A History of English Versification. J. Schipper

guttural g (as in god) and the palatal g (as in gierede), not even when the latter represents Germanic j (as in geong, gēar). With exceptions hereafter to be noted, a consonant followed by a vowel may alliterate with itself followed by another consonant: thus cūðe alliterates not only with words like cyning, but with words like cræft, cwellan; and hūs alliterates not only with heofon but with hlēapan, hnǣgan, &c. The fact that different vowels, as ī, ū, and æ in īsig ond ūtfūs æðelinges fær Beow. 33, alliterate together is only an apparent exception to the strictness of the rule, as it is really the glottal catch or spiritus lenis[80] before all vowels which alliterates here. Wherever a vowel seems to alliterate with an h we are justified in assuming a corruption of the text, as in óretmecgas æfter hǽleðum frægn Beow. 332, where Grein improves both sense and metre by substituting æðelum for hæleðum; other examples are Beow. 499, 1542, 2095, 2930. In some cases where foreign names beginning with h occur we occasionally find instances of this inexact alliteration, as Hólofernus únlyfigendes Jud. 180 and 7, 21, 46, contrasted with Hólofernus hógedon āninga 250; in later works as in Ælfric’s Metrical Homilies we find alliteration of h with a vowel not only in foreign names but with native words, as