ABSTRACT
Not only was every form of early Old English (OE) Literature, whether narrative, lyric, or didactic, for convenience' sake thrown into poetic form and written in the general alliterative metre, but we have subjects treated in verse in OE which have little literary quality of any kind. Foremost among such are the Gnomic Verses. In them moral truths are inculcated or facts of general knowledge stated; they correspond to the proverbs of later times and represent the experience or wisdom of centuries. Two sets of these verses have been preserved, one in the Exeter Book, the second in a Cotton MS. in the British Museum. It is impossible to date these verses. Originally they must have been not only pre-Christian but pre-English. Further and more attractive survivals of Germanic days are the Charms, of which OE possesses eight, directed towards various ends. While most are for healing different evils, some have other purposes.
