Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages

The great hero-lays of medieval Europe, collected in one indispensable volume. These are the stories that built the Western imagination: Beowulf slaying monsters in the shadowed halls of Heorot, Siegfried and the curse of the gold, Dietrich of Bern fleeing through dark enchanted forests, Charlemagne and his knights holding back the saracen tide, Arthur drawing the sword from the stone, Lancelot and Guinevere's doomed love, the Grail quest flickering at the edge of meaning. Wägner gathers the principal epics of six great cycles, the Teutonic, the Langobardian, the Nibelung, the Carolingian, the Breton, and the matter of Britain, in prose that preserves the muscular gravity of the originals while rendering them clear and vital for modern readers. This is where fantasy comes from, where Wagner drew his operas, where Tolkien spent a lifetime as a philologist. For anyone who has ever wanted to trace the deep roots of the western literary tradition back to their source, this book is the gateway.