Mariana Scott, poet and translator of Hofmannsthal, Meyrink, Celan, and others, translates the eight-century Old Saxon Heliand into its original meter in this work originally published in 1966. This anonymous masterpiece presents the life of Christ and affords an excellent insight into medieval life.

A spirited retelling of the Gospel story in a Germanic setting, the ninth-century A.D. Old Saxon epic poem The Heliand is at last available in English in Ronald Murphy's graceful new translation. Representing the first full integration and poetic reworking of the Gospel story into Northern European warrior imagery and culture, the poem finds a place for many Old Northern religious concepts and images while remaining faithful to the orthodox Christian teaching of the Gospel of St. Mark. Accessible to students of medieval and comparative literature, Murphy's introduction and notes provide valuable insight and a cultural context for this unique masterpiece.

Heliand, the Old Saxon poem based on the life of Christ in the Gospels, is now readily available to students of Anglo-Saxon culture, history, linguistics, literature, and religion. In Perspectives on the Old Saxon Heliand, Valentine Pakis brings together recent scholarship to address new turns in the field and engage with relevant academic arguments of the past three decades. Furthering the ongoing critical discussion of both text and culture, this volume reflects the current state of medieval studies while demonstrating its evolution since the 1970s. --Book Jacket.

Annotated English Translation of the Old Saxon Heliand : A Ninth-Century Biblical Paraphrase in the Germanic Epic Style

This study is an interpretation and appreciation of the art of the Heliand, the 9th-century Saxon epic poem in which the Christian Gospel of the four evangelists is reexpressed in Germanic terms. Murphy examines in detail the ingenious and sensitive poetic analogies through which familiar texts - the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, the Passion and Resurrection - are transformed into Germanic settings and concepts. The first book in English on the Heliand, this study offers a new socio-political explanation of the possible motives of the unknown Heliand author in undertaking this enormous and brilliantly realized poetic task.

This work presents the reader with explanatory commentary that encompasses both the scientific and the poetic and treats them both with equal felicity.

How and why did the images of the crucified Christ and his grieving mother achieve such prominence, inspiring unparalleled religious creativity as well such imitative extremes as celibacy and self-flagellation? To answer this question, Fulton ranges over developments in liturgical performance, private prayer, doctrine, and art.

G. Ronald Murphy offers an insightful examination of the lasting significance of Yggdrasil in northern Europe, showing that the tree's image persisted not simply through its absorption into descriptions of Christ's crucifix, but through recognition by the newly converted Christians of the truth of their new religion in the images of their older faith.