As he speaks, the sound of a horn is heard, and Hagen, looking out, sees Siegfried crossing the river in a boat, and goes down to the landing with Gunther to bid the hero welcome.  Hagen leads the horse away, but soon returns, while Gunther ushers Siegfried into the hall of the Gibichungs, and enters into conversation with him.  As Siegfried’s curiosity has been roused by the strangers calling him by name, he soon inquires how they knew him, and Hagen declares that the mere sight of the tarn-cap had been enough.  He then reveals to Siegfried its magical properties, and asks him what he has done with the hoard, and especially with the ring, which he vainly seeks on his hand.  Siegfried carelessly replies that the gold is still in the Neidhole, guarded by the body of the dragon, while the ring now adorns a woman’s fair hand.  As he finishes this statement, Gutrune timidly draws near, and offers him a drinking horn, the draught of welcome, in which, however, the magic potion of forgetfulness has been mixed.

Siegfried drains it eagerly, remarking to himself that he drinks to Brunhilde alone.  But no sooner has he partaken of it than her memory leaves him, and he finds himself gazing admiringly upon Gutrune.  Gunther then proceeds to tell Siegfried the story of Brunhilde, whom he would fain woo to wife.  Although the hero dreamily repeats his words, and seems to be struggling hard to recall some past memory, he does not succeed in doing so.  Finally he shakes off his abstraction, and ardently proposes to pass through the fire and win Brunhilde for Gunther in exchange for Gutrune’s hand:—­

   ’Me frights not her fire;
    I’ll woo for thee the maid;
    For with might and mind
    Am I thy man—­
    A wife in Gutrun’ to win.’

The two heroes now decide upon swearing blood brotherhood according to Northern custom,—­an inviolable oath,—­and, charging Hagen to guard the hall of the Gibichungs, they immediately sally forth on their quest.

Brunhilde, in the mean while, has remained on the Walkuerenfels anxiously watching for Siegfried’s return, and spending long hours in contemplating the magic ring, her lover husband’s last gift.  Her solitude is, however, soon invaded by Waltraute, one of her sister Walkyries.  She informs her that Wotan has been plunged in melancholy thought ever since he returned home from his wanderings with a shattered spear, and bade the gods pile the wood of the withered world-ash all around Walhalla.  This he has decided shall be his funeral pyre, when the predicted doom of the gods overtakes him.

Waltraute adds also that she alone has found the clue to his sorrow, for she has overheard him mutter that, if the ring were given back to the Rhine-daughters, the curse spoken by Alberich would be annulled, and the gods could yet be saved from their doom:—­

   ’The day the River’s daughters
    Find from her finger the ring,
    Will the curse’s weight
    Be cast from the god and the world.’