Isolated instances of rhyme or assonance may be met with even in the oldest Old English poems. For certain standing expressions linked by such a similarity of sound, mostly causing interior rhyme (i.e. rhyme within a hemistich), were admitted now and then in alliterative poetry, e.g.
siþþan ic hónd and rónd | hébban míhte. Beow. 656.
sǣ́la and mǣ́la; | þat is sṓd métod. ib. 1611.
In other cases such rhymes are to be found at the end of two hemistichs,
Hrṓðgār máðelode, | hílt scḗawode. Beow. 1687.
Wýrmum bewúnden, | wítum gebúnden. Judith 115.
Examples of this kind occur not unfrequently in several early OE. poems, but their number increases decidedly in the course of time from Beowulf, Andreas, Judith, up to Byrhtnoth and Be Dōmes dæge.
From the two last-mentioned poems, still written in pure alliterative verse, a few examples of rhyming-alliterative verses, or of simply rhymed verses occurring accidentally among the normal alliterative lines, may also be quoted here:
Býrhtnōð máðelode, | bórd háfenode.Byrhtn. 42.
ǣ́fre embe stúnde | he séalde sume wúnde.ib. 271.