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And Wellgunde follows this part-revelation with the whole secret: The whole world would be his inheritance who should fashion out of the Rhine-gold a magic ring. Vainly Flosshilde tries to silence her sisters. Wellgunde and Woglinde laugh at her prudence, reminding her of the gold's assured safety in view of the condition attached to the creation of the ring.
Around one of these, upon the summit of which glistens the Rhinegold, Woglinde, a Rhine-daughter, is swimming. Two others, Wellgunde and Flosshilde, join her; and as they play about the gleaming gold, Alberich, a dwarf, suddenly appears from a dark recess and passionately watches them. As they are making sport of him, his eye falls upon the gold and he determines to possess it.
He owns it will be easier for him down there, and lets himself down, when the sprite rises, light as a bubble, to the surface. He is calling her an impudent fish and a deceitful young lady, when Wellgunde sighs, "Thou beautiful one!" He turns quickly, inquiring naïvely, "Do you mean me?" She says, "Have nothing to do with Woglinde. Turn sooner to me!"
"If it is no good save for you to swim around, it is of small use to me!" is Alberich's dejected observation. As if their treasure had been disparaged, Woglinde informs him that he would hardly despise the gold if he knew all of its wonder!
Hagen makes a last desperate effort to clutch it, but Woglinde and Wellgunde wind their arms about him, and as they drag him into the depths Flosshilde holds the ring above the waters, and the exultant song of the Rhine-daughters is heard above the swelling tide, while far in the distance a red flame spreads among the clouds. Walhalla is blazing in the sky. The Dusk of the Gods has come.
It's exactly what Mahler said back there in the beginning, when she sang WOGLINDE. It's the idea, the basic idea, pulsing behind every bar she sings. She simplifies a character down to the musical idea it's built on, and makes everything conform to that. The people who chatter about her being a great actress don't seem to get the notion of where SHE gets the notion.
There, upon the summit of a rock, lies the mysterious treasure of the Rhine, the Rhine-gold, guarded night and day by the three Rhine-maidens Wellgunde, Woglinde, and Flosshilde, who circle round the rock in an undulating dance, joyous and light-hearted 'like troutlets in a pool. Alberich, the prince of the Nibelungs, the strange dwarf-people who dwell in the bowels of the earth, now appears.
She then leaps upon her horse Grane, and with one bound rides into the towering flames. The Rhine, which has overflowed its banks, now invades the hall. Hagen dashes into the flood in search of the ring, but the Rhine-maidens have been before him. Flosshilde, who has rescued the ring from the ashes of the pyre, holds it exultantly aloft, while Wellgunde and Woglinde drag Hagen down to the depths.
Woglinde invites him nearer. With difficulty he climbs the slippery rocks to reach her. When he can nearly touch her he is saying, "Be my sweetheart, womanly child!" she darts from him. And the sisters laugh their delicious inhuman laugh. Woglinde then plunges to the river-bed, calling to Alberich, "Come down! Here you surely can grasp me!"
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