Wigamur is an anonymously-authored, thirteenth-century Middle High German romance about a king's son who is lost to his parents in infancy. The eponymous hero, after being carried off in childhood by a mermaid, rescues an eagle which becomes his constant companion; in subsequent adventures he also rescues a maiden, becomes a Knight of the Round Table, and finally confronts a knight who of course proves to be his father, from whom he inherits a kingdom. The romance is perhaps the most most fully realized example of the Fair Unknown, or Bel Inconnu, motif in both the German and larger European...