They sit down to table; and the stranger tells them his unlucky story.He is the son of Wotan, who is known to him only as Wolfing, of the race of the Volsungs.The earliest thing he remembers is returning from a hunt with his father to find their home destroyed, his mother murdered, and his twin-sister carried off.This was the work of a tribe called the Neidings, upon whom he and Wolfing thenceforth waged implacable war until the day when his father disappeared, leaving no trace of himself but an empty wolfskin.The young Volsung was thus cast alone upon the world, finding most hands against him, and bringing no good luck even to his friends.His latest exploit has been the slaying of certain brothers who were forcing their sister to wed against her will.The result has been the slaughter of the woman by her brothers' clansmen, and his own narrow escape by flight.
His luck on this occasion is even worse than he supposes; for Hunding, by whose hearth he has taken refuge, is clansman to the slain brothers and is bound to avenge them.He tells the Volsung that in the morning, weapons or no weapons, he must fight for his life.Then he orders the woman to bed, and follows her himself, taking his spear with him.
The unlucky stranger, left brooding by the hearth, has nothing to console himself with but an old promise of his father's that he shall find a weapon to his hand when he most needs one.The last flicker of the dying fire strikes on the golden hilt of the sword that sticks in the tree; but he does not see it; and the embers sink into blackness.Then the woman returns.Hunding is safely asleep: she has drugged him.She tells the story of the one-eyed man who appeared at her forced marriage, and of the sword.She has always felt, she says, that her miseries will end in the arms of the hero who shall succeed in drawing it forth.The stranger, diffident as he is about his luck, has no misgivings as to his strength and destiny.He gives her his affection at once, and abandons himself to the charm of the night and the season; for it is the beginning of Spring.They soon learn from their confidences that she is his stolen twin-sister.He is transported to find that the heroic race of the Volsungs need neither perish nor be corrupted by a lower strain.Hailing the sword by the name of Nothung (or Needed), he plucks it from the tree as her bride-gift, and then, crying "Both bride and sister be of thy brother; and blossom the blood of the Volsungs!" clasps her as the mate the Spring has brought him.
The Second ActSo far, Wotan's plan seems prospering.In the mountains he calls his war-maiden Brynhild, the child borne to him by the First Mother, and bids her see to it that Hunding shall fall in the approaching combat.But he is reckoning without his consort, Fricka.What will she, the Law, say to the lawless pair who have heaped incest on adultery? A hero may have defied the law, and put his own will in its place; but can a god hold him guiltless, when the whole power of the gods can enforce itself only by law?
Fricka, shuddering with horror, outraged in every instinct, comes clamoring for punishment.Wotan pleads the general necessity of encouraging heroism in order to keep up the Valhalla bodyguard;but his remonstrances only bring upon him torrents of reproaches for his own unfaithfulness to the law in roaming through the world and begetting war-maidens, "wolf cubs," and the like.He is hopelessly beaten in the argument.Fricka is absolutely right when she declares that the ending of the gods began when he brought this wolf-hero into the world; and now, to save their very existence, she pitilessly demands his destruction.Wotan has no power to refuse: it is Fricka's mechanical force, and not his thought, that really rules the world.He has to recall Brynhild;take back his former instructions; and ordain that Hunding shall slay the Volsung.
But now comes another difficulty.Brynhild is the inner thought and will of Godhead, the aspiration from the high life to the higher that is its divine element, and only becomes separated from it when its resort to kingship and priestcraft for the sake of temporal power has made it false to itself.Hitherto, Brynhild, as Valkyrie or hero chooser, has obeyed Wotan implicitly, taking her work as the holiest and bravest in his kingdom; and now he tells her what he could not tell Fricka--what indeed he could not tell to Brynhild, were she not, as she says, his own will--the whole story of Alberic and of that inspiration about the raising up of a hero.She thoroughly approves of the inspiration; but when the story ends in the assumption that she too must obey Fricka, and help Fricka's vassal, Hunding, to undo the great work and strike the hero down, she for the first time hesitates to accept his command.In his fury and despair he overawes her by the most terrible threats of his anger; and she submits.
Then comes the Volsung Siegmund, following his sister bride, who has fled into the mountains in a revulsion of horror at having allowed herself to bring her hero to shame.Whilst she is lying exhausted and senseless in his arms, Brynhild appears to him and solemnly warns him that he must presently leave the earth with her.He asks whither he must follow her.To Valhalla, to take his place there among the heroes.He asks, shall he find his father there? Yes.Shall he find a wife there? Yes: he will be waited on by beautiful wishmaidens.Shall he meet his sister there? No.
Then, says Siegmund, I will not come with you.
She tries to make him understand that he cannot help himself.
Being a hero, he will not be so persuaded: he has his father's sword, and does not fear Hunding.But when she tells him that she comes from his father, and that the sword of a god will not avail in the hands of a hero, he accepts his fate, but will shape it with his own hand, both for himself and his sister, by slaying her, and then killing himself with the last stroke of the sword.
And thereafter he will go to Hell, rather than to Valhalla.
