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Brünnhilde disobeys. Wotan himself breaks Siegmund's sword with his spear so that Hunding may win. Brünnhilde trembles-how will Wotan punish her? He deprives her of her godhead, causes her to fall into a magic sleep. He lays her upon a rock, sets her helmet to guard her head, her shield over her breast. He compasses the rock with flames, leaping, writhing, running. "Let her sleep until a hero wins through the flames to wake her with a kiss," he says. Offstage, Sieglinde gives birth to a child, Siegfried.
Siegfried. Couched on the little bones of dead men, with claws like the ribs of a ship, tusks like inverted steeples, there lives a dragon, one Fafner, glaucous-eyed, fire-belching. Nearby resides Siegfried who has been fostered by a deformed smith named Mime. This Mime is a villain at heart. He is gentle to Siegfried only in the hope that one day the youth will prevail against Fafner. Siegfried, finding that no sword but the sword of Wotan is stout enough for him, mends the weapon, goes to do battle with Fafner. After a terrific combat, he succeeds in puncturing the dragon's larynx, thus effecting its demise. He notices a little dragon blood on his finger, licks it off, finds that he can understand the language of the birds. A bird points out the ring to him, tells him about Brünnhilde and leads him with sweet cries to the fiery circle through which, without fear, he passes, to sing an immortal duet.
Götterdammerung. The Norns' thin thread breaks in their spinning; doom gathers about the gods; Alberich, busy at his machinations, has begot Hagen, who is destined to slay Siegfried. Brünnhilde is betrayed by Siegfried into marrying one Gunther; she curses her lover, though he does not know what he has done. Says Hagen to Siegfried, "You who know the language of the birds, do you understand the raven?" Turning to answer, Siegfried is impaled. His companions build his funeral pyre. Brünnhilde herself sets the torch to it, mounts her warhorse, Grane, spurs into the flame. The Rhine climbs from its bed; the pale Rhine- maidens snatch the ring from Brünnhilde's finger. Across the heavens is scrawled the glare of burning Walhalla; twilight has fallen upon the gods.