Narrative theory developed in relation to the modern Western novel, although its insights have been productively applied to all sorts of objects. This insight proposes a narratological account of Western epic on two levels: it seeks to understand this pre-modern genre from a narratological perspective, and it also reads epic as articulating its own discursive function in narrative terms. The insight focusses on the night-raid trope as a mise en abyme, examining how this miniaturised narrative episode reflects and interrogates the larger poem's capacity for narrative, political, and ideological closure. In conclusion, I suggest that epic is, itself, a kind of narrative theory.