and hē hæfde héora gewéald ealles twéntig gḗara. ibid. 85.
and the alliteration may even fall on an unaccented particle as in
frám his gelēafan and his ǣ forsāwon. ibid. 51.
For a full account of Ælfric’s alliteration the reader may be referred to an interesting essay by Dr. Arthur Brandeis, Die Alliteration in Aelfric’s metrischen Homilien, 1897 (Programm der Staatsrealschule im VII. Bezirk in Wien).
§ 34. Position of the alliterative words. Out of the four accented syllables of the line two at least, and commonly three, must begin with an alliterative sound, and this alliteration still further increases the stress which these syllables have in virtue of their syntactical and rhythmical accent.
The position of these alliterative sounds in the line may vary in the same way as their number. The general laws which govern the position of the alliteration are the following:—(i) One alliterating sound must, and two may occur in the first hemistich; (ii) In the second hemistich the alliterating sound (called the head-stave[82]) must fall on the first of the two accented syllables of that hemistich, and the second accented syllable in the second hemistich does not take part in the alliteration at all; (iii) When there are three alliterating sounds in the whole line two of them must be in the first hemistich and only one in the second. Examples of lines with three alliterating sounds:
séolfa he gesétte súnnan ond mṓnan. Sat. 4.
úfan ond ū̀tan him wæs ǣ́ghwǣr wā́. Sat. 342.
Lines with only two alliterative sounds, the first of which may coincide with either of the accented syllables of the first hemistich (the second of course coinciding with the first accented syllable of the second hemistich) are very common: