As corresponding verses of earlier poems we quote:
súme hi man wiþ fḗo séalde, | súme hrēowlice ācwéalde. Chron. 1036. 3.
and sóttes bòlt is sóne iscòte, | forþí ich hòlde híne for dòte. Prov. 421–2.
in þæ̀re sǽ heo fùnden utláwen, | þa kénneste þa wèoren ò þon dáwen. Lay. 1283–4.
The circumstance that these different types of verse occur in different poems promiscuously makes it evident that they must all have been developed from one original rhythmical form. It is clear that this fundamental type can only be found in the old two-beat alliterative hemistich, the more so as this kind of verse is the very metre in which the earlier poems Byrhtnoth and Be Dōmes Dæge for the greatest part are written, and which is exemplified in about a third part of the poetical piece of the Saxon Chronicle of 1036 and a fifth part of the later-piece of 1087, and again very frequently in Alfred’s Proverbs and in Layamon’s Brut, and which still can be traced as the original rhythm of King Horn
§ 50. The evidence of the metre of this poem, showing its affinity to the alliterative line and its historical origin from it, is so cogent that it is unnecessary to discuss the theories of Prof. Trautmann and the late Dr. Wissmann, both of whom, although from different points of view, agree in ascribing a four-beat rhythm to this metre.[106]
The frequent use again in this poem of the types of line occurring in Layamon’s Brut, as pointed out by Prof. Luick (l. c.), puts the close connexion of the metre of King Horn with that form of the alliterative line beyond doubt. We cannot, however, in conformity with the view we have taken of Layamon’s verse, agree with Prof. Luick in assigning a secondary accent to the last syllable of the feminine ending of the ordinary three-beat verse, in which the greater part of King Horn is written. Prof. Luick himself does not insist upon that particular point so strongly for this poem as he did for the earlier poems written in a similar metre.
The following examples serve to show that the same extended types of line which were found to be the commonest in Layamon’s Brut (cp. p. 77) recur as the most usual types also in this poem:
A + C: Álle bèon he blíþe | þat tò my sóng lýþe! 1–2.