Sieglinda, when she flies into the forest with the hero's son unborn in
her womb, and the broken pieces of his sword in her hand, finds shelter
in the smithy of a dwarf, where she brings forth her child and dies.
This dwarf is no other than Mimmy, the brother of Alberic, the same who
made for him the magic helmet. His aim in life is to gain possession of
the helmet, the ring, and the treasure, and through them to obtain that
Plutonic mastery of the world under the beginnings of which he himself
writhed during Alberic's brief reign. Mimmy is a blinking, shambling,
ancient creature, too weak and timid to dream of taking arms himself to
despoil Fafnir, who still, transformed to a monstrous serpent, broods
on the gold in a hole in the rocks. Mimmy needs the help of a hero for
that; and he has craft enough to know that it is quite possible, and
indeed much in the ordinary way of the world, for senile avarice and
craft to set youth and bravery to work to win empire for it. He knows
the pedigree of the child left on his hands, and nurses it to manhood
with great care.
His pains are too well rewarded for his comfort. The boy Siegfried,
having no god to instruct him in the art of unhappiness, inherits none
of his father's ill luck, and all his father's hardihood. The fear
against which Siegmund set his face like flint, and the woe which he
wore down, are unknown to the son. The father was faithful and grateful:
the son knows no law but his own humor; detests the ugly dwarf who has
nursed him; chafes furiously under his claims for some return for
his tender care; and is, in short, a totally unmoral person, a born
anarchist, the ideal of Bakoonin, an anticipation of the "overman" of
Nietzsche. He is enormously strong, full of life and fun, dangerous and
destructive to what he dislikes, and affectionate to what he likes; so
that it is fortunate that his likes and dislikes are sane and healthy.
Altogether an inspiriting young forester, a son of the morning, in whom
the heroic race has come out into the sunshine from the clouds of his
grandfather's majestic entanglements with law, and the night of his
father's tragic struggle with it.