The Valkyrie, the tragedy of Siegmund and Sieglinde and the punishment of Brunnhilde, is the first of Richard Wagner's subsidiary dramas from The Ring of the Nibelung; the second, the finding of Brunnhilde by Siegfried, must now be considered. We hear the clinking of Mime's hammer, and the curtain rises on his home in a cave. All is dark within save for the smouldering smithy fire; but facing it is the hole in the rock which is the entrance, and through it we see the green summer forest. Mime is a malignant dwarf, in whose care Sieglinde, dying in childbirth, has left Siegfried. Years have passed, springs and summers and winters have come and gone; but Nature goes on in her imperturbable way, and Brunnhilde still lies wrapt in slumber on the mountain heights, the subject of awe-struck whispers amongst passing tribes. Mime tries in vain to piece the sherds of the sword together; Siegfried always smashes the new-made weapon at a single blow. The Wanderer, in his blue cloak, enters: it is Wotan, the heart-broken god, going wearily about the world awaiting what may happen. Again we hear the whole history of the Ring, but this time it is wrought into, and becomes an essential part of, the drama. Mime wagers his head that he will answer three questions put to him by the Wanderer, and having triumphed twice, is posed by the third: "Who will make a useful sword of these bits?" The Wanderer laughs at him, tells him it will be he who knows not fear; and he leaves Mime's head to this hero. He goes off, while fantastic lights dance without through the forest, until Mime is in an agony of fear. But on this scene depends the whole subsequent action. Mime tries to frighten Siegfried, and finds it impossible. He wants the Nibelung's ring to rule the world: Siegfried is the only man to get it; and after he has got it, Mime will avert the Wanderer's prophesied disaster by poisoning him. He tells the history of Sieglinde also, and Siegfried knows he is the hero. He will have no patching of the sword: that sword was Wotan's and subject to his will; he grinds it to powder, and makes one of his own, with which he will face either man or god. In the making of it he sings the glorious Sword-song; and when it is made he tests it by splitting the anvil with it. Here the first act ends. In case I have too much insisted on the storm, passion, and fire in The Valkyrie, it may be pointed out that these play little part in Wagner's Siegfried. Here we have first the calm summer morning, and if the scene with the Wanderer is filled with that sense of the remote past, and the Wanderer's exit uncanny, spectral — a very nightmare — much of the other music, such as the bit where Siegfried describes himself looking into the brook, and all the tale of Sieglinde, is tender and delicate; the fresh morning wind blows continuously. The same is true of the second act. After the beginning at Hate Hole, the slaying of the dragon — which is always comic — and the squabble of Alberich and Mime, we have scarcely anything but sustained beauty to the end. Having accidentally tasted the dragon's blood, Siegfried knows exactly what Mime means when he comes coaxingly to persuade him to drink the cup of poison; so he passes the sword through him. Then follows the scene where Siegfried lies in the sun and hears the wind murmuring in the trees, and then listens to the bird as it sings of Brunnhilde asleep far away on the mountains, and goes off to find her — all admirably painted in the freshest tints. The last act opens in the mountains. It is dawn, and gray scud is flying; the Wanderer summons Erda and learning nothing from her, tells her, virtually, his determination to struggle no more, but to await the end. Siegfried arrives; the Wanderer bars his way to try him; but Siegfried has no fear of the spear, and the sword was made by his own hands; so the spear is shattered, and he goes on his way. He passes through the fire, which immediately subsides. The scenery changes to that of the last of The Valkyrie, save that (generally) someone has erected a wall behind Brunnhilde. It is a calm summer afternoon; far away other hills are seen sleeping in the sun; Grani, Brunnhilde's horse, grazes quietly at one side; Brunnhilde, covered by her shield, her spear by her side, slumbers on. Siegfried enters, and after many doubts, wakes her with a kiss. At first she fiercely revolts against the new tyranny, the most terrible consequence of her crime; but she yields in the end, and the drama ends with a love-duet of a curious kind — not so much loving and passionate as heroic and triumphant, with a most elaborate cadenza, as if Wagner had said to himself, "Here's an end to all theories!" The final part of Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung Twilight of the Gods - Goetterdaemmerung.