Mime is his father, and he learns the truth.  He softens into something approaching manhood as he hears of his mother’s death; and finally rushes off into the forest, leaving Mime again to his task.  Then follows a scene to be accounted for in only one way.  First, the scene:  Mime sits in despair, and there enters an old man with his slouch-hat drawn down over one eye, wearing a dark blue cloak (it ought to be dotted with stars), and carrying a spear or staff in his hands.  He gains the sacred hearth, converses with Mime, and finally bets him his head that he cannot answer three questions.  Much to my surprise when I first saw the score of Siegfried, these form merely an excuse for going again over the ground covered in the Rhinegold and the Valkyrie.  The Scandinavian hegemony is expounded, and other matters are gracefully touched on; the only point is made when the last question is propounded and Mime cannot answer:  Who is it shall forge the sword, slay Fafner, take the hoard, pass through the fire and take Bruennhilda for his wife?  The old man laughs, leaves Mime his head, but tells him it will fall to the hero who can do all these things, the hero who knows not fear.  He goes off; thunder is heard; strange lights flicker amongst the trees; and Mime falls into an ecstasy of terror, suffering all the agonies of a waking nightmare, until the spell is abruptly broken by the entry of Siegfried.  Why we should have the two previous dramas of the Ring told again in this way is the puzzle.  In the letter to Uhlig (p. 227) Wagner had plainly given his reasons for writing the Rhinegold and the Valkyrie—­to set before the audience clearly and vividly the events leading up to Siegfried’s Death, in action, not in narrative.  We have seen them in action, and lo! we get them in narrative!  Wagner’s idea must have been to show us Wotan, realising how matters had passed beyond his control, going about the world as the Wanderer, watching the development of things and awaiting the inevitable day.  He gives us the very awe and thrill of our Scandinavian forbears with the apparition of the grey-bearded man in his cloak coloured like deep night—­the terrible god that they believed walked the earth and might enter their homesteads at any moment.  Of course, as we shall see presently, the answer to the third question prepares the next stage of the drama.  But as to why the whole story of the Ring should be repeated—­well, even gods must have something to talk about if they wish to talk at all; and the scene serves to sustain and to intensify the atmosphere in which the whole drama is enacted, the atmosphere of the old sagas.  But I cheerfully concede that it is far too long, and in many respects an artistic error.