Heroic lay

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