Siegfried, son of Siegmund and Sieglind, woos Kreimhild, the sister of King Gunther, of Burgundy, promising, in return for her hand, to aid Gunther in winning Brunhild, Queen of Issland (Iceland). Siegfried, with the help of his cloud-cloak, conquers Brunhild for Gunther—first in three athletic games, which she makes a test for all suitors; and later when, after the marriage, she proves stormy and untamed. He takes her Ring and girdle, and gives them to his wife, Kreimhild. They possess magic properties, and Brunhild, when deprived of them, loses her great power and becomes like any ordinary woman. She sees her Ring on Kreimhild’s hand one day, and, realizing that it is Siegfried, and not her husband Gunther, who has conquered her great strength and stolen her magic circlets, she tells her wrongs to Hagan, who promises revenge. Hagan is the Knight of Trony, and he and his brother Dankwort are Gunther’s vassals. Hagan entices Kreimhild to reveal to him the secret of her husband’s safety in battle, and she tells him that Siegfried once slew a dragon and bathed in the blood, which made him invulnerable, save in one place, between his shoulders, where a leaf fell, protecting the skin from the blood. Kreimhild is entirely deceived by Hagan, and, not suspecting his treachery, she sews a circle of silk upon her husband’s vesture over the vulnerable spot, that Hagan may better know how to protect the hero’s one weakness when they are in battle. It is there, where the circle of silk is sewn, that Hagan stabs him. There is much more in the “Nibelungenlied,” and a character famous in poesy and sagas is introduced later in the poem—Atli, or Attila, King of the Huns; but he has nothing to do with our story, though some one has drawn a resemblance between his character and that of Hunding. The “Nibelungenlied,” after Siegfried’s death, contains very little connected in any way with Wagner’s four operas. There are other versions of this tale, as there are of all ancient stories. There are many tales of the killing of the Dragon and the awakening of Brunhild, and the personality and history of the latter have passed under diverse alterations in color and development. One story says that Brynhildr, the Valkyrie, was made to slumber by her father Odin, who pricked her in the temple with a sleep-thorn. Many writers tell of a fire-circle which surrounded the sleeper and guarded her slumbers. She is known as a great queen, a woman gifted with magic powers, and a disobedient Walküre in different tales; and her character changes as constantly as her history in the various legends where we read of her. Sigurd, Siegfried, and Sinfiotli are, in many respects, so similar that they might safely be termed identical, though sometimes, as in William Morris’s “Sigurd, the Volsung,” they appear as distinct characters. Out of this confused and complicated sea of myths, legends, and old Norse stories Wagner has drawn the material for his wonderful cycle.