"Uuarth thuo the hêlago gêst that barn an ira bôsma": towards a scholarly electronic edition of the 'Hêliand'

This contribution focuses on how the electronic medium can adequately convey the often disregarded differences amongst the witnesses of a ninth-century Old Saxon poem known as 'Heliand'. After dealing with the most relevant peculiarities of the manuscript tradition both from the linguistic and the cultural point of view, it will be shown that the inner 'mouvance' which characterizes this work can be better captured through a 'fluid edition'. In fact, such an edition will permit users to choose between visualizing only one text scenario or several. Technically, what is being built up is a hyper-textual environment and a hyper-textual way of using the electronic edition, based not on a static but on an interactive model.