| | Alliterative verse - Open Encyclopedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06) |
 | | Alliterative verse exists from the earliest attested monuments of the Germanic languages; extended passages of alliterative verse are attested in Old English, Old Norse, Old High German, and Old Saxon. |
 | | 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 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. |
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