"Fly, father, fly!" she cried, half laughter, half pity for him. "Let the king of gods be seen to fly for his safety, for a storm for thyself sweeps hither swiftly. Fricka thy wife is near on thy trail, driving her chariot with its harnessed rams. Up the path she comes; canst thou not hear the strokes of her golden whip, which like a flail she is plying? Listen to the bleatings of her belaboured steeds, listen to the rattling of her whirling wheels, while to guide her path to thee, anger flares like a beacon in her face. Father, dear father, such fights as these are little to my liking, for Brunnhilde would sooner meet the armed strength of men than the spirted venom of a woman's tongue and her war of words. Meet thou this fight as thou best may, for in such case I love to desert thee, and laughing I desert thee now. Yet I will wait hard by till Fricka has gone, and once more talk with thee ere I go to aid Siegmund."

Then once again, turning a look of love and laughter on her father, Brunnhilde shouted her joyous war-cry so that the distant hills replied, and sped quickly away until Fricka should have done with Wotan. With love shining in his eyes for her, he saw her go, and with anger and misgiving in his heart he saw his wife approach, knowing that a war of words was before him. For well he knew that she had come on this selfsame matter of Siegmund and Sieglinde, for so lawless a deed was an outrage to her. Yet was Wotan's purpose undismayed, and he swore to himself that she should find him steadfast in his resolve to aid Siegmund.

Now Fricka, though she was Wotan's wife, was not the companion of his heart; for she was cold and hard of nature, and nought that was human beat in her bosom. And by the great human heart of Wotan, in whose nostrils love was the breath of life, this wife of his was honoured indeed and much feared, but it was not to her he whispered at dark, nor told the secret troubles and joys of his soul. And when he saw her driving down the path, though he marvelled at her beauty, he had no word of tender welcome for her, and indeed her face was one flame of anger.

"Here in these heights where thou hidest from me, thy wife," she said, "I seek and find thee. Give me thy oath that thou wilt help me."

Then said Wotan, "What ails thee, wife?"

"Hunding's cry for vengeance has come to my ears," said she. "And well it might, for, as thou knowest, I am the goddess of marriage and marriage vows. Thus I listened in horror and holy indignation to the tale I heard, and I have sworn that Siegmund and Sieglinde, who have thus put him to shame so foully and madly, should pay for their sin. So help me, swear that thou wilt help me, that the two may reap their right reward. For shameful and impious is the deed that has been done."

Even as she spoke a little red flower blossomed at Wotan's feet, opening suddenly at the dawn of this sweet spring morning, and above his head two birds mated in mid-air, and his heart was warm within him with the instinct of the spring-time. "It is the spell of the spring," he thought to himself. "Love and spring drove mad both man and woman, and if there is blame, the blame is there." Aloud he said—

"O Fricka, it is spring-time!" and almost a tear of tenderness for the frail race of men he so loved started to his eye.

But Fricka answered him in anger. "The marriage vow has been broken," she cried, "and though that is not all, yet that is enough. Hunding's house is dishonoured, honoured, and I hate those who have dishonoured it."

"And did love hallow that marriage vow?" cried Wotan. "Was not Sieglinde carried by force to her marriage feast? Love's hand signed not the bond, and where love is not, there the most solemn vow turns impious. But a stranger came, and love stirred at last for him and her. And where love stirs, there is true marriage, and those stirrings of love I abet, I approve."