The Muse is beginning to visit me. The first thing that came to me was a melody, which at first I didn't in the least know how to place, until all at once the words for it came to me from the last scene of Siegfried. A good omen! Yesterday, too, the opening of the second act dawned upon me as "Fafner's Rest," which gave me a humorously cosy motif.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 336