Mime: (howling) (#5>>; #6>>:) Just let me go! It’s already finished, just as you asked; with toil and sweat it was fitted together … (:#5; :#6).
[Mime makes various excuses, which Alberich rejects.]
Alberich: Give me the trinket! (… in his terror, Mime drops a piece of metalwork that he had been clutching tightly in his hands. Alberich snatches it up and examines it closely: [[ #42 ]]) (…) Everything forged and fitted together just as I asked! So the simpleton slyly wanted to trick me, keep for himself the costly jewel that my cunning alone taught him to craft? (…) (#42: he places the metalwork on his head as a ‘Tarnhelm.’) The helm fits tightly over my head: will the magic also work? (very quietly: [[ #43: ]] ‘Night and mist, like to none (:#43)!’ – (He disappears and in his place can be seen a column of mist.)
[Alberich certifies that he’s invisible and Mime can’t see him] (…) Alberich: take that for your thieving greed! [Alberich whips Mime] (…)
Mime: (#5:) ow! ow! ow (:#5)! (…)
Alberich: (laughing, invisible) (…) Your work has proved its worth. – (…) Nibelungs all, bow down to Alberich! [#modulating chromatically and featuring a falling diminished fifth, a key ingredient of #19:] Everywhere now he lies in wait in order to keep you under guard; rest and repose have melted away; for him you must toil where you cannot see him; where you don’t expect him, there you shall find him: you’re subject to him for ever! (harshly) (…) Hear him, he nears: the Nibelungs’ lord!
[Alberich storms off after the Nibelungs venting his fury at them accompanied by #5 and #41]
As Alberich speaks to Mime of the Tarnhelm, and first demonstrates its power of transformation, we hear two new motifs, #42 and #43, which represent the Tarnhelm. Dunning has christened #42 the Tarnhelm Motif per se, and #43, which is essentially a continuation of #42, the Tarnhelm’s Transformations. Both motifs, Cooke demonstrated, are variants of Loge’s Motif #35, which will later become the basis for the Motif of the Magic Fire, #100, the protective ring of Loge’s fire with
