the
curtain rises begins with one of these trying domestic incidents.
Mimmy has just done his best with a new sword of surpassing excellence.
Siegfried returns home in rare spirits with a wild bear, to the extreme
terror of the wretched dwarf. When the bear is dismissed, the new sword
is produced. It is promptly smashed, as usual, with, also, the usual
effects on the temper of Siegfried, who is quite boundless in his
criticisms of the smith's boasted skill, and declares that he would
smash the sword's maker too if he were not too disgusting to be handled.

Mimmy falls back on his stock defence: a string of maudlin reminders of
the care with which he has nursed the little boy into manhood. Siegfried
replies candidly that the strangest thing about all this care is that
instead of making him grateful, it inspires him with a lively desire to
wring the dwarf's neck. Only, he admits that he always comes back to his
Mimmy, though he loathes him more than any living thing in the forest.
On this admission the dwarf attempts to build a theory of filial
instinct. He explains that he is Siegfried's father, and that this is
why Siegfried cannot do without him. But Siegfried has learned from his
forest companions, the birds and foxes and wolves, that mothers as well
as fathers go to the making of children. Mimmy, on the desperate ground
that man is neither bird nor fox, declares that he is Siegfried's father
and mother both. He is promptly denounced as a filthy liar, because
the birds and foxes are exactly like their parents, whereas Siegfried,
having often watched his own image in the water, can testify that he
is no more like Mimmy than a toad is like a trout. Then, to place the
conversation on a plane of entire frankness, he throttles Mimmy until he
is speechless. When the dwarf recovers, he is so daunted that he tells
Siegfried the truth about his birth, and for testimony thereof produces
the pieces of the sword that broke upon Wotan's spear. Siegfried
instantly orders him to repair the sword on pain of an unmerciful
thrashing, and rushes off into the forest, rejoicing in the discovery
that he is no kin of Mimmy's, and need have no more to do with him when
the sword is mended.

Poor Mimmy is now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long ago found
that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will yield neither
to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there walks into his cave a
Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in ha