{{About|the Germanic narrative verse genre|the French verse form|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. {{sfn|Hatto|1980|p=165|ps=. "A terse, self-contained, objective, memorized poem of epic-dramatic style imbued with an heroic ethos conveyed with art in a single-stranded plot"}}{{sfn|Gloning|Young|2004|p=42|ps=. "a short poem extolling the valour and nobility of character of a great hero of the past."}} It is distinct from the '''heroic epic''' (Beowulf, Nibelungenlied) which combines a sequence of episodes into a longer narrative.{{sfn|Heusler|1905}}
==Examples== *'''Old High German''' **The Hildebrandslied *'''Old Norse''' **Atlakviða **Hamðismál *'''Old English''' **The Finnesburg Fragment
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==References== *{{cite book|last1=Gloning|first1=Thomas|last2=Young|first2=Christopher|title=A History of the German Language Through Texts|date=2004|publisher=Routledge|location=Abingdon, New York|isbn=0415183316}} * {{cite encyclopedia | last=Hatto | first=A.T. | author-link=Arthur Thomas Hatto|editor-last=Hatto| editor-first=A.T. |editor-link=Arthur Thomas Hatto| encyclopedia=Traditions of Heroic and Epic Poetry | title=Medieval German | year=1980 | publisher=Modern Humanities Research Association| location=London | volume=1: The Traditions |pages=165–195|isbn=0-900547-72-3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=75e5RRqIhMQC&q=heroic+lay&pg=PA166-IA2|access-date=8 January 2018}} *{{cite book|last1=Heusler|first1=Andreas|title=Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung|date=1905|publisher=Ruhfus|location=Dortmund|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_JazPAAAAMAAJ|access-date=9 January 2018}}
==Further reading== *{{cite book|last1=Fulk|first1=R.D.|last2=Cain|first2=Christopher|title=A History of Old English Literature|date=2013|publisher=Blackwell|location=Oxford|isbn=978-1-118-45323-0|edition=2nd|chapter=Germanic Legend and Heroic Lay}} * {{cite encyclopedia | last=Murdoch| first=Brian | editor-last=Murdoch| editor-first=Brian | encyclopedia=German Literature of the Early Middle Ages | title=Heroic Verse | year=1980 | publisher=Camden House| location=Woodbridge, Suffolk|pages=121–138|isbn=1-57113-240-6}}
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Category:Medieval poetry Category:Genres Category:Old High German literature Category:Germanic heroic legends
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