roach, "Only in the
pleasant water-depths is truth; false and cowardly are those making
merry up there!" With Walhalla and rainbow shedding a radiance
around them of which we are made conscious through the delighted
sense of hearing, the curtain falls.

So we lose sight of them, moving into their new house; in spite
of their glory a little like the first family of the county. But
while to triumphant strains they seek their serene stronghold, we
know that the lines have been laid for disaster. The Ring is in the
world, with its terrific power; and there is in the world one whom
wrong has turned into a deadly enemy, whose soul is undividedly bent
upon getting possession of the Ring, which Wotan may not himself
attempt to get--stopped, if not by Erda's warning or by terror of
the curse, by the fact that he finally gave it to the giants in
payment of an acknowledged debt, and that his spear stands precisely
for honor in relations of the sort.

THE VALKYRIE

(DIE WALKUERE)

THE VALKYRIE

(DIE WALKUERE)

I

Wotan's idea, from which the abode of the gods received its name
of Walhalla, had been to people his halls with hordes of heroes
who should defend it from Alberich and his "army of the night."

Erda's prophecy of a dark day dawning for the gods had destroyed
Wotan's peace. The craving to know more of this drove him to seek
her in the depths of the earth. He cast upon her the spell of love
and constrained her to speak. It does not appear that he gained
from her any clear knowledge of the future; he learned chiefly, as
we gather, what were the dangers besetting him. The end threatened
through Alberich's forces, which, however, could not prevail against
the heroic garrison of Walhalla unless Alberich should recover the
Ring; through the power of the Ring he would be able to estrange
the heroes from Wotan and, turning their arms against him, overcome
him. "When the dark enemy of love (Alberich) in wrath shall beget
a son," so ran Erda's warning, "the end of the Blessed shall not
be long delayed!"

From Erda was born to Wotan a daughter, so near to her father's
heart that she seemed an incarnation of his most intimate wish,
his very will embodied; so part of himself she knew his unspoken
thought. This was Bruennhilde (from _Bruenne_, corslet). With eight
other daughters,--born to Wotan from "the tie of lawless love,"
as we learn from Fricka in her tale of wrongs--Bruennhilde, the
dearest to him of all, foll