England Composed: ca. 700-1000 CEEarliest extant manuscript: ca. 975-1025 CE Beowulf Set in sixth-century Scandinavia, Beowulf is a simple story about a hero who fights three monsters: as a young warrior he grapples with the cannibalistic Grendel and his...
Ireland 11th century (earliest extant version) Anonymous, Táin Bó Cúailnge Táin Bó Cúailnge (‘The Cattle Raid of Cooley’) is a complicated work. While its plot is relatively simple, it is difficult to introduce, especially as an epic, because of its textual...
Kievan Rus Composed: ca. 1188-1200 CEEarliest manuscript: ca. 15th century CE First published in 1800 Anonymous The Tale of Igor The Tale of Igor, also called The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, of Igor, Son of Svyatoslav, Grandson of Oleg, describes the...
Germany Composed: ca. 1180-1210 CEEarliest extant manuscript: ca. 1220 CE Anonymous Nibelungenlied Although copied down in manuscripts around 1200 on behalf of the Passau Bishop Wolfger von Erla, the Nibelungenlied evokes many historical events from the time when the...
Germany Composed ca. 1230-1250Earliest extant manuscript 1504-1516 Anonymous, Kudrun With the Middle High German ‘heroic’ epic poem Kudrun we face a curious situation. Having been composed around 1220-1250, it has survived in only one early sixteenth-century...
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