Danish literature boasts of some five hundred chivalric ballads (Kjaempeviser), on partly historical and partly mythical themes, which were composed between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

It was the Danish translator of the Bible who introduced his countrymen to Charlemagne and Ogier, whose legends received their finished forms at his hands.
In 1555 Reynard the Fox was translated into Danish from the French, in 1663 the Heimskringla from the Icelandic, but it was in 1641 that Arrebo composed the Hexaemeron or first real Danish epic.

In the nineteenth century Paludan Mueller also wrote epics, which, however, are not very popular outside of his country.

The runes of Sweden bear witness to the existence of sundry ancient sagas or epics which perished when Christianity was introduced into the land.

In the Middle Ages, a gleeman at the court of Queen Euphemia (1303-12) composed the Euphemiaviser, or romances of chivalry done into Swedish verse.