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For this purpose he descends to earth and, under the name of Volse, unites himself with a mortal woman, who bears him the Volsung twins, Siegmund and Sieglinde. Bound by his oath to Fafner, Wotan may not openly assist Siegmund in the enterprise, but he dwells with him on the earth, and trains him in all manly exercises.
Wotan comes on with his thunders and lightnings and calls for Brünnhilda; at last she answers, and he announces her punishment: she shall be deprived of her godhood and left on the mountains to become the wife and slave of the first man that passes. The other maidens wail in protest; in anger he bids them begone; Brünnhilda, overcome with shame, sinks at his feet.
Loki reached down and took the magic wishing-cap. As soon as the cap was off, the toad disappeared, and there lay Alberich, held fast by Wotan's giant foot. "Let me go!" shrieked the dwarf. "Take your foot off of me, this minute!" Wotan calmly answered: "You may go when you have promised all I ask." "Then what do you want?" groaned Alberich. "I want all your glittering gold," said Wotan.
Loge informs him that he would in any case have been too late: Alberich has already successfully forged the ring. This alters the face of things. "But if he possesses a ring of such power," says simple Donner, "it must be taken from him, lest he bring us all under its compulsion!" Wotan hesitates no more. "The ring I must have!"
The moment of his overtaking the Nibelungs is indicated by their sudden distant outcry. Mime has been left crouching and whimpering on the rocky floor. Thus Wotan and Loge find him. Loge is in all the following scene Wotan's very active vizier, furnishing the invention and carrying out the stratagems.
What she is thinking of is this price that Wotan has consented to pay, in token whereof he has promised this day to hand over to the giants Fricka's sister, the goddess Freia, with her golden love-apples. But this force does not dwell in Wotan himself, but in another, a god over whom he has triumphed, one Loki, the god of Intellect, Argument, Imagination, Illusion, and Reason.
So is her whole soul heard to cry aloud in this prayer, as she pleads for so much more than her life, that all by which Wotan had fortified himself against her, and which had been subjected to an assault so prolonged, suddenly gives way, his weary heart is pierced.
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:
"Yes, Siegfried will be the bravest hero the world has ever known." Then, springing again to her saddle, she fled toward the mountains. "On! on! my fiery steed!" she urged. No battle-maiden ever rode so fast. If she could but reach the other battle-maidens before the wrathful Wotan overtook her, surely, they would protect her from his anger.
Haye you forgotten so soon? Freia.... It is in the bond that she shall follow us home." "Have you taken leave of your senses... with you bond?" asks Wotan, with a quick flash. "You must think of a different recompense. Freia is far too precious to me."
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