I'm so glad you've joined me on Lights Out Library tonight.

If you'd like to listen ad-free and unlock bonus episodes, then please consider joining our Patreon.

There's a link for it in the episode description.

Now, a quick word from our our sponsors before tonight's story begins.

Hello everyone. I'm Olympia. Thank you for being here with me in this wonderful place called

Lights Out Library,

and I have a great story to tell you.

Once upon a time,

a gold ring was forged that gave its owners the power to rule the world.

But this is not the story you are thinking about.

Tonight we're going to make a new journey to the world of myths and legends.

And this time, I take you to Germany to tell you these stories and discover where they came from.

I have set up camp in the southwest of Germany in the black forest.

It is an atmospheric place with its own history and local legends.

We'll talk about this too. And it's a good place to tell you about

Germanic and Norse mythologies. We'll see how the two are closely related and we will do it

through the ring of the Nibbeulung, which in itself is not an ancient myth. It is a name given to a cycle of

operas by Richard Wagner, the Rheingold, the Valkyrie, Sigfried, and Twilight of the Gods.

These operas are monuments of music from the 19th century, and they are very much a product of

their time, which is yet another thing we will discuss.

But we are going to focus on the stories they contain, which are reinvention of much older myths that will make us travel in time and explore a world of

heroes, gods, fairies, and grand scenery, from the rivers and forests of Germany to the

...