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It was the custom for the battle-maidens to meet at Walkuere Rock every evening at sunset. This was the highest peak in the mountains. From here they would ride into Valhalla, 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.
He hoped he would then be happier. The heroes would protect the beautiful Valhalla in time of danger. Morning dawned. The king of the giants went forth from his castle and called Brunhilde, his favorite battle-maiden. He loved Brunhilde more than any other of the Walkuere. She was the bravest of them all. He loved her as a father loves a daughter.
All the earth seemed as glad as at that glad time when Siegfried came to Walkuere 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.
A superb example of this occurs at the end of Die Walkuere. Wotan has laid his daughter to rest, and surrounded her with a barrier of fire.
Siegmund saw it, and, springing forward, he grasped its hilt. Then, bracing himself against the tree, with one mighty pull, behold! he drew the bright blade from its sheath. Wotan gathered to Valhalla a company of nine war-maidens. They were called the Walkuere. They were strong, beautiful young women, who rode through the clouds upon swift horses.
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 Walkuere would so far dare Wotan's wrath as to venture to the mountain's crest? Nearer came the call:
Thus in Die Walkuere, in Wotan's long speech to Bruennhilde in Act II., he sketches the main events of Das Rheingold. In Siegfried the amusing riddle scene, a reminiscence of the Eddic Alvismal, seems intended to relate events which have gone before. In Goetterdaemmerung it is Siegfried who just before his death tells the story of the preceding evening.
In the first place, she found that the cove was exactly, almost identically the same as the Walhalla scene in Walkuere; in the second place, Tristan was here, in the tragic country filled with the flowers of a late Cornish summer, an everlasting reality; in the third place, it was a sea of marvellous, portentous sunsets, of sweet morning baths, of pools blossomed with life, of terrible suave swishing of foam which suggested the Anadyomene.
But he was straying ahead, carelessly whistling the Spring Song from Die Walkuere. She looked at him, and again shuddered with horror. Was that really Siegmund, that stooping, thick-shouldered, indifferent man? Was that the Siegmund who had seemed to radiate joy into his surroundings, the Siegmund whose coming had always changed the whole weather of her soul?
"Braith and Rex go in for the Meistersinger, Walkuere, and all that rot but I like some tune to my music." "Well, you're going to get it now," said Braith; "the band are taking their places. Now for La Belle Helene." He glanced at Gethryn, who had turned aside and leaned on the table, shading his eyes with his program.
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