Christ was born
King of glory
In mid-winter:
Illustrious King!
Eternal, Almighty!
On the eighth day
Saviour was called,
Of Heaven's kingdom ruler.
Periphrasis.—Their periphrasis, or finding figurative names for persons and things, is common to the Norse poetry. Thus Caedmon, in speaking of the ark, calls it the sea-house, the palace of the ocean, the wooden fortress, and by many other periphrastic names.
Alliteration.—The Saxons were fond of alliteration, both in prose and verse. They used it without special rules, but simply to satisfy their taste for harmony in having many words beginning with the same letter; and thus sometimes making an arbitrary connection between the sentences or clauses in a discourse, e.g.: