Opera Stories from Wagner
By Florence Akin
A Baby in the Forest
Mimi found a cavern in a rocky cleft. It was just the kind of place he liked.
In it was just the right kind of rock for a forge.
There he hammered at weapons or chains or whatever happened to be his need.
Daily he sneaked about in the underbrush, watching the dragon, and daily he became more anxious to gain the gold.
He was such a coward that he was frightened at almost every animal he saw in the woods and startled by every sound.
One day, when he had ventured farther from his cave than usual, he was startled by a strange little cry.
He listened a moment and thought:–
“It sounds like the cry of a little child. I shall run to my cave.”
But as he heard the cry again, something made him want to see what it was.
He slipped cautiously through the bushes, in the direction from which the sound came.
When he reached the place he found a little baby boy.
This was the same forest to which Brunhilde had fled, bearing the broken sword to Siegmund’s wife.
But now the mother had died, and Siegmund’s child was left alone in the woods.
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