Jetzt now and bald soon are frequently used in German to express temporal references with present and future readings, respectively. However, it is not unusual to find them combined with the Perfekt and Präteritum, which are commonly described in the literature as past tenses. Although such use of temporal deixis in Modern German is well studied, there is still little research on this topic from a historical perspective. In this paper, I attempt to fill this gap in the literature by exploring the use of the adverb nu 'now', 'then' in Old Saxon and Old High German. Textual analyses of these works reveal that the 'Hêliand' and the 'Evangelienbuch' exhibit a use of the adverb nu similar to the use of jetzt and bald in Modern German, since it was found in combination not only with the Präsens, but also with the Präteritum, and with what can be recognized as the prototype of the modern Perfekt. The analyses also show that, although nu was often used as a pragmatic marker to highlight particular passages or convey the author's attitude in relation to a specific event, it also retained its temporal meaning, especially when combined with the past tenses, establishing the chronological sequence of the narration.