Siegfried
Mimi took good care of Siegfried.
When the boy had grown large enough to play about in the woods, Mimi made for him a little silver horn.
Siegfried loved all the birds and the wild animals.
He knew they were his best friends, for something in Mimi's face always showed him that the dwarf was false.
Siegfried would wander out into the forest with his silver horn swinging from his shoulder.
He would blow his little horn song, and his forest friends would hear the call and come to play with him.
He watched the birds as they built their nests.
He listened to the father bird as he warbled his pretty little love songs.
How sweetly he sang to the mother bird while she sat upon the nest!
And when the little eggs had told their secret, both the father and the mother birds carried food to the babies.
Siegfried saw how tenderly the mother foxes, wolves, and bears cared for their babies.
From these friends in the forest he learned what love is.
Never for all the world would he have stolen one baby from its mother.
But it was when he watched the love-light in the eyes of the mother deer that he would shut his eyes and try to dream that he too had a loving mother.
Mimi always pretended to be Siegfried's father, and he pretended to love Siegfried.
But Siegfried knew there was no love in Mimi's heart.
Daily Siegfried grew larger and stronger.
Mimi continually boasted of his work at the forge.
Often he said: "No one in this world can make such marvelous swords as Mimi."
Siegfried urged him to make one sword after another, but as fast as they were made the boy would shatter them to bits with one blow on the dwarf's forge.
Then he would cry in disgust: "Nonsense, Mimi. Your swords are mere toys. Just like little switches.
"Either make me a good strong sword or quit your bragging."
Mimi always kept the pieces of Siegmund's sword carefully hidden. While Siegfried roamed through the woods, the dwarf would work for hours trying to mend the magic blade, but its hard steel would never yield either to his fire or his hammer.
Mimi grew tired and discouraged.
"I can never mend it," he groaned.
Siegfried grew to be a young man.
Mimi, Bruin and Siegfried
Often he saw his reflection in the water, and he said:--
"I am not Mimi's son. The babes in the forest all look like their parents. I do not look like Mimi."
Siegfried's reflection showed him a fearless face with large, honest eyes.
About the face fell a wealth of waving, sunny hair.
One day, as he studied this reflection and thought of the blinking, sneaking little black Mimi, he said:--
"I will endure his falsehoods no longer. I know he is not my father. This very day I am going to make him tell me who I am!"
Lifting his silver horn, he blew a loud blast.
Out of the woods came one of his good friends, a great brown bear.
"Come, Bruin," said Siegfried.
And he put a rope around Bruin's neck.
"We will go to Mimi's cave and we will make him tell us all we want to know."
Siegfried led the big bear to the mouth of Mimi's cave.
When the cowardly Mind saw the bear, he crouched behind the forge and screamed:--
"Take him away! Oh, Siegfried, take him away!"
"Eat him, Bruin," laughed Siegfried, as Mimi trembled with fear.
The bear growled at Mimi.
"Oh! keep him off!" gasped Mimi.
"I shall," said Siegfried, "if you will promise to answer all I ask."
"I will! I will! I will tell you anything you want to know," stammered Mimi.
Siegfried untied the rope.
"Good-bye, Bruin," he said, as he gave him a friendly slap on the back, and the big bear trotted off to the woods.
Mimi and Siegfried sat down upon the rocks in the cave, and Mimi told how he had found the baby in the woods and how he had brought him to the cave.
Mimi put in many words of how much Siegfried owed for all this care and trouble.
"Thou givest me always trouble and pain,I wear to shreds poor foolish me!Now, for my care, this is my gain,--Only abuse and hate from thee."
Siegfried looked straight into Mimi's eyes.
He tried to see if Mimi were telling the truth.
"How did you know my name was Siegfried?" he asked.
Then Mimi told of the strange voice which said:--
"Siegfried is his name."
But not once did the dwarf mention the sword.
"You cowardly little wretch!" cried Siegfried. "You have told me so much that is not true that I can never believe you.
"How do I know that this is not another of your miserable falsehoods?
"Prove to me that this is true, or I shall make you sorry that you ever saw me. Prove it to me, I tell you!" cried Siegfried, as he grasped the shrinking dwarf by the shoulders.
"I will! I will!" gasped the frightened Mimi; and he brought out the broken sword.
Siegfried looked at the sword.
Then handing it back to Mimi, he said:--
"Mend it for me, Mimi! Mend it! Now is your chance to prove your skill!"
"I cannot! Oh, I cannot!" groaned Mimi; and he gasped out the rest of what the voice had told him:--
"Only he who knows no fear can mend the sword."
Siegfried took the broken pieces to the forge and began filing them to dust.
"Stop, Siegfried, stop!" cried Mimi. "You will ruin that blade!"
But Siegfried kept on filing.
He sang as he worked, until the pieces were filed to dust.
Then he melted the dust and poured the hot liquid into a mould the shape of a blade.
When it had hardened, he took it out and sharpened it.
Then he welded the blade to its hilt.
"Ha! ha!" chuckled Mimi. "At last the sword is mended.
"Now I will show Siegfried the dragon. He will not know a ring is in the dragon's cave.
"When the dragon is dead, the ring shall be Mimi's.
"Mimi, you are no longer the despised little Nibelung. You are the king of the earth."
Joyously Siegfried waved the bright blade above his head.
He brought it down with all his strength upon the forge, and with a mighty crash the huge rock fell in pieces.
Mimi sank in terror to the ground.
"Get up, you coward!" cried Siegfried.
"Now tell me what that thing is that I do not know. Fear? What is fear? Why did you not teach it to me?"
The wicked dwarf slipped to Siegfried's side.
"I will teach you. Come with me. I will show you a horrible serpent, lying at the door of Hate Cavern.
"There you will learn what fear is, if you can learn it any place in this world.
"Have you never seen anything that made you shiver from head to foot and made your heart beat fast?"
"I never have," calmly answered Siegfried. "Take me quickly, Mimi. I am ready to learn."
At every step Mimi chuckled to himself:--
"The ring is mine! At last the ring is mine! Now all the world shall kneel at my feet!"
"When he had gone as far as he dared, he pointed out the rest of the way to Siegfried.
"Just through here," he said. "And I shall go back now. When the dragon sees you it will be a terrible struggle! I shall wait anxiously for you, my Siegfried!"
But as Siegfried vanished from sight, he rubbed his black hands together and laughed:--
"Ah, it will be luck for Mimi if Siegfried and the dragon kill each other!"
When Siegfried had gone on a little way, he stretched himself upon a grassy mound beneath a tree to rest and think.
Looking up through the branches at the clear sky, he cried:--
"I am free! Free! Never again will I go back to that loathsome Nibelung."
A bird in the tree began singing its sweet wood-song.
"How do you do, my little feathered friend!" said Siegfried. "I am sure what you are singing is very sweet, but I cannot understand your words."
Then Siegfried cut a reed near by, and putting it to his lips, tried to whistle answers to the little bird's notes.
His music did not sound much like the song of a bird.
"I give it up, my little friend," he said, and threw away the reed.
Dragon
"I will blow you a song on my silver horn," said Siegfried to the bird.
"I often blow this little song. It is my call for a comrade. I long for one. None better have ever come to me than the bears and foxes."
Loudly he blew his horn.
Soon there was a great crackling in the underbrush. The huge dragon came, lashing its deadly tail, gaping its red jaws, and blowing out poison fumes.
"Ho!" laughed Siegfried. "What a fair comrade I have charmed from his cave! You savage brute, are you going to teach me what fear is?"
"I am going to eat you!" hissed the dragon, glaring at Siegfried and thrusting out its long forked tongue.
Siegfried quickly drew his sword.
Snorting fire and smoke from its nostrils, the monster raised to strike a deadly blow.
Siegfried sprang forward; a flash of steel, and his blade sank to the monster's heart.
As Siegfried drew his blade from the breast of the dying dragon, a drop of its black blood fell on his finger.
It burned like fire.
Siegfried quickly put his finger in his mouth.
The instant the dragon's blood touched his lips, a change came over him.
He could understand the words of the little bird singing in the tree:--
"Now the gold is Siegfried's!Now all the gold is Siegfried's!Go into the cave, Siegfried!Go in! Go in!Find the helmet and the ring!The helmet and the ring are Siegfried's!Take them! Take them! Take them!"
Siegfried went through the brush in the direction from which the monster had come.
When he found the cave, he peered in.
All was deep, dreary darkness, but Siegfried had not learned fear.
He went in and found the gold, the helmet, and the ring.
But he did not need the gold. Its weight would only hinder him.
He looked upon the wishing-cap, but surely no one could turn into anything better than a hero, and Siegfried was already a hero.
What use could he have for a wishing-cap?
A hero does not try to make believe he is something which he is not.
He is brave enough to be just himself.
But the little bird fluttered at the door of the cave.
"Take the helmet and the ring, Siegfried! Take the helmet and the ring!"
"I will obey my little friend," said Siegfried.
The sly, wicked Mimi came slinking to the place where the dragon lay.
When he saw it lying dead under the trees, he looked about for Siegfried, but Siegfried was nowhere to be seen.
"Now I shall rush in and snatch the ring! At last I shall have my pay for all these years of trouble with that rogue I hate!"
But scarcely had Mimi turned toward the dragon's cave when suddenly Alberich sprang before him.
"You sly, crafty rascal!" cried Alberich. "What do you want here? Ha! I have caught you at your sneaking tricks! Long have I guarded here! You shall not steal my gold! Get back to your murky cave."
But Mimi screamed:--
"You shall not have the gold! 'T is mine! Long years have I toiled and waited! The gold is mine, I say!" "Yours?" Alberich snarled in scorn. "Yours? You snatched it from the Rhine-daughters, did you? You paid the price to mould that ring?"
And Mimi raved:
"Who made the helmet, that wondrous cap that in a flash can change a man into anything he wants to be?"
While Mimi and Alberich quarreled, Siegfried came from the dragon's cave, bearing the helmet and the ring.
He heard no sound save the rustling of the leaves and the song of the bird.
Again he sat down in the shadow of a tree.
"Little bird, can you not help me to find a true friend?" asked Siegfried.
"Each year you have your mate and your little birdlings in the nest. You sing songs with the other birds.
"I have never known a father or a mother, a sister or a brother. I am lonely.
"Is there nowhere in all this world some one whom I may love? Some one who will love me?"
Then the wood-bird began to sing a pretty love-song of a maiden sleeping on the crest of a mountain, encircled by fire.
Sweetly he sang:--"Only he who knows no fear may claim her for his bride."
Siegfried sprang to his feet. "I do not know fear. I have tried with all my might to learn it. Oh, help me to find the mountain where she sleeps!"
The little bird flew away in the opposite direction from where the wicked Nibelungs stood quarreling, and Siegfried joyously hurried after.
A heavy storm arose as Siegfried and the bird neared the foot of the mountain where Brunhilde slept. There were peals of deep thunder.
The sky grew very dark. The great boughs of the trees swayed with the wind.
Siegfried took shelter under a low spreading fir.
The storm did not last long, and as the light again broke through the clouds, Siegfried looked about for his little guide, but all in vain. The bird had fled.
Siegfried started on up the mountain, when suddenly the giant Wotan stood before him.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Wotan.
Siegfried replied:--
"I am going to the top of this mountain. There a maiden lies sleeping. I will awaken her, and she shall be my bride."
"Go back to your forest!" commanded Wotan. "This mountain is encircled by fire."
And stretching forth his arm, he barred the path with his mighty spear.
Siegfried quickly drew his sword from its sheath.
"This is the magic spear that rules the world!" said Wotan. "Put away that sword, or the spear that once shattered it will shatter it again!"
"Ha!" cried Siegfried, "then you were my father's foe!"
There was a flash of Siegfried's blade, then a crash that echoed over mountains and valleys, and Siegfried had shattered Wotan's spear. It lay in splinters on the ground.
Wotan stepped aside and sadly bowed his head upon his breast.
He knew this meant the downfall of the giants. No longer would the earth be ruled from fair Valhalla's heights.
Siegfried hurried up the mountain-side.
The fierce flames leaped as if to meet him.
They grew redder, and lapped their fiery tongues.
Siegfried bounded toward them with joy.
Lifting his silver horn to his lips, and blowing his Comrade Call so sweet and clear, he plunged into their depths.
The maddened flames leaped and crackled as if to devour him.
But on he went, blowing his horn, until at length the sea of flames slowly sank to earth.
The redness of the sky gave way to blue, and all grew clear and beautiful.
Siegfried looked upon the sleeping figure.
All the world seemed wrapped in silence. Not a leaf moved on the trees.
There was not a sound to mar that perfect sleep.
Siegfried looked in wonder at the shining coat of mail.
"It is some valiant knight," he whispered.
"How heavy seems the armor. It should be lifted so that he may rest better."
Carefully Siegfried lifted the glittering shield and laid it to one side.
Eagerly he raised the helmet. There fell a mass of waving golden hair. "A burst of glorious sunshine," whispered Siegfried.
Then he sought to loosen the rings that held the coat of mail.
Finding it difficult, he drew his sword and cut them.
The shining armor fell jingling to the ground.
The soft white folds of her woman's gown fell loosely about her.
Siegfried started back and stared in silence.
He trembled from head to foot.
He pressed his hand to his fast-beating heart.
"At last!" he cried. "At last! I know what fear is."
At length Siegfried went softly to Brunhilde's side.
He stood and looked upon her sweet, heroic face, and love came into his heart.
Bending low, he tenderly kissed her.
Brunhilde slowly opened her eyes.
She looked up at the blue sky and the smiling sun, and cried:--
"All hail to thee, thou glorious sun in heaven!"
The flowers slowly opened their petals, the birds began to sing.
Brunhilde's horse awoke and neighed his glad call.
Brunhilde looked upon Siegfried.
Slowly her memory returned.
As she remembered Wotan's words: "Only he who knows no fear may claim you for his bride," she knew at last her hero had come.
She looked into Siegfried's strong, brave face, and as he told her of his love, she no longer wished to go back to Valhalla.
She knew that she loved Siegfried with all her heart, and she promised to be his bride.
She told him that she would always be happy when she was by his side.
i«»
Norns
One very dark night, three Norns came to the mountain crest to spin.
If you had seen them, you would have called them witches.
They spun the thread of fate.
They were very, very old. The eldest was almost as old as the world.
They were tall and gaunt, and wore long black gowns.
Their faces and hands were deep-wrinkled with age, and their hair was as white as the snow.
They had come up from the great, dark earth-hole, where they lived, and now they crouched upon the rocks to spin their thread.
The eldest was the first to spin the thread, and as she spun, she sang a song about the past, when Wotan and his happy family lived out of doors upon the mountain-side.
She sang of the time when he split from the world's ash tree the piece of wood from which he made the magic spear, which had ruled the world for so many hundreds of years.
She sang of Freya's apples, and of the strength and youth of the giant family.
At length her voice wavered, the strange, weird song ceased, and she tossed the thread to the second Norn.
As the second Norn took the thread in her worn hands, she crooned a sorrowful song about the present.
She sang of Alberich and the stolen gold. Of the love that he had given up in order to make the ring.
She sang of Wotan and how he grasped the ring and carried it into the world, bringing with it Alberich's curse.
Then she told of Fafner.
Mournfully she sang:--
"It has robbed all who have had it of their freedom and happiness.
"It has brought envy and discontent to those who have struggled to gain it.
"Now Wotan's magic spear is splintered.
"Oh! How this gold has tangled all my threads!" she wailed.
Her long, gaunt fingers pulled and worked at the knots, but all in vain.
She could not straighten out the snarls.
"Sing, oh, my Sister, sing!" she cried. "You know what the end will be."
And she tossed the snarled threads to the third Norn.
The third Norn took up the thread.
Twisting and untying, she sang of the future.
She sang of the downfall of the giants.
She sang of the time when Wotan and his family would be no more, and bright Valhalla's halls would be only a ruin.
"But, Sisters, look!" she cried. "The day is dawning. We must make haste!"
She tugged at the thread. The knots grew tighter.
"Oh, see!" she cried. "I cannot make it reach."
Another pull, the thread snapped.
The three Norns wailed.
Then, snatching up the broken ends of their thread of fate, they vanished in the gloom.
The days went by. Siegfried and Brunhilde were perfectly happy upon the mountain.
One day they decided that Siegfried should go forth to do brave deeds in the world.
He would come back when he had won honor and fame.
He told Brunhilde how anxious he would be to get back to her, and that he would come just as soon as he could.
Brunhilde told Siegfried how lonely she would be without him, and how she would listen both day and night for the glad call of his silver horn.
Siegfried took Brunhilde's hand and put the ring upon her finger, saying:--
"This, Brunhilde, shall stay with you. It shall be a pledge of my love until I come again."
Brunhilde gave Siegfried her swift horse. On it he should ride to great victories.
Siegfried led the horse down the mountain.
Every little way he looked lovingly back at Brunhilde.
They called and waved to each other until he passed from sight.
And after that Brunhilde listened to the clear notes of his silver horn, until at length its last faint echo died away.
Siegfried had been away several days.
Brunhilde sat looking far out over the valley.
She was thinking of Siegfried and of how he was proving his courage to the world.
She lifted her hand to her lips and kissed the ring, Siegfried's pledge of love.
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!" came from the valley below.
Brunhilde sprang to her feet with the answer:--
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"
Could it be that one of her sisters was coming to see her?
Was it possible that one of the Walküre would so far dare Wotan's wrath as to venture to the mountain's crest?
Nearer came the call:--
"Heiho! hoyotoho! heiho!"
And a battle-maiden came in sight.
Brunhilde was very happy to see her sister again, but the battle-maiden looked sad.
She brought bad news from Valhalla.
She and Brunhilde sat down upon the rock, and the battle-maiden told the sad story of the last days of the giants.
"Brunhilde," she said, "Wotan does not know that I have come. Valhalla is in deepest gloom.
"Wotan has never sent us to a battlefield since that day when we last saw you.
"Not long ago he came home with his magic spear broken into splinters. He sat down and buried his face in his hands, and there he sits day after day.
"He tell us the giants are passing from the earth. A little while and Valhalla shall be no more.
"He refuses all of Freya's golden fruit. He has grown very old and very sad.
"Yesterday I heard him say, 'Oh! if Brunhilde would only give the ring back to the Rhine-daughters, and release the world from the terrible curse of gold!'
"And, Brunhilde, I have come to beg of you, will you not give the ring back to the Rhine-daughters?"
Brunhilde clasped the ring close to her breast.
"Give the ring to the Rhine-daughters?" she cried.
Then she looked far away toward the valley----and Siegfried.
"This ring of mine is Siegfried's pledge of love!"
The next morning Brunhilde stood upon Walküre Rock and watched the glorious sunrise.
Suddenly she heard the glad notes of Siegfried's silver horn.
"Siegfried! Siegfried!" she cried in joy, and hurried down the mountain to greet him.
All the earth seemed as glad as at that glad time when Siegfried came to Walküre Rock to claim Brunhilde for his bride.
But Brunhilde was not altogether happy.
She could not forget the sorrowful news which her sister had brought, of the gloom at Valhalla.
So, after their first glad greeting, they sat down upon the rocks, and Brunhilde told Siegfried the sad story of the ring, from the time when Alberich snatched it from the Rhine-daughters, until the day Siegfried took it from Hate Cavern.
Then, hand in hand, they went, the valiant Siegfried and the noble Brunhilde, to the banks of the Rhine.
They called to the Rhine-daughters and the Rhine-daughters came out upon the rocks.
With a glad shout, Brunhilde flung the ring into the water.
The Rhine-daughters darted after it.
In a moment they came again to the surface of the water.
At last they held their precious, glittering gold.
The happiest song that ever echoed along the banks of the Rhine was sung by the Rhine-daughters on that glad morning.
Once more gold had become as harmless as a sunbeam.
Hurry, worry, falsehood, greed, and envy vanished from the earth.
Anxiety disappeared from the brows of the tired fathers.
A new happiness came into the eyes of the loving mothers.
A greater power than gold or giant strength had come to rule the world, and that power was Love.
i«
The author would not have you think that when you have read this little book you know all that Richard Wagner told about Siegfried.
When you are older, do not fail to readThe Rhine-Gold, The Walküre, Siegfried, andGötterdämmerung,as Richard Wagner told them.
You will enjoy them more because of having read these little stories.