Cynewulf and His Kind
Out of the Northern revival emerges a figure more shadowy than that of Alcuin, but greater. It is the one Old English poet to any extent identified by his English works. A poem called Elene, of 1300 lines, was found in an Old English manuscript which had strangely made its way to Vercelli in Italy. Into this poem were curiously wrought old forms of letters called runes, which when deciphered in order revealed the name of the poet–Cynewulf.
