The 13th-century Heidelberg manuscript reads in part, "ouch hoer ich sagen, das sippe blůt von wazzere niht verdirbet".
Jacob Grimm suggests that this saying, which is not read anywhere else, means that the bonds of family blood are not erased by the waters of baptism, and so the raven Diezelin will have inherited his father's outlook despite having been christened.
"[7] The phrase or some variation appears several times in Sir Walter Scott's work, including Marmion (1808),[8] Rob Roy (1817),[9] and Guy Mannering (1815): "Wheel — Blud's [sic] thicker than water — she's welcome to the cheeses.
For instance, in Clan-Albin, the characters are debating whether the small and soft Flora has pure enough clan ties to marry into the Craig-gillian family, who prefer "Amazonian daughters".
A nineteenth-century British contributor to Notes and Queries determined that Americans were still bound to Britain by "education and descent": "The thrill of grief and indignation with which the news of President Garfield's assassination was received in England, and the sympathy which his long agony called forth, could have been awakened by no alien.