eldest of the Valkyries, and of all living things the dearest to him; and from here, as from a fortress home, she and her sisters, having communed with their father, would start on their war-raids, riding on the storm, and dazzling the souls of men with their beauty and their terror. And on the selfsame night, that first of spring, when spring and love awoke together in the hearts of Sieglinde and Siegmund, and maddened them with their sweetness, Wotan with his daughter Brunnhilde had sat night-long on that serene mountain-top, and he, communing with her as he communed with his own soul, had spoken to her of that wild deed which the brother and sister, his children by the forest maiden, had committed. And in the deeps of his heart he guessed, though darkly as in a glass, that from Siegmund the Wolsung should come that man for whom he waited, one free and owing nothing to the favour of the gods, who alone should be able to bring back to him the ring of the Rhine-gold, in whose circlet lay the wealth of the world and unmeasured might, even as Erda had foretold to him. Nor did the mating of this strange pair amaze or disquiet him, for they loved with that love which is the fire of the earth, and without which the earth would grow cold, and to his eyes that fire, from whatever fuel it was kindled, was a thing sacred beyond compare; while of the vows of a loveless marriage, such as Sieglinde's had been, he recked nought, nor scrupled to scatter it to the winds, even as a man on an autumn day scatters the thistledown on the breezy uplands, and cares nought where the winds may take it. For as light as thistledown to him were loveless vows, but love, even though no vow may hallow it, he held more sacred than his own oath.
So when the day dawned, he rose from the rock where he had been sitting, and Brunnhilde rose from her place by his knee.
"Up then to horse, my maid," he cried, "and be strong and swift to aid. Ere long the clash of arms shall be heard, and Bunding follow hard on Siegmund's trail. Up then, Brunnhilde, and put might into the heart of Siegmund the Wolsung, and strength into his arm. I reck nothing of Bunding, for he is no son of light, but of darkness. So to horse and away; get thee to Siegmund's side."
Then loud and long Brunnhilde shouted her cry of war, so that the rocks re-echoed, and far away from the muffled hillside of pines came the response.
Then ere she went, she climbed quickly to the topmost pinnacle of the ridge of rocks, and looking down into the ravine behind, she saw one whom she knew coming quickly up, and with a sweet sort of malice in her heart she called to her father Wotan.