the Old Saxon Heliand, Viking Age Poet Teaches Gospels

The Old Saxon Hêliand was written by an anonymous poet somewhere in what is now northern Germany in the ninth century. It is an epic poem of the life of Christ written in alliterative verse to be sung or read to a Viking Age audience in mead halls as well as monasteries. While the poet selected and harmonized the Gospel stories for his audience, he also contextualized the Gospels to make them appeal to his pagan audience. The poem was heard by Saxon audiences in England as well as on the continent for at least a century. Then it was lost until manuscripts were discovered in England and Germany in the mid-19th century, when it was translated into modern German. The poem was not translated into English until 1966. While the poem has been treated as a museum piece and studied for its linguistic and cultural significance, this volume attempts to identify the poet's evangelical strategy and raise it to the attention of modern new Christians in the hope that it may influence their growth in Christian faith.