The ring is cursed, and no sooner do the giants begin to share their treasure than they fall to disputing about it.  Fafner kills his brother, and making off with all, buries it in a cave—­“Hate Hole”—­and changing himself into a dragon, by virtue of the Tarnhelm which is amongst the treasure, he settles down to guard it.  At any moment now Wotan’s empire may be taken from him; the ring he must gain somehow, but by the laws written on his staff he may not perpetrate such an act of injustice as taking it himself.  His position is more tragic than he knows.  His brilliant idea is the sword, and here is its theme, one of the most important in the work: 

[Illustration:  Some bars of music]

He will raise up a breed of heroes, let them fend for themselves in the world—­even heap pains and trials upon them; and in the end a fearless hero will arise, find this sword, and of his own absolute free-will slay the dragon and take the ring.  He is trying to jump out of his own shadow, as we see immediately in The Valkyrie.  Siegmund, his son, the hero, takes the sword, and then commits adultery and incest with Sieglinda, his sister, the wife of Hunding.  Fricka, the punisher of matrimonial crimes, compels Wotan to let Hunding slay Siegmund.  This is done, though Brunnhilde, the incarnation of love, tries to save the hero.  She has to be punished—­the laws that bind Wotan are inexorable—­and he has to put away love; in order to rule, love must have no place in his thoughts nor influence his actions.  Brunnhilde is put to sleep, and a hedge of fire set blazing round her.  There she must sleep until a hero arrives who has no fear of Wotan or his spear, and will pass through the fire and take her for bride.

The hero is the son of Sieglinda and Siegmund; he kills the dragon, takes the ring, shatters Wotan’s spear, passes the fiery hedge, and weds Brunnhilde.  The details we shall examine when we deal with the drama of Siegfried.  Wotan’s part is now ended; he retires to Valhalla to await the inevitable denouement.  He willingly abdicates, and wills his own destruction and the destruction of Valhalla and all that existed under his rule.  If power involves the compulsion to renounce himself, to destroy all that he loves and all that makes life sweet, then he rather renounces life.  So he awaits during the Dusk of the Gods, until Siegfried has been slain and the ring restored to the Rhine.  His own power being broken, and the power that lay in the ring being again in the hands of the innocent Rhine-maidens, there is nothing to control Loge, who blazes up in sheets of fire, and Valhalla is consumed, while the Rhine maidens swim joyfully about in the bubbling, roaring Rhine.