The Blood of the Walsungs

The Blood of the Walsungs (Wälsungenblut in German) is a novella written by the German author Thomas Mann. Originally written in 1905 and set to be published in the January 1906 issue of Die Neue Rundschau, it was pulled from print because of its similarities to Mann's new wife and her family.^[1] The story was finally published in Germany in 1921 and has since remained one of Mann's most controversial works for its portrayal of anti-Semitism and incest.

The novella narrates an episode in the lives of the Aarenhold household and its youngest members, the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, who spend most of their time together and love each other deeply to the point of committing incest. Mann drew artistic inspiration from Richard Wagner's 1870 opera Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and the myth the Völsunga clan, famous in Nordic mythology.^[2]