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modern English literature by the Romance school of the fourteenth
century. Our original English versification, on the other hand, was
neither rimed nor rhythmic. What answered to metre was a certain
irregular swing, produced by a roughly recurrent number of accents in
each couplet, without restriction as to the number of feet or syllables.
What answered to rime was a regular and marked alliteration, each
couplet having a certain key-letter, with which three principal words in
the couplet began. In addition to these two poetical devices,
Anglo-Saxon verse shows traces of parallelism, similar to that which
distinguishes Hebrew poetry. But the alliteration and parallelism do not
run quite side by side, the second half of each alliterative couplet
being parallel with the first half of the next couplet. Accordingly,
each new sentence begins somewhat clumsily in the middle of the couplet.
All these peculiarities are not, however, always to be distinguished in
every separate poem.

The following rough translation of a very early Teutonic spell for the
cure of a sprained ankle, belonging to the heathen period, will
illustrate the earliest form of this alliterative verse. The key-letter
in each couplet is printed in capitals, and the verse is read from end
to end, not as two separate columns.[1]

Balder and Woden Went to the Woodland:
There Balder's Foal Fell, wrenching its Foot.
Then Sinthgunt beguiled him, and Sunna her Sister:
Then Frua beguiled him, and Folla her sister,
Then Woden beguiled him, as Well he knew how;
Wrench of blood, Wrench of bone, and eke Wrench of limb:
Bone unto Bone, Blood unto Blood,
Limb unto Limb as though Limed it were.

[1] The original of this heathen charm is in the Old High
German dialect; but it is quoted here as a good specimen of
the early form of alliterative verse. A similar charm
undoubtedly existed in Anglo-Saxon, though no copy of it has
come down to our days, as we possess a modernised and
Christianised English version, in which the name of our Lord
is substituted for that of Balder.

In this simple spell the alliteration serves rather as an aid to memory
than as an ornamental device. The following lines, translated from the
ballad on AEthelstan's victory at Brunanburh, in 937, will show the
developed form of the same versific