Language in early English poetry?

Language in early English poetry? 

Old English poetry falls broadly into two styles or fields of reference, the heroic Germanic and the Christian. With a few exceptions, almost all Old English poets are anonymous. Although there are Anglo-Saxon discourses on Latin prosody, the rules of Old English verse are understood only through modern analyses of the extant texts. The first widely accepted theory was constructed by Eduard Sievers (1893), who distinguished five distinct alliterative patterns. Alternative theories have been proposed; the theory of John C. Pope (1942), which uses musical notation to track the verse patterns, has been accepted in some quarters, and is hotly debated. The most popular and well-known understanding of Old English poetry continues to be Sievers' alliterative verse. The system is based upon accent, alliteration, the quantity of vowels, and patterns of syllabic accentuation. It consists of five permutations on a base verse scheme; any one of the five types can be used in any verse. The system was inherited from and exists in one form or another in all of the older Germanic languages. Two poetic figures commonly found in Old English poetry are the kenning, an often formulaic phrase that describes one thing in terms of another. Even though all extant Old English poetry is written and literate, it is assumed that Old English poetry was an oral craft that was preformed by a scop and accompanied by a harp. Other poetic forms exist in Old English including riddles, short verses, gnomes, and mnemonic poems for remembering long lists of names. The Exeter Book has a collection of ninety-five riddles. Some of them play on obscene interpretations of the object described. The answers are not supplied; a number of them to this day remain a puzzle. There are short verses found in the margins of manuscripts which offer practical advice. There are remedies against the loss of cattle, how to deal with a delayed birth, swarms of bees, etc. The longest is called Nine Herbs Charm and is probably of pagan origin. Other similar short verses, or charms, include For a Swarm of Bees, Against a Dwarf, Wið færstice, and Against a Wen. There are a group of mnemonic poems designed to help memorise lists and sequences of names and to keep objects in order. These poems are named Menologium, The Fates of the Apostles, The Rune Poem, The Seasons for Fasting, and the Instructions for Christians.