Early Germanic literature

250px|thumb|First page from Manuscript C ( 1230) The ' (, or ; or ), translated as The Song of the Nibelungs''', is an epic poem written around 1200 in Middle High German. Its anonymous poet was likely from the region of Passau. The is based on an oral tradition of Germanic heroic legend that has some of its origin in historic events and individuals of the 5th and 6th centuries and that spread throughout almost all of Germanic-speaking Europe. Scandinavian parallels to the German poem are found especially in the heroic lays of the Poetic Edda and in the Völsunga saga''.

right|thumb|upright|The Lingsberg Runestone, Sweden, known as U 240 right|thumb|upright|An early runestone: the Möjbro Runestone from Hagby (first placed near Möjebro), [[Uppland, Sweden. As with other early runic inscriptions, (e.g. Kylver Stone from about 300–400 CE) this is written from right to left, while later Runestones were written from left to right. The text is "Frawaradaz anahaha is laginaz".]]

literature written in Old English in early medieval England from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066. Sometimes called 'Anglo-Saxon'.

thumb|upright=2|The title of the Getica as it appears in a 9th-century manuscript of Lorsch Abbey now in the [[Vatican Library]] De origine actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of the Getae), commonly abbreviated Getica (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people, which is now lost. However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives an extended accou

7th-century Latin book

literature of the Scandinavian peoples up to c. 1350

form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal structuring device