Hello, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Chronicles, where today we're going to be talking all about the Niebu Lungan lead by an unknown poet, very much like the Beowulf poet as well.

We don't know who actually wrote this, but what I can tell you about it is that it is estimated to have been written between the late 12th century and the early 13th century, so about 1200 AD,

and it is one of the most famous and influential pieces of German literature of all time,

of course hailing from the height of the medieval period. And the Nipel-Unkin

lead is a very, very interesting story because not only is it written very much in the style

of people like Thomas of Britain and Christiane Detroit, who wrote many of the Arthurian romances.

But what's more, it has one of the most dark and sinister stories of revenge I've ever read.

In fact, this story for many centuries disappeared after the medieval era and was rediscovered by local German man back in about 1755.

And so since then, since its rediscovery, over many, many centuries, it became known as something of the northern Iliad.

This is how the Germans, of course, framed it themselves, wanting to be very, very proud

of their own achievements.

Although I don't think that many people would say that it is on par with the Iliad

itself, I would say it is still a remarkable achievement and gives a great window

into the fusion of myth and legend and history, all of these coming together in the

understanding of Germanic peoples and their own history. Because a lot of the characters in this, unlike in Beowulf,

where really the only character who has any real historical grounding is Higalak, the King of the Gaets,

in this, many of the characters are inspired by real historical figures.

Now, this doesn't mean at all that the things that they do in the novel, in the work,

are one-for-one replications of the actual historical accounts of these people,

but they do represent a very, very interesting

image of the oral tradition of storytelling, passing down from the Germanic migration

period between about 300 and 600, both from the wavering end of the Western Roman Empire and into the start of the Dark Ages

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