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The exploits of mighty-thewed, sword-wielding heroes and their thiefly, wizardly and/or priestly companions, as they spend their days smiting evil, fighting monsters, recovering treasures and quaffing ale.

Tends to be distinguishable from High Fantasy by its scale — the problems are generally those of the hero, not the world — and moral standards — absolute evil and absolute good make fewer appearances. Also by its tendency to be an endless series of adventure, partly because the smaller scale makes it more plausible, and partly because the heroes are very prone to love being In Harm's Way.

The first story of this type is often considered to by Lord Dunsany's The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth from 1908, but it is 1929's The Shadow Kingdom by Robert E. Howard that is responsible for kick-starting the genre proper. And Howard himself would later go on to codify the genre with his Conan the Barbarian tales.

Heavily influenced by The Hero's Journey, the Arthurian cycle, the Conan the Barbarian stories and movies, the game Dungeons & Dragons, and classical myth.

Sometimes set in a world that looks an awful lot like medieval Europe, although it can range all the way back to a "forgotten prehistory" such as in Conan the Barbarian, or even the "classical" period (ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, etc.), as found in Xena: Warrior Princess (this variant is sometimes called "Sword And Sandal" and more burly versions are called "Thud and Blunder"). May involve Mythopoeia.

Sometimes it can be found in the future, often in After the End setting; sometimes it comes close to Planetary Romance. Also often features Medieval Stasis.

Also known as "Sword and sorcery", a term coined by Fritz Leiber, one of the genre�s Trope Codifiers, in reply to a letter by Michael Moorcock. There is much debate of the definition of these genres; unkind souls have even described Heroic Fantasy as nothing but an upmarket term for Sword and Sorcery.

Good live-action film and television heroic fantasies can be counted on the fingers of one hand (generally starting with the Conan the Barbarian movie). Dying is easy. Fantasy is hard! On the other hand, roughly half of all RPGs ever written fall under this genre, if not more.

See also Two Fisted Tales, Pulp Magazine.

Heroic and epic Fantasy of Chinese cultural origin is known as Wuxia.

Contrast Sword And Sandals. See also Medieval European Fantasy.

Not to be confused with Low Fantasy, which is simply Fantasy in a down-to-earth setting.

Nor to be confused with Demythtification, which is Mythology reimagined as Historical Fiction.

Perhaps you would be interested in writing one yourself?

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Crimson Spell combines Heroic Fantasy with the Yaoi genre.
Arguably Berserk goes from Low Fantasy to a heroic but dark fantasy at the end of the Golden Age arc where all the demons start coming out and become the main source of conflict.
- Or it was Heroic Fantasy all along without the characters noticing. After all Zodd the Immortal didn't exactly keep his existence a secret.
Rune Soldier is a comedic Heroic Fantasy spin-off of the high fantasy Record of Lodoss War.
Fullmetal Alchemist started as this, though it quickly veered into High Fantasy territory. The 2003 anime version, on the other hand, stuck with Heroic Fantasy,
The Tower of Druaga
Queen's Blade. The heroines rarely have magic on their side while the villains do and often the only way to win a fight is through sword battles. While there is a grand plot involving the fate of the land, the heroines are largely unaware of it and just want to fulfill their personal desires.

Comic Books

Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis was an attempt to make the titular character's comic this genre.
Mouse Guard: Heroic fantasy with mice soldiers.
Red Sonja.

Film

The Adventures Of Sinbad
The Beastmaster (only the movie, not the science fiction books it was based on.)
Conan The Barbarian 1982 and Conan The Destroyer
Clash of the Titans
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Highlander
Kull The Conqueror
Red Sonja
Army of Darkness, an Affectionate Parody of the genre.

Literature

Alison Croggon's Books Of Pellinor
Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner
David Gemmell's books are a prime example.
Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian—although it bounces between "not very realistic" and "really really unrealistic" depending on the iteration. Also Kull and Bran Mak Morn. To a large extent Howard invented the modern incarnation of this trope.
Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle (although the protagonist is leaning toward Anti-Hero territory and may get worse in the upcoming book 3).
Norman Spinrad's The Iron Dream (a Deconstruction geared towards showing just how screwy the genre's politics can get)
The Bahzell series by David Weber.
Michael Moorcock's The Elric Saga (another Deconstruction).
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Karl Edward Wanger's Kane.
C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, the first major female character in Heroic Fantasy.
Charles R. Saunders's Imaro.
The Black Company
The Malazan Book of the Fallen, especially during Karsa Orlong's storylines.
Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists Of Avalon is either a Darker and Edgier or Deconstructed Trope version (or possibly Distaff Counterpart) of the King Arthur story.
The Shadowleague trilogy
The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.
Codex Alera (quasi-Ancient Rome + Elemental Powers).
Lord Dunsany's "The Sword of Welleran" and "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save For Sacnoth", as well as a few other short stories here and there.
Everything by David Eddings.
Everything by R. A. Salvatore.
Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe.

Live Action TV

Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Roar (pre-Arthurian British Isles)
Xena: Warrior Princess
Legend of the Seeker
Merlin
Arguably Robin of Sherwood what with its use of archetypes and mysticism.

Tabletop Games

Dungeons & Dragons. Though the game system is flexible enough that the enterprising DM can apply it to almost any fantasy subgenre, as printed it tends toward Heroic Fantasy.
Barbarians of Lemuria emulates the whole Sword & Sorcery genre.
As does On Mighty Thews, which even comes with a list of substitutions to make things more pulpy.

Video Games

Dragon Age. While the first game has a "unite the people to fight an army of evil" main plot, the side plots that make up the biggest chunk of the game follow the genre pretty straight. The second game focuses completely on a single protagonist rising in power within the hierarchy of one city, with the main factions being Templar (sword) and Mage (spell).
Demon's Souls
Sword And Sworcery EP
God Of War plays it pretty straight, though starting with the second game the scope of the events becomes considerably bigger, as it grows into a full blown war among the gods.
Prince of Persia
The Reconstruction (Deconstruction, ironically)
Fantasy Quest
The Witcher: A lone monster hunter hunting a sorcerer who stole the alchemical secrets from the witchers.
Barbarian The Ultimate Warrior
Monster Hunter is mostly this as well. The levels of mysticism are very slight (down to the special mode of the Longsword in Tri and its derivatives), but everything else is totally straight: minimal overarching plot, for the most part its just a world where people make a living slaying or capturing giant monsters for the chance at building more weaponry with which to slay or capture tougher giant monsters.