lhalla, each carrying the hero whom she had
snatched from the battlefield.

"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" called each as she neared the peak, and
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" came the answer.

At length all but one had reached the rock.

"Why does Brunhilde not come?" they asked of each other anxiously.

"What has happened that she should be so late?"

Loudly they called: "Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"

Looking toward the valley, they saw Brunhilde riding fast.

Her horse was flecked with foam.

"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" they shouted; and "Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"
came Brunhilde's answer.

She reached the peak and sprang from her saddle, crying:--

"Help me, Sisters! help me! I disobeyed our king!"

Even as she cried Wotan drew near.

"Where is Brunhilde?" he screamed in anger.

The skies grew black with the storm of his wrath.

"Every one of you who dares to shield her shall share her punishment."

Brunhilde, weeping, walked out from her hiding-place among her sisters.

Sinking at Wotan's feet she cried:--

"Here I am, Father. What punishment is mine?"

Wotan spoke in solemn tones:--

"Never again shall you see the beautiful Valhalla. Never shall you carry
another hero to your king.

"You shall lie down upon this mountain peak, and here you shall sleep
until some wanderer in passing shall awaken you, and his wife you
shall be."

"You cannot mean it, Father! Anything but this! Never to see Valhalla?
Never to ride with the Walkuere? Father! Father! Take back these words of
doom!" Brunhilde's sisters began to plead for her.

"Go!" he cried, "every one of you. Leave Brunhilde to me!"

Frightened by great Wotan's awful wrath, they spurred their horses and
dashed away to Valhalla.

THE SLEEP

Slowly the storm clouds drifted away. The twilight came.

Still Brunhilde lay in fear and grief at Wotan's feet.

At length she lifted her sad eyes to Wotan and cried:--

"Was it so wrong, this thing that I have done? 'T is you who taught me
to shield the brave and the true. I only sought to care for one
you loved."

"Brunhilde, you disobeyed me. I have told you what your punishment shall
be. I cannot change it."

"Then grant me, Father, this one wish: that you will make the place
where I sleep so no coward can reach me. Make it so none but a hero will
dare come near."

Then, taking Brunhilde in his arms, he said:--

"I grant your wish, my child. I shall encircle the place with magic
fire. Only he who kno