poisonous draught. This
the dwarf urges upon him with such persistency that Siegfried,
disgusted with his fawning hypocrisy, finally draws his sword
and kills him with one blow:--

'Taste of my sword,
Sickening talker!
Meed for hate
Nothung makes;
Work for which he was mended.'

Then, while Alberich is laughing in malicious glee over
the downfall of his rival, Siegfried flings his body into
the Neidhole, and rolls the dragon's carcass in front of the
opening to protect the gold. He next pauses again to listen
to the bird in the lime tree, which sings of a lovely maiden
surrounded by flames, who can be won as bride only by the man
who knows no fear:--

'Ha! Siegfried has slain
The slanderous dwarf.
O, would that the fairest
Wife he might find!
On lofty heights she sleeps,
A fire embraces her hall;
If he strides through the blaze,
And wakens the bride,
Brunhilde he wins to wife.'

This new quest sounds so alluring to Siegfried, that he
immediately sets out upon it, following the road which the
Wanderer has previously taken. The latter has gone on to the
very foot of the mountain, upon which the flickering flames
which surrounded Brunhilde are burning brightly. There he
pauses to conjure the goddess Erda to appear and reveal future
events. Slowly and reluctantly the Earth goddess arises from her
prolonged sleep. Her face is pallid as the newly fallen snow,
her head crowned with glittering icicles, and her form enveloped
in a great white winding-sheet. In answer to the god's inquiries
about the future, she bids him question the Norns and Brunhilde.
After a few obscure prophecies he allows her to sink down into
her grave once more, for he now knows that one of the Volsung
race has won the magic ring, and is even now on his way up the
mountain to awaken Brunhilde.

In corroboration of these words, Siegfried appears a few moments
after the prophetess or Wala has again sunk into rest. Challenged
by Wotan the Wanderer, he declares he is on the way to rouse the
sleeping maiden. In answer to a few questions, he rapidly adds
that he has slain Mime and the dragon, has tasted its blood,
and brandishes aloft the glittering sword which has done him
good service and which he has welded himself.

Wotan, wishing to test his courage, and at the same time to
fulfil his promise to Brunhilde that none should attempt to pass
the flames except the one who feared not even hi