ences reveal her dream: She is a child again and
the scene is reenacted to her of the conflagration which ended
her life in the forest with father and mother and twin. She starts
awake in affright, calling Siegmund, and finds herself alone. She
hears her husband's horn and his call to Wehwalt to stand and meet
him. She hears Siegmund's arrogant reply. She cannot see them for
the black storm-scud, but calls on them to stop, to kill her first.
A flash of lightning shows Hunding and Siegmund fighting on a high
point of the rocky pass. Sieglinde is rushing toward them, when
a sudden glare blinds her. In the light, Bruennhilde is seen hard
at Siegmund's side, defending him with her shield. "Strike home,
Siegmund! Trust to the victorious sword!" Siegmund raises his sword
for a deathblow to Hunding, when a fiery beam drops through the
storm-cloud; in the red glow of it is distinguished the form of
Wotan at Hunding's side, holding his spear between the combatants.
His voice is heard, terrible: "Back from the spear! To pieces,
the sword!" Nothung snaps against the spear, and, run through the
body by his adversary, Siegmund falls. Sieglinde hears his dying
sigh--the strong heart stops on a brief snatch, pathetic, of the
motif of the heroism of the Waelsungen--She drops to earth, stunned.
In the gloom, Bruennhilde, who has retreated before the angry father's
spear, is seen lifting Sieglinde and hurrying off: "To horse! that
I may save you!"

Long and mournfully Wotan gazes upon the fallen Siegmund--best-beloved
perhaps of all the Wagner heroes. Taking account suddenly of the
presence of Hunding, "Begone, slave!" he orders, "kneel before
Fricka, inform her that Wotan's spear has taken vengeance of that
which brought mockery upon her!... Begone!... Begone!..." But at
the gesture with which the command is emphasised, Hunding drops
dead, crushed out of life by the god's contempt.

Abruptly recalled to the thought of his child's contumacy, Wotan
starts up in terrific wrath: "But Bruennhilde! Woe to that offender!
Dreadful shall be the punishment meted to her audacity, when my
horse overtakes her in her flight!" Amid lightning and thunder,
aptly symbolising the state of his temper, the god vanishes from
sight.

III

The third act shows the scene, a high rocky peak rising from among
great pine-trees, where the Valkyries assemble for their return
together to the hall of Wotan. On the clouds they come riding, each
with a dead warrio