"Wotan has never sent us to a battlefield since that day when we last saw you.
"Not long ago he came home with his magic spear broken into splinters. He sat down and buried his face in his hands, and there he sits day after day.
"He tell us the giants are passing from the earth. A little while and Valhalla shall be no more.
"He refuses all of Freya's golden fruit. He has grown very old and very sad.
"Yesterday I heard him say, 'Oh! if Brunhilde would only give the ring back to the Rhine-daughters, and release the world from the terrible curse of gold!'
"And, Brunhilde, I have come to beg of you, will you not give the ring back to the Rhine-daughters?"
Brunhilde clasped the ring close to her breast.
"Give the ring to the Rhine-daughters?" she cried.
Then she looked far away toward the valley----and Siegfried.
"This ring of mine is Siegfried's pledge of love!"