"You cannot mean it, Father! Anything but this! Never to see Valhalla?
Never to ride with the Walkuere? Father! Father! Take back these words of
doom!" Brunhilde's sisters began to plead for her.

"Go!" he cried, "every one of you. Leave Brunhilde to me!"

Frightened by great Wotan's awful wrath, they spurred their horses and
dashed away to Valhalla.


THE SLEEP

Slowly the storm clouds drifted away. The twilight came.

Still Brunhilde lay in fear and grief at Wotan's feet.

At length she lifted her sad eyes to Wotan and cried:--

"Was it so wrong, this thing that I have done? 'T is you who taught me
to shield the brave and the true. I only sought to care for one
you loved."

"Brunhilde, you disobeyed me. I have told you what your punishment shall
be. I cannot change it."

"Then grant me, Father, this one wish: that you will make the place
where I sleep so no coward can reach me. Make it so none but a hero will
dare come near."