HELIAND. - Old High German word, today Heiland, Saviour; a kind of popular religious poem in Old Saxon and alliterative verse (6000 lines), written
As the only complete germanization of Christian poetry and doctrine, the H. is the most vast and illustrious monument in that language, and provides an image of the popular German epic poetry of the time, which is almost entirely lost. Hence its great philological value. The central and dominant part of the poem is occupied by the Sermon on the Mount, namely the gospel of love and peace, justice and humility, which, by its contrast with the traditional pagan, earthly, and ferocious ethics of that people—recently converted to Christianity by Charlemagne—was most suited to achieve the poet's intended goal of taming and christianizing them. To facilitate the understanding of such a different world, the author partly made use of the affinity that the cult of loyalty and the blind acceptance of fate, proper to the Germanic people, had with it, and partly germanized the events, even assigning feudal hierarchies to Christ and the Apostles or inserting names and concepts of Germanic mythology. Artistically, despite its exuberance and high-sounding tone, the poem retains a spontaneous genuineness of diction, at times becomes dramatic, and outlines a clear narrative line.