Beowulf and in all OE. poetry. In the first 1000 lines of Beowulf there are 489 in the first halfline and 353 in the second. In Beowulf, then, about a half of the first half-verses and more than a third of the second half-verses are A verses. This relation holds good for most other poems.

The final foot of two members is generally filled by a simple word of the form -- or uux, or by a compound _lx or uulx, e.g. hwile, wordum, warode etc. (Types 1-13, 21-27, 29), güd-cræft, mere-deor etc. (14-20, 28, 30). Verses, which end with a compound of the form luu, like fūslicu, wynsumu we can include among the A verses, but compounds of the form lux, like Gār-Dena, gear-dagum, land-fruma, have three members and therefore belong to types C and D1.

NOTE. By uu is meant two quite short syllables like sele nom. sg, wracu, fela, hine etc., by ux disyllabic words with a short root-syllable, the second syllable of which was originally a long vowel or ends with a consonant: sele d. sg., Denā g. pl., scipes, dagum, cuman, fæder, monig etc. (§ 52).

In the third and fourth members of an A verse it is rare to find two independent words. Here, too, the second must in stress be subordinate to the first, e.g. æsc-holt | ufan græg Beowulf 330, picgean ofer pa niht 736, mordor-bed stred 2436, hilde- rinc sum 3124.

The first foot of two members of A verses is also most frequently composed of a simple word

of the form -x or uux (lange, werodes) or by a compound lx, uulx or luu, e.g. wis-fæst, felahrōr, folc-stede, but not lux beag-hroden, which has three members, cp. type 54. The simplest form of the A verse, type 1: lange | hwile occurs 117+187 times in the first 1000 verses of Beowulf. Nearly a quarter of all A verses (489+353) in the first half-line, and more than the half in the second half line belong to this type.

A monosyllabic prefix or an independent, but unstressed, monosyllabic word may follow a simple or compound word of the form - or Uux in the first foot of two members of the A verses, e.g. folcum ge- (type 2), folce to (3), īsig ond (15) Beowulf was (13), gamol-feax ond (20). The two members of the first foot of A are often filled by two independent words. Here the first must be more strongly stressed than the second, in order that the unity of the foot may be preserved. The scheme of the verse is more accurately: (1+1)+2. In the first member there is generally an alliterating word of the form or u, e.g. lang, geong, wēox, sōd, flota (types 5-9), in A3 verses a word which does not alliterate eow, ic pā (23-26), in the second member one or two more weakly stressed syllables. The first foot is, then: land ge-, geong in, weox under, sod is ge-, flota was on (types 5-9) eow hēt, ic hine, ic pæt ge-, þā was on (23—26).

If at the beginning of A verses there are weakly

or of

stressed words (pronouns, auxiliary verbs, adverbs prepositions, conjunctions), which generally do not alliterate, so that the alliteration begins with the third member (Sievers' A3), then the first member of the first foot of A may be composed of a word, otherwise of two members, of the form -×, two monosyllabic words of the form. In this case the second member also is generally filled by one disyllabic or two monosyllabic words. Thus we have the first feet of so-called As verses: hæfde sẽ, sona pot on- (types 21. 22) nu gē mōton, nō hè pone (27. 28). In this way, too, the alliterating first feet of types 4 (sægdest from his sīpe) and 10 (ge wat him þā tō | warođe) are constructed, which it would be correcter to classify as A3 verses with double alliteration. The unity of the first foot in these cases is loose. The scheme is: 1+1+2.

Anacrusis before the first member of an A verse is allowed, but is generally limited to a monosyllabic prefix, e.g. ārās pā sē rīca Beow. 399, gewiton him þā fēran 301, gewāt him þā tō warode 234. Schwellverse (§ 86 ff.) have an 'extended

anacrusis'.

§ 66. Types 1-10 (Sievers' A1).

According to this different 'filling' especially of the first foot, the 30 subforms of Type A are arranged by me as follows. Types 1-10 (Sievers A') are the normal A verses, common in both half-lines, with alliteration on the first or on the

first and third members. They begin with a simple word of two members of the form -x or UX (type 1: lange hwile, werodes wīsa, ellen fremedon bealuwa bisigu), which a prefix may follow (2: folcum gefrage) or an independent monosyllabic word (3: folce tō frōfre), sometimes even two syllables (4: sægdest from his sīpe). Then come the verses, the first member of which is a word of the form the second member a prefix (type 5: land gesāwon), a monosyllabic word (6: geong in geardum), a disyllabic word (7: weox under wolcnum), a monosyllabic word prefix (8: sod is gecided), or two monosyllabic words (9: flota was on ÿdum). Finally come those verses, in which each of the two first members is composed of two monosyllabic words (10: gewāt him pa to warode).

or uu,

NOTE. In Sievers' system all four-syllable A verses (types 1, 5, 6) are put together in the same scheme ×2×, without regard to their linguistic representation, in the same way all five-syllable types 2, 3, 7, 8, 9 are classed in the form

××× That there was a real difference between type 2 folcum gefrige) and type 3 (folce tō frōfre) is proved by the fact that there is a difference in the frequency of these two kinds of verse in the two half-lines. In the first 1000 lines of Beowulf type 2 occurs 45+53 times, type 3: 41+ 18 times, i.e. in the first half-line both types occur about the same number of times, but in the second half-line type 2 is three times as frequent as type 3. Still greater is the difference between type 5 (19+55) and type 6 (41+ 13). Type 5 prefers the second half-line, type 6 the first half-line. The types 7, 8, 9, which are of rare occurrence, are found more often in the first half-line than in the sec

ond. From this we see (also from types 32 and 34) that a prefix within the verse is commoner in the second halfline, which in general is more weakly filled than the first. On the other hand, in the classification of the A verses, I have paid no attention to the substitution of uux for -x, and ʊʊ for ('resolved stress'), in order not to disturb the clearness of the tables. Thus the verses lange huile, monegum mægđum, ellen fremedon, bealuwa bisigu are put into type 1, for this 'resolved stress' is comparatively rare and is about equally frequent in both half-lines. In any case it does not at all alter the whole rhythm of the verse and is less characteristic for the verse-type than the different 'filling' in verses, where the number of syllables is the same (types 2 and 3 or 5 and 6).

§ 67. Types 11-20 (Sievers' A2).

--

The types 11-20 (Sievers' A2) include those A verses, which in the first foot or in the second or in both feet have a compound of the form _I× or vulx or luu. In types 11-13 (wis-fæst | wordum folc-stede | frætwan Beowulf was | brēme) such compounds are found in the first foot (Sievers' A2a). In types 14-17 (Grendles | gud-craft isig ond | ut-fūs heah ond| horn-gēap folc odde freo-burh) they occur in the second foot (Sievers' A2b). In types 18-20 (snellic | să-rinc — nýd-wracu | nīđ-grim gamol-feax ond | gūđ-rōf) they occur in both feet. No distinction between compounds of the form and uulx (wis-fæst and fela-hrōr, gud-craft and mere-dēor) is made in arranging the types. Also the quite rare occurrence of compounds of the form in the