What The Little Birdie Told

Those familiar with Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen know that in Act II of Siegfried the eponymous hero slays the dragon Fafner by thrusting his newly-forged sword Nothung into the wretched beast's heart. Hearts being what they are, this turned out a quite bloody affair, and some of that blood found its way onto Siegfried's sword-wielding hand and seemed to burn his fingers, whereupon he reflexively put his blood-spattered fingers into his mouth to cool them, after which he found that suddenly and magically he could understand the speech of the woodbirds whose constant twittering priorly sounded to him merely like the twittering of any old woodbird. Seems, however, one particular woodbird has a special interest in Siegfried and his welfare, and has lots of important stuff to tell him, all of which will prove eminently good counsel, and even work to save his life.

So, what's the deal here? What interest could a woodbird have in counseling Siegfried, or any other human for that matter, about anything? In Wagner's score this one particular woodbird is identified merely as a woodbird (Der Waldvogel). Nothing there to identify it as some special sort of woodbird, nor is there anything much in the extensive Wagner literature to identify it as something special beyond its possessing certain conventional and expected fairytale or saga characteristics that set it apart from real-life woodbirds.

Or is there?

Why, yes, indeed there is (but, then, if you've read this far, you knew that already, didn't you).

Just to briefly refresh your memory on some background, you'll remember that Siegfried's mother, Sieglinde, gave birth to Siegfried in the depths of the forest where she'd taken refuge after the slaying of Siegfried's papa Siegmund, her twin brother and husband, by the hand of Sieglinde's previous husband, Hunding, with the help of the intervention of the god Wotan, Siegmund's own papa. Present at the birth was the Nibelung dwarf Mime, brother of that arch-Nibelung, Alberich, whose forging of a magic ring from the gold of the Rhine set into motion the entire cosmic drama that is Der Ring des Nibelungen. Almost immediately after giving birth to Siegfried, Sieglinde dies, and Mime then takes it upon himself to raise the now orphaned infant whose name his mother had bestowed upon him almost at the moment of her death.

Mime is, of course, no altruist or humanitarian. Rather, he instantly recognized just how special was this infant, and just how valuable and useful he would be when grown to young manhood in securing for Mime the golden Nibelung hoard now in the possession of the fearful dragon Fafner, the transformed giant from the tetralogy's first opera, Das Rheingold, which hoard includes not only the magical Tarnhelm whose magic enabled Fafner to transform himself into a dragon, but Alberich's all-powerful ring itself.

Now, back to that woodbird.

Although given no identification in the score other than Der Waldvogel, this particular woodbird seems to know an awful lot of detail about the history of the Ring saga up to this point, and how best to take advantage of that knowledge. Further, this woodbird is assiduous in passing on to Siegfried in the form of explanation, counsel, or warning just what details he needs to know about just when he needs most to know about it.

Serendipity? Happy coincidence? Cheap deus ex machina tactic? Not a bit of it. Rather tip-off number one that this particular woodbird is something other and more than your ordinary, regulation fairytale or saga woodbird despite having no identification in the score other than Der Waldvogel.

And then there's this to consider.

In Act I of Die Walküre there is heard for the first time (in the orchestra) a four-measure leitmotif at the point when the twin Wälsungs, Siegmund and Sieglinde, first dimly sense a bond of sympathy between them more familial than erotic or romantic although at the time neither has so much as an inkling they're siblings. That leitmotif has, for better or worse, been variously labeled by different commentators, and for the sake of convenience we'll here refer to it by the best of those labels and call it the Wälsung Bond motif, or simply WB. What's interesting about that motif in Siegfried is that though neither Siegmund nor Sieglinde, both being long dead, play any part in Siegfried, in the fairly brief episode within which take place the encounters between Siegfried and the woodbird in Act II of that opera the WB motif is heard in the orchestra no less than nine times, and always in the same connection. It's first heard in Act II of Siegfried while Siegfried, resting under a linden tree after first entering the forest — the very same forest in which his mother died giving him birth — ruminates thus after speculating to himself what his father might have looked like ("Ha! Like me, of course!" he concludes):

But what did my mother look like?
I can't imagine that at all.
Like the roedeer's surely shone
her soft lustrous eyes,
but far more lovely!
When she bore me in sorrow
why then did she die?
Do all men's mothers
die of their sons?
That would be sad indeed!
Ah!, if I her son could see my mother,
my mother,
a mortal woman!

Immediately following which, guess what then makes its first appearance. That's right. Our little woodbird, one that Siegfried's never before encountered, gaily twittering away in birdsong (in the orchestra); birdsong that at this point Siegfried can hear only as birdsong as he's not yet met up with Fafner and his magic dragon blood.

"You pretty bird!" cries Siegfried.

I never heard you before.
Do you live in this forest?
If I understood its sweet song
it would surely be saying something to me,
perhaps about my dear mother!

Perhaps indeed.

And from that point forward whenever the WB motif is heard in Act II (again, in the orchestra) it's heard only in some connection with our woodbird, as in this act no more mention is made of Sieglinde.

Now, I don't at all mean to suggest that Wagner intended anything so crude as making the woodbird a reincarnation of Sieglinde, or her shape-shifting ghost or anything of that cheap supernatural sort. What was intended here is whole orders of magnitude more subtle; so subtle that to put it into words would be the ultimate crudity, which is precisely why Wagner depended on his music to do for him what his words could only have made vulgar. Nevertheless, Wagner did provide us one enigmatic clue in words.

Heretofore, whenever the woodbird responded to an entreaty by Siegfried for advice, it always responded directly with straightforward, facts-only counsel or warning. But after the woodbird has informed Siegfried of the sleeping Brünnhilde whom the woodbird says is his for the taking, Siegfried, inflamed by he knows not what at the prospect, inquires of the woodbird, "What shoots so swiftly through my heart and senses? Tell me, sweet friend!" the woodbird, seemingly oblivious of his question, and speaking almost as if to itself alone, responds:

Gaily in grief I sing of love.
Blissfully from woe I weave my lay.
Only lovers know its meaning.

Decrypt that cryptic, seemingly non sequitur but strangely resonant response to Siegfried's inquiry as best you can. Wagner depended on you making the attempt.