In the beginning Gold, the symbol of human desire, lay in the bed of the Rhine. It was worshipped and attended by the daughters of the Rhine. Then it was stolen from them. In the end it was restored to them, but between the beginning and the end it carried its curse through many tragic chapters.
This treasure was called the Rheingold, and, when wrought into a ring it gave its owner universal power. One condition only went with the Rheingold,—he who owned it must renounce love forever.
Three beautiful Maidens of the Rhine guarded the gold, and Alberich, the ugly King of the Nibelungs—the dwarfs who lived underground—tried to make love to them. They rejected him scornfully, and so the dwarf, seeing the gold in the river and knowing its power, forswore love forever, and seizing the treasure, bore it off to his underground home.
Just at this time Wotan and the other gods were building a marvellous castle. They did not have the strength to build this palace by themselves, so they had called the giants to their aid. For their pay Wotan promised them the goddess of youth, Freia. As her loss would bring old age and decay upon the gods, he never meant to keep his promise—a habit of Wotan’s, by the way. He trusted to the cunning of Loge (Ló-gee), the Fire god, to get him out of the predicament.
When appealed to, however, Loge declared that after searching all heaven and earth, he could find no way out of the difficulty. But he also reported that he had heard of the stealing of the Rheingold, and suggested that perhaps the giants would take the ring of the Nibelung in place of Freia if the gods could get it away from Alberich. The giants, between whom and the Nibelungs a feud had existed for a long time, knew that if Alberich kept the ring he would have dominion over them. So they agreed that if the gods would get them the Rhine treasure they would give up their claim to Freia.
Therefore Wotan and Loge descended to Nibelheim. There they found Alberich gathering together a great hoard of treasure by the aid of the magic ring. Furthermore, Mime, one of his lieutenants, had made him a helmet by which he could change his shape or become invisible. Loge suggested that, to prove the power of the helmet, Alberich change himself into a toad. The dwarf did this, and the gods promptly seized and bound him. They then forced him to give up the helmet and the ring. Alberich had to agree, but he uttered a curse on the ring that brought death and destruction to everyone who owned it.
When the giants came for their reward, they placed their tall spears upright in the ground before Freia, and demanded a pile of gold high enough to conceal her. However, when all the gold was heaped together, and even the magic helmet added to the pile, there was still a chink through which the eye of the goddess could be seen. To fill this the giants demanded the ring. Wotan did not want to part with this, but the goddess Erda appeared and warned him against the curse, so he added it to the heap.
The curse immediately began its work. Fafner, one of the giants, claimed the greater part of the hoard of gold for himself. When Fasolt, the other giant, resented this, he slew him. This was but the first of the many tragedies that followed the ring.
A beautiful rainbow bridge now appeared, spanning the valley, and over this the gods passed, and entered their new palace of Walhall.