The Story of Siegfried is James Baldwin's retelling of ancient yet perpetually popular Norse and Germanic tales about the hero Siegfried. The stories tell of a young man who had many adventures that readers might find familiar from modern movies and books, such as forging a legendary sword, rescuing a beautiful woman from a deep sleep, fighting dragons and armies, and so forth. Baldwin's sources included the Eddas, the Volsung Saga, and the Nibelungenlied, some of the oldest surviving references to the legends.