Filled with hope, Hans goes to bed, forgetting the sack lying on the table. When all is quiet, the landlord in his nightcap steals in and plunges his hand into the sack. He finds there not gold but a strange, sticky mass. With great difficulty he withdraws his hand, when bats, scorpions, and the like come forth from the sack. Hans, roused by the man's shrieks, runs in and taking the sack, which the landlord admits he was trying to steal, goes to bed again. It is morning when the next scene is shown. People are going past to church, and among them are the master and his three daughters. To Lena is given the first opportunity to see Hans. She calls Gunda and they ridicule him, pointing at his black face, long nails and dirty ears and calling him a devil. Soon Louise arrives, and seeing a tear on Hans' face, she is moved to pity and is very gentle with him. He shows her the half ring the Devil gave him and tells her that if she will wear it for three years and if the gold does not fade, the curse which is upon him will depart. She places it upon a ribbon she wears about her neck and hides it beneath her bodice.
Loud voices are heard and the landlord and the peas ants rush in. The landlord has told them about the bag and they accuse Hans of being in league with the Devil. Hans asks about the sixty florins and the landlord declares that he gave them back because they were the Devil's gold. At this, Hans seizes him and takes the gold from his pocket. He throws it upon the ground and where it falls a hell flame shoots up. The peasants attack Hans but Louise remonstrates, declaring that he is a good man.
The third act shows first a wild pine forest where, upon a stone in a pool of water, the Devil sits with an hour-glass in his hand. The three years are at an end and Hans has won. Hans is sleeping on a grassy knoll and the little devils are busy about him. They cut his hair and beard, trim his nails, and wash the soot and dirt from his face. When he wakes up, Hans reminds the Devil of
the three wishes which, as loser, he must grant. Hans' first wish is to be what he was; the second, to have the bag free from gold and ghosts ; the third, that the Devil will leave him alone in the future. All these are granted and he bids the Devil farewell, going to his bride. As he is hastening along he is accosted by the stranger, who urges him to warn the sleeping fortress that Wallenstein's army is about to attack it.
The scene shifts to the burgomaster's garden, which looks out on the Plassenburg. Excited peasants cry that an army is coming to storm the fort and that all the soldiers are sleeping. The worst of it is that no one dares to go to waken them. In the midst of their trepidation, the sergeant rushes in and tells them that the danger has been averted by Hans Kraft, whom they formerly knew as a soldier. The colonel details soldiers to bring Hans to the glory which awaits him. While Louise, left alone, is thinking of him whose ring she wears and longing for his return, a soldier enters, slightly wounded, and she binds his wrist. He asks for a drink of water and drops his part of the ring into the glass.
To be brief, everything ends happily ; the people learn ing that their idol, Hans, is no other than the black man who wore the bearskin and that through the love of Louise the curse has been removed.
The music of " The Bearskin Weaver " is naturally after the style of Richard Wagner and many of the orchestral effects as well as the motifs themselves are more than merely reminiscent. The opera has known but a short life in Germany and has not made its way into other lands, facts which tend to prove that the interest it aroused when it first appeared was due more to curiosity concerning the abilities of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, than to any enduring values in the work itself.