"Waldere" or "Waldhere" is the conventional title given to two Old English fragments, of around 32 and 31 lines, from a lost epic poem, discovered in 1860 by E. C. Werlauff, Librarian, in the Danish Royal Library at Copenhagen, where it is still preserved.
The parchment pages had been reused as stiffening in the binding of an Elizabethan prayer book, which had presumably come to Europe following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England in the 16th century.
The fragments can be situated in the epic of which they formed part because the subject, adventures surrounding the hero Walter of Aquitaine, is known in other texts: a Latin epic poem Waltharius by Ekkehard of the Abbey of St. Gall, dating from the first half of the 10th century; fragments of a Bavarian poem dating from the first half of the 13th century; and two episodes in the Norwegian Þiðreks saga.
Incidental references to Waldere occur in several Middle High German poems, and there is also a Polish version of the story, the earliest form of which is in Chronicon Boguphali Episcopi, dating from the 13th or 14th century.
It is the story of Waldere (Walter) and Hildegyth who fall in love and steal treasure from the court of Attila, where they were held hostage.
A passing reference— "Win fame by valiant deeds, and may God guard thee the while"— shows that, like Beowulf, the poem had been given a Christianized context.