TY - JOUR
AU - Hill, Thomas D.
AB - June 2005 NOTES AND QUERIES 155 compounds plegscyld and plegscip has a verse since such poetry is characteristically physical rather than spiritual connotation, loosely structured and discursive. It is easier to indicating that such objects were not intended fit a runic message into such a form than to for use in combat. It remains uncertain, write runes into more formally structured however, whether the distinction is between poetry. serious combat and sporting contests, or The sapiential poetry – apart from the between actual combat and dramatic represen- runes and the signature that are embedded tations. The surviving materials for Old into it – has attracted relatively little critical English are fragmentary and incomplete, and attention. In this paper I would like to it is all the more important to use the full range propose a potential source or at least some of evidence available from both literary and potential analogues for an elaborate simile non-literary sources. in the poem, the comparison of the life of CAROLE HOUGH a secular and hence implicitly unwise man University of Glasgow to a ‘c drusende’ a failing or flickering doi:10.1093/notesj/gji201 lamp or torch. Since the full meaning of The Author (2005). Published by 
TI - The Failing Torch: The Old English Elene, 1256–1259
JF - Notes and Queries
DO - 10.1093/notesj/gji202
DA - 2005-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/the-failing-torch-the-old-english-elene-1256-1259-0rr3pL29jQ
SP - 155
EP - 160
VL - 52
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -