ieglinde and bears her rapidly away
upon her fleet-footed steed.

After gazing for a moment in speechless sorrow at his lifeless
favourite, Wotan turns a wrathful glance upon the treacherous
Hunding, who, unable to endure the divine accusation of his
unflinching gaze, falls lifeless to the ground. Then the god
mounts his steed, and rides off on the wings of the storm in
pursuit of the disobedient Walkyrie, whom he is obliged to
punish severely for his oath's sake.

The next scene represents an elevated plateau, the trysting
spot of the eight Walkyries, on Hindarfiall, or Walkuerenfels,
whither they all come hastening, bearing the bodies of the
slain across their fleet steeds. Brunhilde appears last of all,
carrying Sieglinde. She breathlessly pours out the story of
the day's adventures, and implores her sisters to devise some
means of hiding Sieglinde, and to protect her from Wotan's
dreaded wrath:--

'The raging hunter
Behind me who rides,
He nears, he nears from the North!
Save me, sisters!
Ward this woman.'

The sound of the tempest has been growing louder and louder
while she is speaking, and as she ends her narrative Sieglinde
recovers consciousness, but only to upbraid her for having
saved her life. She wildly proposes suicide, until Brunhilde
bids her live for the sake of Siegmund's son whom she will bring
into the world, and tells her to treasure the fragments of the
sword Nothung, which she had carried away. Sieglinde, anxious
now to live for her child's sake, hides the broken fragments in
her bosom, and, in obedience to Brunhilde's advice, speeds into
the dense forest where Fafnir has his lair, and where Wotan will
never venture lest the curse of the ring should fall upon him.

'Save for thy son
The broken sword!
Where his father fell
On the field I found it.
Who welds it anew
And waves it again,
His name he gains from me now--
"Siegfried" the hero be hailed.'

The noise of the storm and rushing wind has become greater
and greater, the Walkyries have anxiously been noting Wotan's
approach. As Sieglinde vanishes in the dim recesses of the
primeval forest, the wrathful god comes striding upon the
stage in search of Brunhilde, who cowers tremblingly behind
her sisters. After a scathing rebuke to the Walkyries, who
would fain shelter a culprit from his all-seeing eye, Wotan
bids Brunhilde step forth. Solemnly he then pronounces her
sentence, decla