Another three months went by. The rainy and muddy autumn gave way to a windy winter.

Both Mime and Brünnhilde several times tried to talk with Siegfried of the craft of forging, but the boy didn't want to hear about it. Although he stopped blaming the Nibelung that he didn't have a sword – it turned out that the blades from Gibich's castle bent and broke in Siegfried's hands just as well.

As frosts came, the travels to Gibich and his children became less frequent. Grane sank in the thick layer of snow that surrounded Mime's house, and as for Siegfried, after a particularly fierce snowstorm he couldn't go outside – he had to dig his way out like a mole.

At home Siegfried was at first bored and dejected, wandering from one room to another and thinking of how to occupy himself. But Brünnhilde quickly saw to that, and the days when he wasn't at his friends' were entirely dedicated to lessons. Sometimes Siegfried even helped Auntie and Mime with the chores.

But then there came a wonderfully quiet night followed by a clear day. As he saw that the snow outside wasn't higher than his knees, Siegfried woke up the whole house with his yells of joy. He swallowed the breakfast, hastily threw on his coat, and ran like the wind to the Rhine.

Now it was close to dusk, a new blizzard was starting, and there was no sign of Siegfried's return.

"Don't fuss," said Mime as he noticed that the former Valkyrie kept throwing worried glances at the window. "If the storm's a long one, he'll stay there until it ends."

"It might not end soon… Besides, how the poor kid is supposed to get home through the snowdrifts?"

"Well, send Grane to meet him if you like," the Nibelung suggested. And then there came a knock on the door.

"What was the whole hustle about?" Mime grunted, standing up. "Here he comes."

But it wasn't Siegfried, as they saw. A stranger in a long robe and a hat that hid one of his eye looked at the dwarf disdainfully:

"O host, will you grant a refuge to a lonely wanderer?"

Mime didn't have a chance to reply. Brünnhilde who had been watching the man suddenly rushed towards him, crying:

"Father!"

"Brünnhilde?" exclaimed the Wanderer who was Wotan, amazed. "You – here?"

"Brünnhilde is my wife," Mime informed him, thinking that he'd have to let the unwanted guest after all. Since he's relation…

But Wotan himself was obviously discouraged and wasn't so eager at all to come in.

"If you weren't seeking me, what do you want?" the girl realized she won't be greeted with a fond embrace, and her voice was instantly colder.

"I came from far away, having seen the whole world…"

Wotan used his tactic to distract a woman with talking while he'd think of what to answer her. He always did it when cornered by his wife. What could he say now – the truth? That he came to scare the living soul out of this miserable Nibelung?

The Wanderer was thinking of something else grandiloquent to say, when the white bird flew through the open door. She circled Wotan's head, whistling and twittering endlessly. The twitter seemed to be very offensive, as Wotan's face reddened:

"You pathetic excuse of a creature! Away with you!"

He raised his walking stick that hid a spear when Brünnhilde stepped forth.

"Have you come here merely to throw insults?" she cried, her voice ringing with anguish. "Then… then you'd better leave!"

Wotan, whom the bird called, to put it short, a greedy coward, a brainless boast and a shameless libertine, turned to his daughter:

"What's the matter with you? I don't recognize you, Brünnhilde!"

"And I don't recognize you!" she answered. "First you come for no reason at all, you don't even want to greet your own daughter, you refuse to say anything clearly and you try to kill the poor little birdie! As if you had no family feelings in your heart!"

"Traitress!" Wotan shouted. "You've always been one and still are!"

"Choose your words better, good wanderer. The laws of hospitality are all fine, but they don't give you the right to insult my wife!" a voice with a treacherous tremor suddenly came from behind his back. Wotan turned around and saw Mime, who had the time to run into the smithery and who was now raising a hammer above the visitor's head.

Brünnhilde desperately threw herself ahead as if she could prevent the fight. But Wotan had rightly guessed that his main goal, which was frightening Mime out of his wits by predicting his death, couldn't be accomplished anymore. He raised his hand:

"Calm down! I'm leaving! But you, dwarf, don't you hope to reforge my Notung! It can be forged only by him who knows no fear."

"I don't ne-e-eed it!" Mime yelled after him as he walked away and seemed to fade in the blizzard.

The dwarf put the hammer away and came to Brünnhilde. The girl was sitting on the bench and weeping, and the bird was flapping her wings in an attempt to dry her tears.

"I don't know what happened to my father," Brünnhilde whispered, sobbing. "Or to me perhaps? All my life I've been certain he's the most loving and understanding father in the world! Oh, why has he come here? To show how he despises me now?"

The bird shook her head and tried to explain what was Wotan's intent in reality. For the hundredth time, stroking her feathers, Brünnhilde sighed:

"Good, kind birdie! What a pity I can't understand your speech!"

Mime bent down and took her hands in his. She looked at him tearfully:

"Oh, how did you muster the courage to defend me?"

"You? It wasn't for you," Mime said quickly. "I simply don't tolerate impertinence in my own house."

Brünnhilde stood up and smiled as the dwarf instinctively curled up in fear.

"Mime, and if I want the truth?"

"If you want the truth, there was no courage in me at all!" he shouted. "As if you didn't see how I was shaking like a hare."

"Oh, you are indeed hopeless."

Yet some weight was lifted from the former Valkyrie's heart. She knew Mime well enough to know that he did in truth defend her. Of course the fact that he hated impertinence played its part too – but he stood for Brünnhilde. But what could bring Wotan to treat his former favorite daughter in such a way?

Tears welled in her eyes again.

"Brünnhilde, sit down, I don't want to break another table," said Mime.

"What petty thoughts," Brünnhilde remarked, but she sat and stretched her arms towards him. The dwarf climbed onto her knees, and her tearful face was against his shoulder.

"My overcoat will all get wet," Mime scolded her, at the same time holding her tight with one arm and gently stroking her hair. "Women!.. They always have to cry!"

"Mime, will you ever stop babbling sheer nonsense?"

"Hush… there now… no need to get so distressed for some Wotan or other…"

Soon during a short period of still Siegfried returned from the Gibichungs. Luckily for him the snow wasn't overly deep yet. Finally making it to the doorstep, the boy wanted to knock and found out that the door wasn't locked. Surprised – Mime was always afraid of darkness, cold drafts and wild beasts! – he peeked inside.

And, hardly suppressing a chuckle, he drew back and went to the back door that led to the smithery. He could get a nice view from the staircase too… It wasn't every day that one caught Mime and Auntie locked in an embrace, and Mime showering her with tender and passionate kisses…