Wolfdietrich is the eponymous protagonist of the Middle High German heroic epic Wolfdietrich. First written down in strophic form in around 1230 by an anonymous author, it survives in four main versions, widely differing in scope and content, and largely independent of each other.
Wolfdietrich is closely associated with another heroic epic poem of the same period, Ortnit. The two stories have distinct (if disputed) origins but they were combined at an early stage, possibly by a single author, and appear together in most sources. In the earliest surviving version of the first story, Ortnit is killed by two dragons sent by his father-in-law after he abducts and marries his daughter; in the second, Wolfdietrich, deprived of his inheritance by two brothers and an evil counsellor, sets out to seek Ortnit's help but, finding he has been killed, avenges him by killing the dragons, he then defeats his brothers and the counsellor, and marries Ortnit's widow.
While the earliest version is similar to other heroic epics such as the Nibelungenlied, the tale gradually accretes more episodes, becoming a popular adventure story.
With their motifs of the bride-quest, inheritance regained, faithful and faithless vassals, dragon-killing, magic suits of armour, and encounters with dwarves, witches and giants, this pair of stories remained continuously popular, repeatedly re-cast, copied and, later, printed until the early 17th century. This makes it one of the most long-lived and popular German narratives of the medieval and early modern period.
Though Wolfdietrich and Ortnit do not seem originally to have been among the legends surrounding Theodoric the Great, the Dietrich von Bern cycle, Wolfdietrich became identified as the grandfather of Dietrich, and material from the two stories found its way into a number of Dietrich tales, including the Old Norse Thidreksaga.