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
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