The Old English epic poem Beowulf is written in alliterative verse.

In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal stylistic device to unify lines of poetry, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. Image File history File links Beowulf. ... Image File history File links Beowulf. ... The first page of Beowulf This article describes Beowulf, the epic poem. ... Prosody may mean several things: Prosody consists of distinctive variations of stress, tone, and timing in spoken language. ... Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ... Alliteration is a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ...

The most intensively studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of many Germanic languages. Alliterative verse, in various forms, is found widely in the literary traditions of the early Germanic languages. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Bavarian Muspillo, the Old Saxon Heliand, and the Old Norse Poetic Edda all use alliterative verse. Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of poetry, and one of the major forms of narrative literature. ... The first page of Beowulf This article describes Beowulf, the epic poem. ... Old English poetry is based upon one system of verse construction which was used for all poems. ... The Free State of Bavaria  (German: Freistaat Bayern), with an area of 70,553 km² (27,241 square miles) and 12. ... Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language. ... The Heliand (IPA /ˈhɛl iənd/, /ˈhe liand/) is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written about 825. ... This is the approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century. ... The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems from the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. ...

Alliterative verse can be found in many other languages as well, although rarely with the systematic rigor of Germanic forms. The Finnish Kalevala and the Estonian Kalevipoeg both use alliterative forms derived from folk tradition. Traditional Turkic verse, for example that of the Uyghur, is also alliterative. The Kalevala is an epic poem which Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century said that he had compiled from Finnish folk sources. ... Kalevipoeg is an epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald held to be the Estonian national epic. ... The Turkic languages are a group of related languages that are spoken by a variety of peoples distributed across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with estimated 100-130 million native speakers. ... The Uyghur (Chinese: [historical]: 回紇; [modern]: 維吾爾) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in northwestern China mainly in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they are the largest ethnic group together with Han Chinese, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Russia. ...

Common Germanic origins and features

The poetic forms found in the various Germanic languages are not identical, but there is sufficient similarity to make it clear that they are closely related traditions, stemming from a common Germanic source. Our knowledge about that common tradition, however, is based almost entirely on inference from surviving poetry.

One statement we have about the nature of alliterative verse from a practicing alliterative poet is that of Snorri Sturluson in the Prose Edda. He describes metrical patterns and poetic devices used by skaldic poets around the year 1200. Snorri's description has served as the starting point for scholars to reconstruct alliterative meters beyond those of Old Norse. There have been many different metrical theories proposed, all of them attended with controversy. Looked at broadly, however, certain basic features are common from the earliest to the latest poetry. Snorri Sturluson (1178 â€“ September 23, 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. ... The Younger Edda, known also as the Prose Edda or Snorris Edda is an Icelandic manual of poetics which also contains many mythological stories. ... The skald was a member of a group of courtly poets, whose poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry. ...

Alliterative verse has been found in some of the earliest monuments of Germanic literature. The Golden horns of Gallehus, discovered in Denmark and likely dating to the fourth century, bears this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse: Image depicting the copies of the Golden horns found at the National Museum of Denmark. ... As a means of recording the passage of time, the 4th century was that century which lasted from 301 to 400. ... A rune can mean a single character in the Runic alphabet as well as an inscription of several runic charcters or symbols. ... Proto-Norse, Proto-Nordic, Ancient Nordic or Proto-North Germanic was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved from Proto-Germanic between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century, and was spoken until ca 800, when it evolved into the Old Norse language. ...

 x / x x x / x x / x / x x ek hlewagastiʀ holtijaʀ || horna tawidô 

 (I, Hlewagastir son of Holti, made the horn.) 

This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on /h/, essentially the same pattern found in much latter verse.

Most alliterative poetry was composed and transmitted orally, and much has been lost through time since it went unrecorded. The degree to which writing may have altered this oral artform remains much in dispute. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus among scholars that the written verse retains many (and some would argue almost all) of the features of the spoken language.

Alliteration fits naturally with the prosodic patterns of Germanic languages. Alliteration essentially involves matching the left edges of stressed syllables. Early Germanic languages share a left-prominent prosodic patterns. In other words, stress generally falls on the initial syllables of words, apart from some prefixes. In linguistics, prosody refers to intonation, rhythm, and vocal stress in speech. ...

The core metrical features of traditional Germanic alliterative verse are as follows:

• A long-line is divided into two half-lines. Half-lines are also known as verses; the first is called the a-verse (or on-verse), the second the b-verse (or off-verse).
• A heavy pause, or cæsura, separates the verses.
• Each verse usually has two strongly stressed syllables, or "lifts".
• The first lift in the a- and b-verse must alliterate with each other.
• The second lift in the a-verse often alliterates, but is not required to do so.
• The second lift in the b-verse does not alliterate with the first lifts.

The patterns of unstressed syllables vary significantly in the alliterative traditions of different Germanic languages. The rules for these patterns remain controversial and imperfectly understood. This article may be confusing for some readers, and should be edited to enhance clarity. ... Alliteration is a stylistic device, or literary technique, in which successive words (more strictly, stressed syllables) begin with the same consonant sound or letter. ...

The need to find an appropriate alliterating word gave certain other distinctive features to alliterative verse as well. Alliterative poets drew on a specialized vocabulary of poetic synonyms rarely used in prose texts and used standard images and metaphors called kennings. In language, a metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is a rhetorical trope defined as a direct comparison between two seemingly unrelated subjects. ... This article is about kenning as a poetic notion. ...

Old English poetic forms

Old English poetry appears to be based upon one system of verse construction, a system which remained remarkably consistent for centuries, although some patterns of classical Old English verse begin to break down at the end of the Old English period.

The most widely used system of classification is based on that developed by Eduard Sievers. It should be emphasized that Sievers' system is fundamentally a method of categorization rather than an full theory of meter. It does not, in other words, purport to describe the system the scops actually used to compose their verse, nor does it explain why certain patterns are favored or avoided. Sievers divided verses into five basic types, labeled A-E. The system is founded upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. Eduard Sievers (25 November 1850, Lippoldsberg - 30 March 1932, Leipzig) was a German philologist, of the classical and Germanic languages. ... Eduard Sievers developed a theory of the meter of Anglo-Saxon Alliterative verse. ...

Accent

A line of poetry in Old English consists of two half-lines or verses, distichs, with a pause or caesura in the middle of the line. Each half-line has two accented syllables. The following example from The Battle of Maldon, spoken by the warrior Byrthnoth, shows this: The Battle of Maldon took place in 991 near Maldon beside the River Blackwater in Essex, England, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready. ...

Hige sceal þe heardra, || heorte þe cenre,

mod sceal þe mare, || þe ure mægen lytlað

("Courage must be the greater, heart the bolder, spirit the greater, the more our strength is diminished.")

Alliteration

Alliteration is the principal binding agent of Old English poetry. Two syllables alliterate when they begin with the same sound; all vowels alliterate together, but the consonant clusters st-, sp- and sc- are treated as separate sounds (so st- does not alliterate with s- or sp-). On the other hand, in Old English unpalatized c (pronounced /k/) alliterated with palatized c (pronounced /ch/), and unpalatized g (pronounced /g/) likewise alliterated with palatized g (pronounced /y/). (This is because the poetic form was inherited from a time when these letters always sounded the same.)

The first stressed syllable of the off-verse, or second half-line, usually alliterates with one or both of the stressed syllables of the on-verse, or first half-line. The second stressed syllable of the off-verse does not usually alliterate with the others.

Survivals

Just as rhyme was seen in some Anglo-Saxon poems (e.g. The Rhyming Poem, and, to some degree, The Proverbs of Alfred), the use of alliterative verse continued into Middle English. Layamon's Brut, written in about 1215, uses a loose alliterative scheme. The Pearl Poet uses one of the most sophisticated alliterative schemes extant in Pearl, Cleanness, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Even later, William Langland's Piers Plowman is a major work in English that is written in alliterative verse; it was written between 1360 and 1399. Though a thousand years have passed between this work and the Golden Horn of Gallehus, the poetic form remains much the same: The Rhyming Poem is one of the poems found in the Exeter Book. ... The Proverbs of Alfred is a collection of the putative sayings of Alfred the Great of England in late Anglo-Saxon or early Middle English. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion in 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the... Layamon, or Laȝamon (using the archaic letter yogh), was a poet of the early 13th century, whose Brut (c. ... The Pearl Poet is the name given to the author of Pearl, an alliterative poem written in Middle English. ... Nuclei from Toba Pearl Island, Japan A pearl is a hard, rounded object produced by certain mollusks, primarily oysters. ... Cleanness is a poem in alliterative verse in Middle English dating from the first half of the 14th century. ... Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th century metrical romance recorded in a single manuscript, which also contains three other pieces of an altogether more Christian orientation. ... William Langland is the reputed author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ... Page from a 14th century Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

A feir feld full of folk || fond I þer bitwene,

Of alle maner of men, || þe mene and þe riche,

Worchinge and wandringe || as þe world askeþ.

(Among them I found a fair field full of people, all manner of men, the poor and the rich, working and wandering as the world requires.)

Alliteration was often used together with rhyme in Middle English work, as in Pearl. In general, Middle English poets were somewhat loose about the number of stresses; in Sir Gawain, for instance, there are many lines with additional alliterating stresses (e.g. l.2, "the borgh brittened and brent to brondez and askez"), and the medial pause is not always strictly maintained.

After Chaucer, alliterative verse became fairly uncommon, although some alliterative poems, such as Pierce the Ploughman's Crede (ca. 1400) and William Dunbar's superb Tretis of the Tua Marriit Women and the Wedo (ca. 1500) were written in the form in the 15th century. However, by 1600, the four-beat alliterative line had completely vanished, at least from the written tradition. Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... The frontispiece of Reyner Wolfes edition of Pierce the Ploughmans Crede, printed in 1553 Pierce the Ploughmans Crede is an alliterative poem of 855 lines, savagely lampooning the four orders of friars. ... William Dunbar (c. ...

Alliterative verse is occasionally written by modern authors. J. R. R. Tolkien composed several poems about Middle-earth in Old English alliterative verse; these poems were found among his papers and published posthumously. W. H. Auden also wrote a number of his poems, including The Age of Anxiety , in alliterative verse, modified only slightly to fit the phonetic patterns of modern English. The noun-laden style of the headlines makes the style of alliterative verse particularly apt for Auden's poem: Tolkien redirects here. ... A map of the Northwestern part of Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Arda. ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907 – September 29, 1973) was an English poet and critic, widely regarded as among the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. ... The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue is an eighty page poem in six parts by the British writer W.H. Auden. ...

Now the news. Night raids on

Five cities. Fires started.

Pressure applied by pincer movement

In threatening thrust. Third Division

Enlarges beachhead. Lucky charm

Saves sniper. Sabotage hinted

In steel-mill stoppage. . . .

Other poets who have experimented with modern alliterative English verse include Ezra Pound, and Richard Wilbur, whose Junk opens with the lines: Ezra Pound in 1913. ... Richard Purdy Wilbur (born March 1, 1921, in New York City) is a United States poet. ...

An axe angles

from my neighbor's ashcan;

It is hell's handiwork,

the wood not hickory.

The flow of the grain

not faithfully followed.

The shivered shaft

rises from a shellheap

Of plastic playthings,

paper plates.

Old Norse poetic forms

The inherited form of alliterative verse was modified somewhat in Old Norse poetry. In Old Norse, as a result of phonetic changes from the original common Germanic language, many unstressed syllables were lost. This lent Old Norse verse a characteristic terseness; the lifts tended to be crowded together at the expense of the weak syllables. In some lines, the weak syllables have been entirely suppressed. From the Hávamál: Old Norse poetry encompasses a range of verse forms written in a number of Nordic languages, embraced by the term Old Norse, during the period from the 8th century to as late as the far end of the 13th century. ... This article discusses the unit of speech. ... Hávamál (The Words of the High One), (known also as The Sayings of Har, or the High Song of Odin), a work of Old Norse poetry, is a source document for the study of Norse mythology, being a set of rules for wise living (and survival) purportedly written...

Deyr fé || deyja frændr

("Cattle die; friends die. . .")

The various names of the Old Norse verse forms are given in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson. The Háttatal, or "list of verse forms", contains the names and characteristics of each of the fixed forms of Norse poetry. The Younger Edda, known also as the Prose Edda or Snorris Edda is an Icelandic manual of poetics which also contains many mythological stories. ... Snorri Sturluson (1178 â€“ September 23, 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. ... The Háttatal is the third section of the Younger Edda set down by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson. ...

Fornyrðislag

A verse form close to that of Beowulf existed in runestones and in the Old Norse Eddas; in Norse, it was called fornyrðislag, which means "past-words-made" or "way of ancient words". The Norse poets tended to break up their verses into stanzas of from two to eight lines (or more), rather than writing continuous verse after the Old English model. The loss of unstressed syllables made these verses seem denser and more emphatic. The Norse poets, unlike the Old English poets, tended to make each line a complete syntactic unit, avoiding enjambement where a thought begun on one line continues through the following lines; only seldom do they begin a new sentence in the second half-line. This example is from the Waking of Angantyr: A rune stone Rune stones are somewhat flat standing stones with runic stone carvings from the Iron Age (Viking Age) and early middle ages found in most parts of Scandinavia. ... For Edda great-grandmother as the ancestress of serfs see Ríg. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ... Enjambement is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause or sentence) by the end of a line or between two verses. ... The Waking of Angantyr or the Incantation of Hervor is a poem in the Poetic Edda, which is also found in the Hervarar saga. ...

Vaki, Angantýr! || vekr þik Hervǫr,

eingadóttir || ykkr Tófu!

Selðu ór haugi || hvassan mæki

þann's Svafrlama || slógu dvergar.

(Awaken, Angantyr! It is Hervor who awakens you, your only daughter by Tófa! Yield up from your grave the mighty sword that the dwarves forged for Svafrlami.")

Fornyrðislag has two lifts per half line, with two or three (sometimes one) unstressed syllables. At least two lifts, usually three, alliterate, always including the main stave (the first lift of the second half-line). Hjorvard and Hjalmar propose to Ingeborg Angantyr was the name of three characters from the same line in Norse mythology, and who appear in Hervarar saga, the Poetic Edda (the Waking of Angantyr and the Battle of the Goths and Huns) and in Gesta Danorum. ... Hervor dying, a painting by Peter Nicolai Arbo Hervor was a shieldmaiden in the cycle of the magic sword Tyrfing, presented in Hervarar saga and of which parts are found in the Poetic Edda. ... Svafrlami (in the H and U version of the Hervarar saga. ...

Fornyrðislag had a variant form called málaháttr ("speech meter"), which adds an unstressed syllable to each half-line, making sixto eight unstressed syllables per line.

Ljóðaháttr

Change in form came with the development of ljóðaháttr, which means "song" or "ballad metre", a stanzaic verse form that created four line stanzas. The odd numbered lines were almost standard lines of alliterative verse with four lifts and two or three alliterations, with cæsura; the even numbered lines had three lifts and two alliterations, and no cæsura. This example is from Freyr's lament in Skírnismál: A ballad is a story in a song, usually a narrative song or poem. ... In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. ... This 19th century representation of Freyr shows him with his boar Gullinbursti and his sword. ... Skirnismal (The Lay of Skírnir), also known as Skírnirs Ride is a poem in the Elder Edda. ...

Lǫng es nótt, || lǫng es ǫnnur,

hvé mega ek þreyja þrjár?

Opt mér mánaðr || minni þótti

en sjá halfa hýnótt.

(Long is one night, long is the next; how can I bear three? A month has often seemed less to me than this half "hynott" (word of unclear meaning)).

A number of variants occurred in ljóðaháttr, including galdraháttr or kviðuháttr ("incantation meter"), which adds a fifth short (three-lift) line to the end of the stanza; in this form, usually the fifth line echoes the fourth one.

Dróttkvætt

Box of copper from Sigtuna with a Dróttkvætt verse written with the Runic alphabet

These verse forms were elaborated even more into the skaldic poetic form called the dróttkvætt, meaning "lordly verse", which added internal rhymes and other forms of assonance that go well beyond the requirements of Germanic alliterative verse. The dróttkvætt stanza had eight lines, each having three lifts. In addition to two or three alliterations, the odd numbered lines had partial rhyme of consonants (which was called skothending) with dissimilar vowels, not necessarily at the beginning of the word; the even lines contained internal rhyme (aðalhending) in the syllables, not necessarily at the end of the word. The form was subject to further restrictions: each half-line must have exactly six syllables, and each line must always end in a trochee. Image File history File links Koppardosa_frÃ¥n_Sigtuna_med_runinskrift_i_drottkväde_(ur_Sveriges_Runinskrifter). ... Image File history File links Koppardosa_frÃ¥n_Sigtuna_med_runinskrift_i_drottkväde_(ur_Sveriges_Runinskrifter). ... Sigtuna is a city in central Sweden in the metropolitan area of Stockholm. ... The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia and the British Isles. ... The skald was a member of a group of courtly poets, whose poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry. ... A lord is a male who has power and authority. ... Blend Again, said the Red Chefs dead men. ... A rhyme is a repetition of identical or similar sounds in two or more different words and is most often used in poetry. ... A trochee is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. ...

The requirements of this verse form were so demanding that occasionally the text of the poems had to run parallel, with one thread of syntax running through the on-side of the half-lines, and another running through the off-side. According to the Fagrskinna collection of sagas, King Harald III of Norway uttered these lines of dróttkvætt at the Battle of Stamford Bridge; the internal assonances and the alliteration are bolded: Syntax, originating from the Greek words συν (syn, meaning co- or together) and τάξις (táxis, meaning sequence, order, arrangement), can be described as the study of the rules, or patterned relations that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. ... The Fagrskinna is a Norse saga from the Fornmanna Sogur. ... The Norse sagas or Viking sagas (Icelandic: Íslendingasögur), are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. ... Harald III Sigurdsson (1015 – September 25, 1066), later surnamed Harald HardrÃ¥da (Norse: Harald Harðráði, roughly translated as Harald stern council or hard ruler) was the king of Norway from 1046 until 1066. ... The Battle of Stamford Bridge in England is generally considered to mark the end of the Viking era. ...

Krjúpum vér fyr vápna,

(valteigs), brǫkun eigi,

(svá bauð Hildr), at hjaldri,

(haldorð), í bug skjaldar.

(Hátt bað mik), þar's mœttusk,

(menskorð bera forðum),

hlakkar íss ok hausar,

(hjalmstall í gný malma).

(In battle, we do not creep behind a shield before the din of weapons [so said the goddess of hawk-land {a valkyrja} true of words.] She who wore the necklace bade me to bear my head high in battle, when the battle-ice [a gleaming sword] seeks to shatter skulls.)

The bracketed words in the poem ("so said the goddess of hawk-land, true of words") are syntactically separate, but interspersed within the text of the rest of the verse. The elaborate kennings manifested here are also practically necessary in this complex and demanding form, as much to solve metrical difficulties as for the sake of vivid imagery. Intriguingly, the saga claims that Harald improvised these lines after he gave a lesser performance (in ljóðaháttr); Harald judged that verse bad, and then offered this one in the more demanding form. While the exchange may be fictionalized, the scene illustrates the regard in which the form was held. A statue from 1908 by Stephan Sinding located in Copenhagen, presents an active image of a valkyrie. ...

Most dróttkvætt poems that survive appear in one or another of the Norse Sagas; several of the sagas are biographies of skaldic poets. The Norse sagas or Viking sagas (Icelandic: sögur), are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, about migration to Iceland, and of feuds between Icelandic families. ... This is an article on biographies. ...

Hrynhenda

Hrynhenda is a later development of dróttkvætt with eight syllables per line instead of six, but with the same rules for rhyme and alliteration. It is first attested around 985 in the so-called Hafgerðingadrápa of which four lines survive (alliterants and rhymes bolded):

Mínar biðk at munka reyni

meinalausan farar beina;

heiðis haldi hárar foldar

hallar dróttinn of mér stalli.

I ask the tester of monks (God) for a safe journey; the lord of the palace of the high ground (God — here we have a kenning in four parts) keep the seat of the falcon (hand) over me.

The author was said to be a Christian from the Hebrides, who composed the poem asking God to keep him safe at sea. (Note: The third line is, in fact, over-alliterated. There should be exactly two alliterants in the odd-numbered lines.) The metre gained some popularity in courtly poetry, as the rhythm may sound more majestic than dróttkvætt. As a noun, Christian is an appellation and moniker deriving from the appellation Christ, which many people associate exclusively with Jesus of Nazareth. ... The Hebrides comprise a wide-spread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland, and in geological terms are composed of the oldest rocks in the British Isles and Ireland. ...

Alliterative poetry is still practiced in Iceland in an unbroken tradition since the settlement.

German forms

In Old High German and Old Saxon

In Old High German and Old Saxon alliterative verse (e. g. Hildebrandslied and Heliand), phonetic and grammatical changes caused the inherited form of the line to be altered in a direction opposite to the Old Norse development. In verse in these languages, weak syllables tend to proliferate, to accommodate the mandatory articles and particles these languages used. The famous lines 4 and 5 of the Hildebrandslied, where four or five weak syllables seem to be used as a poetic device (mind especially the last half-line!) show that: Old High German is the earliest recorded form of the modern German language, and was spoken from the middle of the 9th to the end of the 11th century. ... Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language. ... The Lay of Hildebrand (Das Hildebrandslied), is a unique example of Old German alliterative poetry, written about the year 800 on the first and last pages of a theological manuscript by two monks of the monastery of Fulda. ... The Heliand (IPA /ˈhɛl iənd/, /ˈhe liand/) is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written about 825. ... Grammar is the discovery, enunciation, and study of rules governing the use of language. ... An article is a word that is put next to a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ... In linguistics, the term particle is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. ...

Garutun se iro gûdhamun, gurtun sih iro suert ana,
helidos, ubar hringâ, dô sie tô dero hiltiu ritun.

(They) prepared / made ready (for them) their fighting outfits / garments / equipments, girded their swords on,
the heroes, over rings (of armour), as / when / before they to that fight rode.

Modern use

In modern times, alliterative verse has been used by Richard Wagner, for instance in his libretto for the opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 in Leipzig – February 13, 1883 in Venice) was an influential German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his groundbreaking symphonic-operas (or music dramas). His compositions are notable for their continuous contrapuntal texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and elaborate... Valkyrie Warrior Maiden by artist Arthur Rackham (1912) Der Ring des Nibelungen translated commonly into English as The Ring of the Nibelung or The Nibelungs Ring, is a series of four epic operas. ...

See also

A common problem when researching things Norse is that the spelling of names varies much depending on one's country of origin. In the articles presented here, several common forms of the names will be presented. For more information see:

• Old Norse orthography
  
  

• Norse mythology
• The Nine Worlds of Norse Mythology
• List of Norse gods
• List of Norse mythological people, items and places
  
  

• Rune stones
• Rök Stone
• Temple at Uppsala
• Tollund Man
  
  

• Numbers in Norse mythology
• Norse mythological influences on later literature
• skald

The orthography of the Old Norse language since the introduction of the Latin alphabet in Iceland is a thorny subject. ... Norse or Scandinavian mythology refers to the pre-Christian religion, beliefs and legends of the Scandinavian people, including those who settled on Iceland, where the written sources for Norse mythology were assembled. ... Norse cosmology, as it is given us in the source material for Norse mythology recognizes the existence of nine worlds, assigned the ending -heimr (home, realm, or world) or in some cases -garðr (homestead, yard or earth). ... Divided between the Æsir and the Vanir, and sometimes including the jötnar (giants), the dividing line between these groups is less than clear. ... Places Asgard Bifrost Bridge Bilskirnir Breidablik Elivagar Fyris Wolds Gandvik Ginnungagap Helgardh Hlidskjalf Hvergelmir Jotunheim Leipter River Kormet Midgard Muspelheim Nastrond Nidavellir Niflheim Ormet Reidgotaland Slidr River Svartalfheim Utgard Valhalla Vanaheim Vimur Yggdrasil Events Fimbulwinter Ragnarok Artifacts Balmung Brisingamen Draupnir Dromi Skithblathnir Gram Gungnir Tyrfing Well of Urd Humans Adils... A rune stone Rune stones are standing stones with runic inscriptions dating from the Iron Age (Viking Age) and early Middle Ages. ... A black-and-white rendition of the text on one side of the Rök Stone. ... The Temple at Uppsala was a Temple in Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), near modern Uppsala, Sweden, created to worship the Norse gods of ancient times. ... Tollund Man, showing his remarkable preservation. ... Numbers are significant in Norse mythology although not to the extent which they are in some traditions e. ... Norse mythology provides a rich and diverse source which many later writers have borrowed from or built upon. ... The skald was a member of a group of courtly poets, whose poetry is associated with the courts of Scandinavian and Icelandic leaders during the Viking age, who composed and performed renditions of aspects of what we now characterise as Old Norse poetry. ...

References

• Cable, Thomas (1991). The English Alliterative Tradition, University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Fulk, Robert D. (1992). A History of Old English Meter, University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Godden, Malcolm R. (1992). "Literary Language" Hogg, Richard M. (ed.) The Cambridge History of the English Language, pp. 490-535, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Russom, Geoffrey (1998). Beowulf and Old Germanic Metre, Cambridge University Press.
• Sievers, Eduard (1893). Altgermanische Metrik, Niemeyer.

Eduard Sievers (25 November 1850, Lippoldsberg - 30 March 1932, Leipzig) was a German philologist, of the classical and Germanic languages. ...

External links

• Jörmungrund A truly great resource for Old Norse poetry
• Selected Poetry and Prose of Jónas Hallgrímsson A good site altogether, but see in particular Appendix B for probably the most accessible discussion in English of alliterant placement in modern Icelandic.
• [1] Forgotten ground regained - dedicated site.