whom it should frighten rejoices, glories
in the glory of the flames, jubilates. "Ha! Delightful glow! Beaming
brightness! A radiant road lies open before me! Oh, to bathe in
the fire! In the fire to find the bride! Hoho! Hoho! Hahei! Hahei!
Merrily! Merrily! This time I shall lure a dear companion!" He sets
the silver horn to his lips and gaily blowing the Lock-weise starts
up the mountain and is lost among the swirling sanguine smoke-clouds.
The fire burns bright; the merry call is heard from time to time
from the unseen climber. The fire pales--the barrier has been past,
the region above is reached, the charmed sleeper's domain. When
the veiling smoke completely clears, we see the remembered scene
of the Valkyries' rock, and Bruennhilde lying under the spreading
pine, as Wotan left her.

It is calm golden daylight. Over the brow of the mountain appears
Siegfried and stands still a moment, outlined against the cloudless
sky, wondering at the peace, the airiness, considering the "exquisite
solitude on the sunny height!" The sweet Fricka-motif speaks aloud
as it were the unconscious language of his blood, voices the vague
instinct toward nest-building which in the Spring lightly turns a
young man's fancy to thoughts of love. He has come in search of
a bride, upon the word of a little bird; but his ideas concerning
the promised "dear companion" are so few, and the novelty of all
he is seeing so takes up his mind, that when his eyes presently
fall upon the recumbent form his first thought is not that here
must be what he has come in search of.

He approaches and marvels at the bright armour. He lifts off the
great shield, again like a child, to see what it covers. A man in
suit of mail! He can see the face in part only, but warms with
instantaneous pleasure in its comeliness. The helmet, he surmises,
must press uncomfortably on the beautiful head. Very gently he
takes it off. Long curling locks, loosed from confinement, gush
abundantly forth. Siegfried is startled by the sight. But the right
words, "How beautiful!" rise to his untaught lips. He remains sunk
in contemplation of the marvel; the tresses remind him of a thing
he has often watched: shimmering clouds bounding with their ripples
a clear expanse of sky. As if drawn by a magnet, he bends lower
over the quiet form and so feels the sleeper's breath. "The breast
heaves with the swelling breath, shall I break the cramping corslet?"
Cautiously he makes the attempt,