Alliterative Verse - Common Germanic Origins and Features

Common Germanic Origins and Features

Further information: Germanic Heroic Age

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.

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 4th century, bears this Runic inscription in Proto-Norse:

x / x x x / x x / x / x x ek hlewagastir holtijar || horna tawidô (I, Hlewagastir of Holt, made the horn.)

This inscription contains four strongly stressed syllables, the first three of which alliterate on