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The pair have drunk mead together and stand looking at one another; the storm has died away; and from the orchestra come passages of wondrous delicacy, tenderness and freshness, scored by a perfect master. Suddenly the clanking of a horse's hoofs is heard; "Hunding!" exclaims Sieglinda; the door is again thrown open and the black, ferocious barbarian stalks in.
So messages were sent from one to the other that this present journey was a peaceful one, and not for war; so the feast was held in the best of wise and with many a man thereat; fairs were in every place established for King Sigmund, and all things else were done to the aid and comfort of his journey: so he came to the feast, and both kings hold their state in one hall; thither also was come King Lyngi, son of King Hunding, and he also is a-wooing the daughter of King Eylimi.
And she relates how at the marriage-feast of Hunding, while the men drank, and the woman who "unconsulted had been offered him for wife by ignoble traffickers" sat sadly apart, a stranger appeared, an elderly man in grey garb, whose hat-brim concealed one of his eyes.
As the tempest rages without, Siegmund rushes in and falls exhausted by the fire. Attracted by the noise, Sieglinde appears, and observing the fallen stranger bends compassionately over him and offers him a horn of mead. As their eyes meet they watch each other with strange interest and growing emotion. While thus mutually fascinated, Hunding enters and turns an inquiring look upon Sieglinde.
At last, in attempting to rescue a maiden from some raiders, he is forced to fly. As he runs through the depths of an unknown forest a storm breaks upon him, and he takes shelter, utterly exhausted, in the house of Hunding. At this point the curtain rises. The scene is the inside of Hunding's dwelling, built round a great ash-tree; on the right the fire burns on the hearth.
But from Brynhild no hero can spring until there is a man of Wotan's race to breed with her. Wotan wanders further; and a mortal woman bears him twins: a son and a daughter. He separates them by letting the girl fall into the hands of a forest tribe which in due time gives her as a wife to a fierce chief, one Hunding.
Next he attacked and killed Hather in Jutland; and his fall is marked by the lasting name of the town. After this he overthrew Hunding and Rorik, seized Leire, and reunited the dismembered realm of Denmark into its original shape.
Brünnhilde hastily collects the splinters of the sword, and escapes with Sieglinde upon her horse, while Hunding falls dead before a contemptuous wave of Wotan's hand. The third act shows a rocky mountain-top in storm and tempest. One by one the Valkyries appear riding on their horses through the driving clouds. Last comes Brünnhilde, with the terrified and despairing Sieglinde.
The king, remarking him, blew on the trumpet a signal to the soldiers who were stationed near; they straightway brought aid, and he made the guile recoil on its deviser. Meanwhile Hunding, King of the Swedes, heard false tidings that Hadding was dead, and resolved to greet them with obsequies.
Being a hero, he will not be so persuaded: he has his father's sword, and does not fear Hunding. But when she tells him that she comes from his father, and that the sword of a god will not avail in the hands of a hero, he accepts his fate, but will shape it with his own hand, both for himself and his sister, by slaying her, and then killing himself with the last stroke of the sword.
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