Editing Germanic peoples (section)

===Poetry and legend===
{{Main|Alliterative verse|Germanic heroic legend}}
The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples were a largely [[orality|oral culture]]. Written literature in Germanic languages is not recorded until the 6th century ([[Gothic Bible]]) or the 8th century in modern England and Germany.{{sfn|Timpe|Scardigli|2010|p=609}} The philologist [[Andreas Heusler]] proposed the existence of various genres of literature in the "Old Germanic" period, which were largely based on genres found in high medieval [[Old Norse]] poetry. These include ritual poetry, epigrammatic poetry ({{lang|de|Spruchdichtung}}), memorial verses ({{lang|de|Merkdichtung}}), lyric, narrative poetry, and praise poetry.{{sfn|Timpe|Scardigli|2010|pp=614–615}} [[Heinrich Beck (philologist)|Heinrich Beck]] suggests that, on the basis of Latin mentions in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the following genres can be adduced: [[origo gentis]] (the origin of a people or their rulers), the fall of heroes ({{lang|la|casus heroici}}), praise poetry, and laments for the dead.{{sfn|Timpe|Scardigli|2010|p=616}}

Some stylistic aspects of later Germanic poetry appear to have origins in the [[Indo-European]] period, as shown by comparison with ancient Greek and Sanskrit poetry.{{sfn|Timpe|Scardigli|2010|pp=609–611}} Originally, the Germanic-speaking peoples shared a metrical and poetic form, alliterative verse, which is attested in very similar forms in Old Saxon, [[Old High German]] and [[Old English]], and in a modified form in [[Old Norse]].{{sfn|Haymes|Samples|1996|pp=39–40}} Alliterative verse is not attested in the small extant [[Gothic language|Gothic]] corpus.{{sfn|Goering|2020|p=242}} The poetic forms diverge among the different languages from the 9th century onward.{{sfn|Millet|2008|pp=27–28}}

Later Germanic peoples shared a common [[Germanic heroic legend|legendary tradition]]. These heroic legends mostly involve historical personages who lived during the [[migration period]] (4th–6th centuries CE), placing them in highly ahistorical and mythologized settings;{{sfn|Millet|2008|pp=4–7}}{{efn|Historian Shami Ghosh for instance, argues: "It is certainly the case that the Goths, Lombards, Franks, Angles, Saxons, and Burgundians...were all Germanic peoples, in that their vernacular tongue belonged to the Germanic sub-group of the Indo-European family of languages. It is also the case that the corpus of what literary scholars define as Germanic heroic poetry does contain narratives that have as a historical core events that took place largely in the period c.300–c.600—insofar as any of these narratives can in fact be related to any sort of historical realities at all. But there is little evidence from before the eighth century, at least, for any sense even of an awareness of an inter-relatedness among these peoples, and certainly not of any perception among them of any significance of such inter-relatedness—any sort of knowledge of and meaning granted to a common 'Germanentum', or 'Germanic-ness', that has any relation to the burden of significance such a concept has borne in modern scholarship. Furthermore, the historical links between the extant heroic texts and any verifiable historical fact are both invariably slender and often quite tenuous, and therefore should not be overvalued."{{sfn|Ghosh|2016|p=8}} }} they originate and develop as part of an [[oral tradition]].{{sfn|Millet|2008|pp=11–13}}{{sfn|Tiefenbach|Reichert|Beck|1999|pp=267–268}} Some early Gothic heroic legends are already found in [[Jordanes]]' ''Getica'' ({{Circa|551}}).{{sfn|Haubrichs|2004|p=519}} The close link between Germanic heroic legend and Germanic language and possibly poetic devices is shown by the fact that the Germanic speakers in [[Francia]] who adopted a Romance language, do not preserve Germanic legends but rather developed their own heroic folklore—excepting the figure of [[Walter of Aquitaine]].{{sfn|Ghosh|2007|p=249}}