rocks, he could never keep up with their fairy-like antics. First one and then another would come near him or ascend the rocks, but it was always just beyond his reach. Finally their laughter and teasing made him angry, and he stopped short, refusing to be made sport of any longer.
Just then a ray of sunlight filtered down through the water and struck the Rhine-Gold. Instantly it glowed as though it were a mass of flame, reflecting a hundred shafts of light where one had smitten it. The whole river-bed was illuminated by the glorious rays.
The astonished dwarf looked toward the source of this splendour, and what he saw made his small eyes fairly bulge out with greed. Yet he concealed his amazement and waited to learn something about this splendid treasure without betraying his own interest. Fortune favoured him. His unspoken question was answered by the Rhine-maidens who surged upward with a glad cry of "The Rhine-Gold! The Rhine-Gold!"
"What is this Rhine-Gold you are talking about?" asked the dwarf with a great show of indifference.
"What! Haven't you ever heard of the wonderful Rhine-Gold?" asked one of the maidens thoughtlessly. "We supposed it was famed over all the world."
"But I dwell in the under-world and hear not the things which are spoken among men. Tell me of it, I pray."
Then the maiden forgot her father's warning to guard the treasure closely. She also felt nothing but contempt for this awkward little man from whom they could so easily escape. She told the secret of the Gold in the words of a song
"The realm of the world
To him shall it bring
Who out of this Gold
Shall fashion a Ring
Of magical power untold.
"Hum! Say you so?" said the dwarf, keeping his excitement down by a powerful effort, though his finger-nails fairly clawed into the flesh. "If your metal is as fine as all that, why doesn't someone lay hands upon it and do all these great things?"
"Sister, sister! be careful!" said another of the nymphs.
But the first only laughed and replied, "What can this silly old fellow do? Let us have some more fun teasing him!"
Then the third maiden floated gracefully near. "Why doesn't someone seize the Gold?" she repeated. "'Tis because no one has yet been able to pay the price."
"What is the price?"
"This is it," she answered. "Listen
"'He who forswears the might of love,
And all its pleasures manifold,
He only has the magic art
To mould the Ring from out the Gold.'"
"Pish! a pretty story you are telling me!" said the dwarf. "As though a little matter like doing without love should make a person master of the world!"
He made a great show of scorn while he said these words, but all the time he was edging quietly nearer the treasure.
"But love is the greatest thing in the world!" said the first maiden. "No one can do anything without its wonderful aid. Why, even you—poor old fellow!—would not dare forswear it."
"I would not dare forswear it—eh?" exclaimed the dwarf with a snap of his fingers and a wild laugh of triumph. "Love, forsooth! What is love to me, when gold is in question? Hark you, Rhine-maidens! I renounce love for ever! Be my witness!"
And he sprang rapidly forward, before the nymphs could prevent him, clambered up the jagged rock and seized the coveted treasure.
"Our Rhine-Gold! Our Rhine-Gold!" shrieked the maidens. But it was too late; already he had disappeared in one of the clefts of rock leading to his cavernous home, and though they darted after him they could not find him in the dark depths. Only his mocking laugh came back to them.
"Ho, ho! Love! When all the world shall be mine!"
Now we have already seen that the nymphs and the dwarfs formed only a part of the strange world, so long ago. At the very time when Alberich was stealing the Gold and preparing to make the Ring of Power down under the earth, there was an unusual happening in the home of the gods far up on the mountains.
For a long time Wotan, the greatest of the gods, had desired a palace large enough to contain his kingly court. But he could find no one strong enough to build it, until on a day two giants from the valleys below came into his presence. Large were they of shoulder and thigh, many times larger than ordinary men.
"We have come to build your palace," they said.
"Who are ye?" asked Wotan, looking piercingly at them with his single eye.
"I am Fafner, the frost-giant," answered one. "I can rend all these rocks asunder and build your palace in a single night, with the aid of my brother Fasolt, here."
Wotan was overjoyed to find someone who would undertake his cherished plan.
"What payment do you desire for this service?" he asked.
"You must give me the hand of your beautiful sister, Freia," answered Fafner.
Wotan frowned. He desired the palace above all things, just then, for it would enforce his visible rule over the world. But Freia was his favourite sister. Moreover, it was she who was the goddess of youth and beauty and who tended the tree of golden apples which kept the gods always young.
While Wotan was frowning and pondering to himself, his brother Loki whispered in his ear,
"Let them build the palace. We shall find another way out of the bargain."
Now Loki, god of fire, was the craftiest of all the gods. So when Wotan heard his whispered advice his brow cleared, and he looked at the giants.
"So be it!" he commanded. "Build me the castle 'gainst another sunrise. It shall be Walhalla—the supreme home of gods and men."
The giants bowed and went their way. Presently the sound of mighty blows was heard, and terrific crashes as of the bursting asunder of rocks. All that day and night the tumult continued, while the earth shook to its very foundations.
The next morning the rising sun lit up a splendid spectacle. There stood Walhalla, magnificent home of the gods, upon the crest of a towering cliff. Its white walls gleamed and glistened. Its towers and buttresses were built of stones so large that they seemed placed for all eternity; yet the whole mass appeared as light and graceful as a fairy vision.
"Beautiful! Wonderful!" cried the gods and goddesses in rapture.
"Let us take up our abode in our new home!" said Wotan, with the delight of a schoolboy.
But just then the two giants appeared clad in their shaggy skins of slain animals.
"Hold!" said Fafner. "First give us in payment the goddess Freia as you promised us."
"That I cannot do," replied Wotan. "You must think of some other way for me to reward you."
