Anon   The Nibelungenlied (Penguin). Germany's greatest epic was written around 1200 by an unknown Danubian poet; the story varies greatly from Wagner's Ring , which draws equally heavily on Nordic sources of the legend. It's here given a highly entertaining prose translation.

 

Anon   Till Eulenspiegel (OUP). The first complete and uncensored English translation of the adventures of Germany's most famous folk hero, the roguish jester who fought pomposity in all its many manifestations.

Francis G. Gentry (ed.)   German Medieval Tales (Continuum). Includes most of the best-known German legends with a medieval origin, notably the Historia and Tale of Doctor Johannes Faustus , which became one of European literature's most fertile sources.

Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm   Complete Grimms' Tales (Gollancz/Doubleday). The world's most famous collection of folk-tales, meticulously researched by the Brothers Grimm, has stories to appeal to all age ranges. A selection of the tales (Penguin) has the ingenious idea of rendering some of them in Scots and Irish, thus capturing something of the dialect flavour of the originals, which is otherwise lost in translation.

Jennifer Russ   German Festivals (Oswald Wolff/Ungar). Rather a pity it's not a bit longer, but this book provides useful background information on all the main annual folklore celebrations.

Frank G. Ryder (ed.)   German Literary Fairy Tales (Continuum). An anthology of elaborate reworkings of folk-tales made by Goethe, Novalis, Eichendorff, Mörike, Storm and others.

Lewis Spence   Germany: Myths and Legends (Bracken). Narrates the rich store of legends associated with the Rhine, arranged in the form of a journey down the great river.

Gottfried von Strassburg   Tristan (Penguin), Wolfram von Eschenbach   Parzifal (Penguin). Two more epic masterpieces from early thirteenth-century Germany, both based on the Grail legends.