Kudrun is an heroic epic written around 1230 second in importance only to the Nibelungenlied; it is characterized by its greater focus on female characters and a tone gentler than that of the brutal Nibelungenlied. For his translation Professor McConnell has gone back to the sole (a later and problematic) existing manuscript, found in the Ambraser Handschrift in the holdings of the Austrian National Library at Vienna.