The Ludwigslied is an Old High German (OHG) poem of 59 rhyming couplets, celebrating the victory of the Frankish army, led by Louis III of France, over Danish (Viking) raiders at the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu on 3 August 881.
The first two pages of the Ludwigslied
The Ludwigslied In Braune's Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, 8th edition, 1921
Fol. 141v, bottom (ll. 1–7).
Fol. 142r (ll. 8–31).
Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous West Germanic dialects that had undergone the set of consonantal changes called the Second Sound Shift.
First page of the St. Gall Codex Abrogans (Stiftsbibliothek, cod. 911), the earliest text in Old High German