Prelude to the Prologue The three Norns, daughters of Erda, the goddess of Nature, gather beside Brünnhilde's rock, weaving the Rope of Destiny.

From it they read of the past, the present, and of the future when Valhalla will be set on fire and the end of the gods will come ("Welch' Licht leuchtet dort?").

Lamenting the loss of their wisdom, the Norns disappear, returning to their mother Erda beneath the earth ("Zu End' ewiges Wissen!").

Orchestral Interlude - Tagesgrauen (Dawn) As day breaks, Siegfried and Brünnhilde emerge from their dwelling high on a mountaintop surrounded by magic fire ("Zu neuen Thaten, theurer Helde").

Siegfried proclaims himself to be simply an executor of her will, and as a pledge of his fidelity he gives her the ring of power that he took from Fafner's hoard.

Gunther's half-brother and chief minister Hagen advises him to find a wife for himself and a husband for Gutrune, the sister of them both, to enlarge the glory and might of their dynasty and secure it for the future.

Drugged, Siegfried then offers to win a wife for Gunther, who tells him about Brünnhilde and the magic fire, which only a fearless person can cross.

Orchestral Interlude Meanwhile, Brünnhilde is visited on her rock by her Valkyrie sister Waltraute, who recounts that Wotan returned from his wanderings with his spear shattered.

Unable to influence events any more, he has ordered branches of the World tree to be piled around Valhalla by its heroes and waits in resignation for his ravens to bring him news about the ring ("Höre mit Sinn, was ich dir sage!"

He explains to Gutrune how he managed to change his form back from Gunther's just in time for Brünnhilde to not be able to recognize the deceit.

Hagen announces that Gunther has won himself a wife and orders them to slay sacrificial animals so that gods may grant a happy marriage.

Gunther lands on the Rhine's shore in front of Siegfried, Gutrune, Hagen, and the assembled Gibichung men and women and leads in a downcast Brünnhilde as his trophy.

Siegfried agrees and swears upon Hagen's spear-point that he may be killed with it if he has ever loved Brünnhilde ("Helle Wehr, heilige Waffe!").

Indeed, to see Siegfried die is Gunther's duty, since the hero has apparently broken the sacred bond of blood-brotherhood during the night on the rock with Brünnhilde, which betrayal condemns him by law to the rightful punishment of death.

The Rhinemaidens urge him to return the ring to the Rhine and thus avoid its curse, but he laughs at them in heroic pride and says he prefers to die rather than bargain for his life.

Hagen gives him another potion, which restores his memory, and Siegfried tells of discovering the sleeping Brünnhilde and awakening her with a kiss.

His body is carried away in a solemn funeral procession that forms the interlude as the scene is changed and recapitulates many of the themes associated with Siegfried and the Wälsungs.

As the queen of the Gibichungs she then issues orders for a huge funeral pyre for the dead hero to be assembled by the river ("Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort") and takes the ring from Siegfried's hand.

With her eyes turned upwards to the sky, Brünnhilde in an apostrophe addresses Wotan, the ruler of oaths and laws, and proclaims that the death of the free hero Siegfried has atoned for the god's guilt; renouncing and overcoming through the might of grieving love the power of the ring, she bequeaths it to the Rhinemaidens, who are to claim it from her own ashes after fire has cleansed it of its curse, and declares that Wotan can finally truly rest in peace ("Mein Erbe nun nehm' ich zu eigen").

After a final eulogy to the dead hero, Brünnhilde, willing to be reunited with her love, mounts her horse Grane and as a valkyrie rides into the flames, joining Siegfried in death.

[6] Warren J. Darcy has expostulated on the potential influence of Wagner's readings of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer on the music of the Ring cycle, particularly on the ending of Götterdämmerung.

[9] Friedrich Nietzsche's 1888–1889 book, Götzendämmerung—Twilight of the Idols—is a pun on the title of Götterdämmerung, with Götze being the German word for "idol" or "false god".