“...I am going a long way
       * * * * *
  To the island-valley of Avilion,
  Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
  Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
  Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns
  And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,
  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
       * * * * *
  He passes to be King among the dead,
  And after healing of his grievous wound
  He comes again.”

Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon poetry.  He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of his verse are more Saxon than modern.  When reading Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to celebrate in English King Arthur’s deeds.  The Brut shows little trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being found in it.

Orm’s Ormulum.—­A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a metrical paraphrase of those parts of the Gospels used in the church on each service day throughout the year.  After the paraphrase comes his metrical explanation and application of the Scripture.

He says:—­

  “Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum
  Forrethi ethatt Ormm itt wrohhte.”

  This book is named Ormulum
  For that Orm it wrote.

There was no fixed spelling at this time.  Orm generally doubled the consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied his work should be careful to do the same.  We shall find on counting the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has eight; the second, seven.  This scheme is followed with great precision throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular alliteration.  Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon.  The date of the Ormulum is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215.

The Ancren Riwle.—­About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.  Three young ladies who had secluded themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in their seclusion.  An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the Ancren Riwle (Rule of Anchoresses).  This book not only lays down rules for their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much religious consolation.

The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the thirteenth century:—­