Heroic lay

This article is about the Germanic narrative verse genre. For the French verse form, see Lai (poetic form).

The heroic lay (German Heldenlied) is a genre of Germanic epic poetry characteristic of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages. A lay is a short narrative poem of between 80 and 200 lines concerning a single heroic episode in the life of a warrior from Germanic legend. It is distinct from the heroic epic (Beowulf, Nibelungenlied) which combines a sequence of episodes into a longer narrative.

Examples

• Old High German
  • The Hildebrandslied
• Old Norse
  • Atlakviða
  • Hamðismál
• Old English
  • The Finnesburg Fragment

References

• Gloning, Thomas; Young, Christopher (2004). A History of the German Language Through Texts. Abingdon, New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415183316.
• Hatto, A.T. (1980). "Medieval German". In Hatto, A.T. (ed.). Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry. Vol. 1: The Traditions. London: Modern Humanities Research Association. pp. 165–195. ISBN 0-900547-72-3. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
• Heusler, Andreas (1905). Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung. Dortmund: Ruhfus. Retrieved 9 January 2018.

Further reading

• Fulk, R.D.; Cain, Christopher (2013). "Germanic Legend and Heroic Lay". A History of Old English Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-118-45323-0.
• Murdoch, Brian (1980). "Heroic Verse". In Murdoch, Brian (ed.). German Literature of the Early Middle Ages. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Camden House. pp. 121–138. ISBN 1-57113-240-6.