Amid the gathering storm-clouds the two men meet upon a rocky ridge.  Bruennhilde protects Siegmund with her shield, but just as he is about to deal Hunding a fatal blow, Wotan appears in thunder and lightning and thrusts his spear between the combatants.  Siegmund’s sword is shivered to fragments upon it, and Hunding strikes him dead.  Bruennhilde hastily collects the splinters of the sword, and escapes with Sieglinde upon her horse, while Hunding falls dead before a contemptuous wave of Wotan’s hand.

The third act shows a rocky mountain-top in storm and tempest.  One by one the Valkyries appear riding on their horses through the driving clouds.  Last comes Bruennhilde, with the terrified and despairing Sieglinde.  Sieglinde wishes to die, but Bruennhilde entreats her to live for the sake of her child that is to be, and giving her the splintered fragments of Siegmund’s sword, bids her escape to the forest, where Fafner watches over his treasure.  The voice of the wrathful Wotan is now heard in the distance.  He appears, indignant at Bruennhilde’s disobedience, dismisses the other Valkyries, and tells Bruennhilde what her punishment is to be.  She is to be banished from the sisterhood of Valkyries, and Valhalla is to know her no more.  Thrown into a deep sleep, she shall lie upon the mountain-top, to be the bride of the first man who finds and wakens her.  Bruennhilde pleads passionately for a mitigation of the cruel sentence, or at least that a circle of fire shall be drawn around her resting-place, so that none but a hero of valour and determination can hope to win her.  Moved by her entreaties, Wotan consents.  He kisses her fondly to sleep, and lays her gently upon a mossy couch, covered with her shield.  Then he strikes the earth with his spear, calling on the fire-god Loge.  Tongues of fire spring up around them, and leaving her encircled with a rampart of flame, he passes from the mountain-top with the words, ’Let him who fears my spear-point never dare to pass through the fire.’

With ‘Die Walkuere’ the human interest of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ begins, and with it Wagner rises to greater heights than he could hope to reach in ‘Das Rheingold.’  In picturesque force and variety ’Die Walkuere’ does not yield to its predecessors, while the passion and beauty of the immortal tale of the Volsungs lifts it dramatically into a different world.  ‘Die Walkuere’ is the most generally popular of the four works which make up Wagner’s great tetralogy, for the inordinate length of some of the scenes in the second act is amply atoned for by the immortal beauties of the first and third.  Twenty years ago Wagner’s enemies used to make capital out of the incestuous union of Siegmund and Sieglinde, but it is difficult to believe in the sincerity of their virtuous indignation.  No sane person would conceivably attempt to judge the personages of the Edda by a modern code of ethics; nor could any one with even a smattering of the details of Greek mythology