The most rigorous description ever undertaken of the Scandinavian influence on the vocabulary of a major Middle English text, and a new model for the collection and analysis of Norse loans in any English source.

• A new survey of the etymological evidence for nearly 500 words in one of the most famous and important Middle English poems
• Conducted in accordance with a groundbreaking new system of etymological classification, and with references to all relevant previous scholarship going back to the nineteenth century
• Contains new insights into the etymologies, forms, meanings and textual interpretation of hundreds of Middle English words
• Includes a new introduction to the scholarly study of the Old Norse influence on English vocabulary, including a detailed discussion of methodologies

Richard Dance is Reader in Early English in the Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of St Catharine’s College.  He is the author of a number of books and articles about the language and literature of the Old and Middle English periods, and is especially interested in vocabulary, etymology and the language of early English poetry.