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The modern German poet, Wilhelm Jordan, in his Sigfridsage, clothes Volker with the attributes of a violin king he loved, and represents him tenderly handling the violin. His noble portrayal of a violinist testifies no more fully to the mission of the musician than the creation of the Nibelungen bard.
Imperial Diet and grand court assembly at Mainz; peace with the Lombards, reconciliation with the Pope, acceptance of the Cross, and the departure for the East. I lost all interest, however, in the carrying out of this dramatic scheme directly I discovered its resemblance to the subject-matter of the Nibelungen and Siegfried myths, which possessed a more powerful attraction for me.
In fact they are so devout a pleading for the superiority of passion over all other inspirations, that it is astounding to hear Wagnerians occasionally complain of modern Italian operas as immoral as if any librettos could be immoral in comparison with the Nibelungen Cycle.
While thus undecided he heard one day the bird's voice: "Leave the castle and give up a life of ignoble leisure; direct your steps towards the country of the Nibelungen, take possession of their immense treasures and of the precious invisible cap." At the prospect of new adventures Siegfried could not be kept back any longer by Brunhilde. They parted with the solemn promise of meeting again.
Fafner, when he had become possessor of the Nibelungen treasure, conveyed it, as we have seen, to a cave in a lonesome forest, and there in the shape of a dragon mounted guard over it. Mime, the dwarf, in order to keep the same treasure under some sort of oversight, took up his abode in the forest, at a respectful distance from the flame-breathing monster.
But before Wagner's day they had been employed with caution, not to say timidity. He was the first to realise their full poetic possibility. 'Das Rheingold, the first work in which Wagner put his matured musical equipment to the proof, is the first division of a gigantic tetralogy, 'Der Ring des Nibelungen, The composition of this mighty work extended over a long period of years.
Rahn-Escher, who, by his gentle manner and soothing ways, succeeded after a time in bringing me into a healthier condition. I longed to get well enough to be able to take in hand the completion of my combined Nibelungen poem.
"In what direction shall I go?" asks the woman eagerly. Eastward, one of the sisters tells her, lies a forest. Fafner there, in the shape of a dragon, guards the treasure of the Nibelungen. An unsuitable place for a helpless woman, yet one where she will be safe from Wotan, for the god, it has been observed, shuns it.
Fraulein von Rhaden appeared to have made extraordinary efforts on my behalf, which for the present resulted in the Grand Duchess expressing a wish that I should make her better acquainted with the text of my Nibelungen Ring.
Ah, to get back to that first clear-eyed view of things, to see as Homer saw, as Beowulf saw, as the Nibelungen poets saw. The life is here, the same as then; the Poem is here; my West is here; the primeval, epic life is here, here under our hands, in the desert, in the mountain, on the ranch, all over here, from Winnipeg to Guadalupe.
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