This illustration from the Viennese Illuminated Chronicle depicts "The Legend of the White Stallion" and the Magyar conquest of Hungary in the ninth cnetury.

eroic legends are among the most highly prized intellectual possessions of humankind. They relate to the deeds or alleged deeds of great personalities, and—along with the lives and achievements of these heroes—they also describe the evolution of their people. In this respect heroic legends are similar to the great epics of world history, such as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the German Nibelungenlied, or the Finnish Kalevala. The major differences between legends and epics are their length and their genre. Legends are much shorter and are written in prose.

During the Middle Ages, most legends dealt with the lives of saints. This still holds true in Hungary, where the term legenda refers to the life stories of the canonized saints. A number of medieval Western legends, however, also described the deeds of national heroes, such as King Arthur, Charlemagne, El Cid, or Richard the Lion-Hearted.