



Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org
(Images generously made available by the Google Books
Project.)





THE VALKYRIES

BY

E. F. BENSON

Author of "Limitations," "Dodo," etc.



T. FISHER UNWIN

LONDON LEIPZIG PARIS

1903



[Illustration: The Flight of the Valkyries]

[Illustration: Brunnhilde]

[Illustration: Siegmund The Wolsung]

[Illustration: Waltraute]

[Illustration]


CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: THE HOUSE OF HUNDING

CHAPTER II
THE COMING OF THE STRANGER

CHAPTER III
THE STORY OF THE STRANGER

CHAPTER IV
THE RECOGNITION

CHAPTER V
THE STRIFE OF WOTAN AND FRICKA

CHAPTER VI
SIEGMUND'S LOT IS CAST

CHAPTER VII
THE FIGHT OF SIEGMUND

CHAPTER VIII
THE FLIGHT OF BRUNNHILDE

CHAPTER IX
THE SENTENCE OF BRUNNHILDE

CHAPTER X
THE SLEEP OF BRUNNHILDE.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]

ILLUSTRATIONS


THE FLIGHT OF THE VALKYRIES Frontispiece
OFTEN HAD SHE SAT THERE
"LADY, I THANK THEE"
"TO-NIGHT WE ARE HOST AND GUEST"
AT THAT HE WRENCHED AT THE SWORD-HILT
"I GIVE THEE MINE OATH!" SAID HE
VERY SLOWLY SHE ARMED HERSELF
"WOTAN'S SPEAR IS STRETCHED AGAINST THEE, SIEGMUND"
BRUNNHILDE BRINGS SIEGLINDE TO THE VALKYRIES' MEETING-PLACE
CROUCHING AMONG HER SISTERS
THEN TENDERLY HE RAISED HER FROM WHERE SHE KNELT




PREFACE



In the following pages an attempt has been made to render as closely
as possible into English narrative prose the libretto of Wagner's
"Valkyrie". The story is one little known to English readers, and even
those who are familiar with the gigantic music may find in the story
something which, even when rendered into homely prose, will reveal to
them some new greatness of the master-mind of its author. It is in this
hope that I have attempted this version.

Whether I have attempted a task either absolutely impossible, or
impossible to my capacity, I cannot tell, for so huge is the scale of
the original, so big with passion, so set in the riot of storm-clouds
and elemental forces, that perhaps it can only be conveyed to the mind
as Wagner conveyed it, through such sonorous musical interpretations
as he alone was capable of giving to it. Yet even because the theme is
so great, rather than in spite of it, any interpretation, even that
of halting prose, may be unable to miss certain of the force of the
original.

The drama itself comes second in the tetralogy of the Ring, being
preceded by the Rheingold. But this latter is more properly to be
considered as the overture to a trilogy than as the first drama of
a tetralogy. In it the stage is set, and Heaven above, rainbow-girt
Walhalla, and the dark stir of the forces beneath the earth, Alberich
and the Niebelungs, enter the arena waiting for the puny and momentous
sons of men to assert their rightful lordship over the earth, at the
arising of whom the gods grow grey and the everlasting foundations of
Walhalla crumble. From the strange loves of Siegmund and Sieglinde,
love not of mortal passion, but of primeval and elemental need, the
drama starts; this is the first casting of the shuttle across the
woof of destiny. From that point, through the present drama, through
Siegfried, through the dusk of the gods the eternal grinding of the
mills continues. Once set going the gods themselves are powerless
to stop them, for the stream that turns them is stronger than the
thunderings of Wotan, for the stream is "That which shall be."

In storm the drama begins, in storm of thunder and all the range of
passion and of death it works its inevitable way, till for a moment
there is calm, when on the mountain-top Brunnhilde sleeps, waiting for
the coming of him whose she is, for the awakening to the joy of human
life. And there till Siegfried leaps the barrier of flame we leave her.

E. F. BENSON.




THE VALKYRIES


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


THE HOUSE OF HUNDING


Never before in the memory of man had spring been so late in
coming, and into mid-May had lasted the hurricanes and tempests of
winter. Not even yet was the armoury of its storms and squalls wholly
spent, and men, as they huddled by the fire and heard night by night,
and day by day the bugling of the wind, and the hiss of rain and the
patter of the hailstones, wondered what this subversion and stay of the
wholesome seasons should portend. For now for many years had strange
omens and forebodings shadowed and oppressed the earth. Some said that
the earth itself and Erda the spirit of earth were growing old; some
even had seen the great mother, not as of old she had appeared from
time to time, vigorous and young, clad in the fresh green of growing
things, but old and heavy-eyed, and her mantle was frosted over with
rime, for the chill of the unremitting years had fallen on her. Others
again said that in Walhalla, which Wotan the father of gods and men had
builded by the might of giants, all was not well; that shadows crowded
in places where no shadows should be, and that their companies grew
ever greater, and that dim voices of wailing and of warning sounded
in the ears and in the high places of the gods. Others said that the
gods themselves were growing old; that Wotan feared the spirits of
the earth, and of the places beneath the earth, for he was no longer
certain of his strength, and