Biterolf und Dietleib

Biterolf und Dietleib (Biterolf and Dietlieb) is an anonymous Middle High German heroic poem concerning the heroes Biterolf of Toledo and his son Dietleib of Styria. It tells the tale of Biterolf and Dietleib's service at the court of Etzel, king of the Huns, in the course of which the heroes defeat Etzel's enemies, including an extended war/tournament against the Burgundian heroes of the Nibelungenlied. As a reward for their services, Dietleib and Biterolf receive the March of Styria as a fief. The text is characterized by its comedic parody of the traditions of heroic epic.^[1]

Biterolf und Dietleib is only attested in the Ambraser Heldenbuch (1504-1516), but it may have been composed in the thirteenth century. The poem is sometimes considered part of the cycle of legends about Dietrich von Bern: it is then either considered part of the so-called "historical" Dietrich poems, or else placed together in its own subgroup of Dietrich poems together with the Rosengarten zu Worms. More often, it is considered to be independent from the Dietrich cycle.^[2][3]