Traces of some of the myths lived on in legends and in the Middle High German epics of the Middle Ages.
Echoes of the stories, with the sacred elements largely removed, may appear throughout European folklore and in European fairy tales.
The mythologies of the following tribes are included in this category: Compared to North Germanic and, to a lesser extent, Anglo-Saxon mythology, examples of Continental Germanic paganism are extremely fragmentary.
Besides a handful of brief Elder Futhark inscriptions the lone, genuinely pagan Continental Germanic documents are the short Old High German Merseburg Incantations.
However, pagan mythological elements were preserved in later literature, notably in Middle High German epic poetry, but also in German, Swiss, and Dutch folklore.