Editing Das Rheingold (section)

===Text, sources, characters===
{{Further|Der Ring des Nibelungen: composition of the text}}
[[File:Disegno per copertina di libretto, disegno di Peter Hoffer per L'oro del Reno (s.d.) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON012398.jpg|thumb|Libretto cover for ''Das Rheingold'' (Peter Hoffer)]]
Because Wagner developed his ''Ring'' scheme in reverse chronological order, the "poem" (libretto) for ''Das Rheingold'' was the last of the four to be written. He finished his prose plan for the work in March 1852, and on 15 September began writing the full libretto, which he completed on 3 November.{{sfn|Holman|2001|p=33}} In February 1853, at the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zürich, Wagner read the whole ''Ring'' text to an invited audience, after which all four parts were published in a private edition limited to 50 copies.{{sfn|Millington et al 2002}} The text was not published commercially until 1863.{{sfn|Osborne|1992|p=186}}
[[File:Ed0002.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Wotan]]
Of the principal sources that Wagner used in creating the ''Ring'' cycle, the Scandinavian Eddas – the [[Poetic Edda]] and the [[Prose Edda]] – provided most of the material for ''Das Rheingold''. These are poems and texts from 12th and 13th-century Iceland, which relate the doings of various Norse gods. Among these stories, a magic ring and a hoard of gold held by the dwarf Andvari (Wagner's Alberich) are stolen by the gods Odin (Wotan) and Loki (Loge) and used to redeem a debt to two brothers. One of these, Fafnir, kills his brother and turns himself into a dragon to guard the gold.{{sfn|Holman|2001|p=26}} The Eddas also introduce the gods Thor (Donner), Frey (Froh) and the goddesses Frigg (Fricka) and Freyja (Freia).{{sfn|Holman|2001|pp=184–187, 193–195}} The idea of Erda, the earth mother, may have been derived from the character Jord (meaning "Earth"), who appears in the Eddas as the mother of Thor.{{sfn|Cooke|1979|p=226}}

A few Rhinegold characters originate from outside the Eddas. Mime appears in the [[Þiðreks saga|Thidriks saga]], as a human smith rather than as an enslaved Nibelung.{{sfn|Grey|2017|p=40}} The three Rhinemaidens do not appear in any of the sagas and are substantially Wagner's own invention; he also provided their individual names Woglinde, Wellgunde and Floßhilde.{{sfn|Newman|1949|p=464}} In his analysis of ''The Ring'' [[Deryck Cooke]] suggests the Rhinemaidens' origin may be in the ''Nibelungenlied'', where three [[Neck (water spirit)|water sprites]] tease the characters [[Hagen (legend)|Hagen]] and [[Gunther]]. Wagner may also have been influenced by the Rhine-based German legend of [[Lorelei]], who lures fishermen on to the rocks by her singing, and by the Greek [[Hesperides]] myth in which three maidens guard a golden treasure.{{sfn|Cooke|1979|pp=138–140}}

Robert Jacobs, in his biography of the composer, observes that the "Nibelung Myth" on which Wagner based his entire ''Ring'' story was "very much a personal creation", the result of Wagner's "brilliant manipulation" of his sources.{{sfn|Jacobs|1980|p=50}} In the ''Rheingold'' text, Wagner used his imaginative powers to adapt, change and distort the stories and characters from the sagas. J.K. Holman, in his "Listener's Guide and Concordance" (2001), cites the Alberich character as typifying Wagner's ability to "consolidate selected aspects from diverse stories to create ... vivid, consistent and psychologically compelling portrait[s]".{{sfn|Holman|2001|p=176}} While some characters' importance is enhanced in Wagner's version, others, such as Donner, Froh, and Freia, who are major figures in the sagas, are reduced by Wagner to roles of largely passive impotence.{{sfn|Holman|2001|pp=188, 193, 195}}

Wagner originally conceived the first scene of ''Das Rheingold'' as a prologue to the three scenes that follow it. As such, the structure replicates that of ''Götterdämmerung'', and also that of the full ''Ring'' cycle.{{sfn|Millington et al 2002}}{{sfn|Bailey|1977|p=50}}