Der Heliand

[mrph]

I'm sure that some of my friends list are already well aware of this, as you're a knowledgeable bunch - but I didn't know about it until last week, and I find the concept a little bit fascinating...

The poem Der Heliand ('The Saviour'), written somewhen between 803 and 840, is a long religious epic written in Old Saxon, depicting "the history of Jesus Christ in terms that would have been familiar to its target audience, the Old Saxons, and indeed to any Anglo-Saxon expatriates still to be found in the German religious world. This Jesus is a warrior king, a ring-giver, and his disciples or 'theganos' owe him the full allegiance unto death due to a lord: in short, a Jesus from the world of Beowulf".

(Quoted from Geoffrey Hindley's A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons)

It's an interesting mental image, isn't it? I wonder if anyone's ever considered adapting it into a film...

Comments

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

The original isn't Der Heliand, unless you're talking about it in Modern German. It's just the Heliand, or Heliand (and tbh the original text doesn't have a title anyway). I studied part of it for my degree. It is quite cool, yeah :-)

[mrph.livejournal.com]

The 'Der' was also quoted from Mr Hindley's book, unfortunately - looks like it slipped up on this. Thanks for pointing this out!