“Contending Throng” Scenes and theComitatusIdeal in Old English Poetry, with special attention toThe Battle of Maldon122a

Eall-feala Ealde Sæge: Poetic Performance and "The Scop's Repertoire" in Old English Verse

“…These observations have been confirmed in a number of subsequent studies, which have found abundant morphemic but limited formulaic repetition in Old English traditional themes (see, for instance, Battles 2000Battles , 2011Battles , and 2015. This pattern also obtains in "The Scop's Repertoire."…”

“…The pen-trial takes the form of the first line of a poem in which the narrator references the source of the text's subject matter. This is the most common opening formula in Old English poetry (Battles 2014;Chernis 1992;Foley 1991;Weiskott 2016), also indicated here by the initial attention-marker, "Hwaet!" ("Listen!").…”