owels of the earth, digging its metals, excelling in cunning as
smiths.

The Rhine did not continue flowing water quite down to its bed;
the boundary-line of Nibelheim seems to have been just above it;
the water there turned to fine mist; among the rough rocks of the
river-bed were passages down into the Under-world.

Up through one of these, one day before sunrise, while the Rhine
was melodiously thundering in its majestic course--they are the
Rhine-motifs which open the piece,--came clambering, by some chance,
the Nibelung Alberich. His night-accustomed eyes, as he blinked
upward into the green light, were caught by a silvery glinting of
scales, flashes of flesh-pink and floating hair. The Rhine-maidens,
guardians of the gold, were frolicking around it; but this did not
appear, for the sun had not yet risen to wake it into radiance.
The dwarf saw just a shimmering of young forms, was touched with
a natural desire, and called to them, asking them to come down
to him, and let him join in their play.

At the sound of the strange voice and the sight of the strange
figure, Flosshilde, a shade more sensible than her sisters, cries
out to them: "Look to the gold! Father warned us of an enemy of
the sort!" and the three rally quickly around the treasure. But it
soon appears that the stranger is but a dark, small, hairy, ugly,
harmless-seeming, amorous creature, uttering his wishes very simply.
The watch over the gold is relinquished, and a little amusement
sought in tantalizing and befooling the clumsy wooer.

Alberich, later a figure touched with terror and followed with
dislike, is likeable in this scene, almost gentle, one's sympathies
come near being with him. The music describes him awkward and heavy,
slipping on the rocks, sneezing in the wet; a note of protest is
frequent in his voice. All the music relating to him, now or later,
is joyless, whatever beside it may be.

The sisters have their fun with the poor gnome, whose innocence of
nixies' ways is apparent in the long time it is before all reliance
in their good faith leaves him. Woglinde invites him nearer. With
difficulty he climbs the slippery rocks to reach her. When he can
nearly touch her--he is saying, "Be my sweetheart, womanly child!"--she
darts from him. And the sisters laugh their delicious inhuman laugh.
Woglinde then plunges to the river-bed, calling to Alberich, "Come
down! Here you surely can grasp me!" He owns it will be easier for
him down th