The literary records of the Heroic Age of Greece resemble those of the northern Heroic Age in several respects. Both literatures alike begin with heroic poems which, as we shall see later, possess many common characteristics. Then, at a much later date, we find in both literatures a new series of narrative works dealing again with the old stories. Lastly, in both cases works of all periods, both poetic and prose, contain frequent incidental references to the same stories, testifying thereby to their popularity. In Greek literature indeed such references occur more frequently than in that of the Teutonic peoples–a fact doubtless due to the preservation of great poems of the former period, which at an early date came to be regarded as classics or something more. Among the northern peoples, as we have seen, it was only in England that any considerable amount of the early heroic poetry was preserved; but here the continuity of literary development was broken through political causes, and consequently all memory of the Heroic Age was practically lost.

On the other hand we have no evidence for the Heroic Age of Greece in any way comparable with those more or less contemporary Roman works which enable us to identify many of the characters and incidents of the northern Heroic Age.