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Siegmund and Sieglinde grow up not knowing each other but they meet in the house of Hunding, Sieglinde's husband. Walkure starts with the storm which sends Siegmund inside. Deep strings suggest the pelting of the rain. Discordant woodwinds flash out lightning. Tubas crash in with the thunder motif. Siegmund and Sieglinde inevitably fall in love. Out of the great ash tree around which Hunding's house is built Siegmund pulls the mighty sword that Wotan has left there for him. He and Sieglinde escape into the forest, but the jealous Fricka intervenes. As goddess of marriage she demands the death of Siegmund for violating Hunding's home. Brunnhilde, favorite of the nine Valkyr daughters, knows Wotan's desires so well that she dares to disobey him, take Siegmund's side in his hand-to-hand fight with Hunding. But Wotan raises his own deadly spear. Siegmund is slain and Brunnhilde is sentenced to sleep on a rock surrounded by fire which only a perfect hero can pass. Smoke fills the stage. Strings describe the first dull flicker of the fire until the whole orchestra breaks out in gorgeous flaming sound.
Siegfried, son of Siegmund and Sieglinde, is the perfect hero. Mime, Alberich's brother, brings him up in his blacksmith shop, intends to use him to recover the ring. Siegfried wanders the forest, knows no fear. His only curiosity concerns his only inheritance, the splintered parts of Siegmund's sword which Mime has never been strong enough to weld together.
Siegfried swaggeringly welds the sword himself and, prompted by Mime, hunts up the cave of lazy, stupid Fafner who as soon as he got the treasure from Wotan (in Rheingold) turned himself into a dragon and planted himself on it. Siegfried slays the dragon (a grumbling old tuba, so far as the orchestra is concerned), takes the ring and the Tarnhelm as innocent trinkets of spoil. In the forest a singing bird shows him the way to the sleeping Brunnhilde.
Die Gotterdammerung begins with three norns spinning the dark threads of Wotan's fate. Brunnhilde wears Siegfried's ring. The two are completely happy but Siegfried leaves her to perform fresh deeds of glory. He sails down the Rhine to where Hagen, sinister, black-bearded son of Alberich, lives with Gunther, a half brother, and Gutrune, a sister. Hagen's plot to get the ring is to persuade Gunther that Brunnhilde is the only woman worthy to be his wife, that Siegfried alone is man enough to plunge through the fire and get her. Siegfried is given a potion which makes him forget Brunnhilde, have eyes only for Gutrune. Amiably he agrees to put on the Tarnhelm, goes disguised as Gunther back to the rock. Horror-stricken, Brunnhilde calls on the ring to protect her. Siegfried tears it from her finger. When she is led into Hagen's house it is just in time to see Siegfried's and Gutrune's wedding procession. Again Siegfried fails to recognize her but she sees the ring he is wearing, believes he has betrayed her. Then, Hagen says, Siegfried must die. But with her magic Brunnhilde has made him invulnerable save in the back and Siegfried, the hero, never turns his back on an enemy.
But Hagen ostensibly is Siegfried's friend. They go off hunting together.