First Fire — Heia Walpurgis released on Walpurgisnacht
On the Brocken, in the night between April and May: the first song of Blutmärchen is here.
XXX IV MMXXVI · 30 April 2026 · Walpurgisnacht.
Tonight, in the night the witches climb the Brocken, the first track of Blutmärchen goes live. Heia Walpurgis (Auf den Brocken) is the doorway — the entrance to Grimm Tales, Vol. I — In Blood and Fire.
What it is
Symphonic melodic death metal, dual-vocal drama, gothic atmosphere, symphonic choirs. The Brocken on Walpurgisnacht: the folk climbing from a thousand villages, the fires that have burned for centuries — long before the Christians named the date for Saint Walburga.
Goethe sent Faust there with Mephistopheles, hand in hand, through wind and storm and thorn, into a sabbath of music and ash. Heine walked the Brocken in 1826 and wrote what he saw. The fire is still up there. The Walpurgis bonfires are still lit — in the Harz, the Eifel, the Schwarzwald, every Germanic forest where memory survives.
Die Hexen zu dem Brocken ziehn,
die Stoppel ist gelb, die Saat ist grün.
— Goethe, Faust I, Walpurgisnacht-Szene
How it sounds
- Harsh male vocals carry the curse, the forest, the fate, the devouring.
- Ethereal female vocals carry innocence, memory, sorrow.
- Symphonic choir as the voice of the tale itself — the village, the chronicle, the moral that refuses to be simple.
- Whispered German anchors from Goethe as incantations.
- Leitmotifs: Wolf, Spindle, Mirror, Salbe, Dawn — fixed musical shapes that run through the entire cycle.
How to listen
Heia Walpurgis is free to hear and free to share from tonight, under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Stream it, download it, pass it on — the mission is reach, not revenue. Every share is a small act of preservation.
What comes next
Seven more tales follow in Grimm Tales, Vol. I: Rumpelstilzchen, Aschenputtel, Schneewittchen, Hänsel & Gretel, Rotkäppchen, Rapunzel, Dornröschen — in their original adult shape. Four are already published; the remaining three follow over the course of the year.
If you play, sing, or carry voices in a choir — and the project resonates with you — the doors are open. Read the Call for Collaborators.
Free to listen. Free to share. Carry the tales.