Old English Minor Heroic Poems

This is the fourth volume in the series "Durham and St. Andrews Medieval Texts". In this case, the aim is to make available the four short poems or fragments that, together with "Beowulf", form the corpus of extant Old English heroic poetry, and to introduce the student to the historical and legendary material which lies behind their frequently tantalising allusions.
The texts presented here are fairly conservative. They are supported by an introduction which discusses the MSS., the traditions of heroic poetry as a whole, and the major issues raised by each poem. There are also some limited textual notes, a full analytical glossary and a glossary of proper names. Most entries in the glossary of proper names are necessarily short, though the major theories are reviewed, and an attempt is made to suggest the broader Germanic contexts in which Old English heroic poetry needs to be seen. To support this, the Bibliography includes a list of translations into English of those texts, literary and historical, that are most valuable in the study of Germanic heroic legend, and references are usually to these translations, so that students can read for themselves the relevant portions in context.