Early Period Poetry

Anglo-Saxon Alliterative Poetry

Forgotten Ground Regained: an excellent site regarding ancient and modern examples of alliterative verse.

Want all the structure with none of the rhyme? Look at this website about Alliterative and Accentual Poetry.  

Also,  Anglo-Saxon Accentual Meter. And a Lexicon of Kennings.
Old English Poetry and Literature: A nicely-done encyclopedic background overview of the subject.
Meter and  Poetic Style in Saxon poetry, from Baker's Introduction to Old English.
Alliterative Verse: Wikipedia article compares Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Germanic styles. Complete corpus of Anglo Saxon Poetry
Anglo-Saxon Aloud: A daily reading of the Anglo-Saxon poetic records.
Middangeard: Anthology of Old English texts in translations into Modern English. . . a Slovakian website!
Sites dealing with the Battle of Maldon: One with background historical information, one with commentary and a translation, and in Saxon.
The Wanderer Project: a closer look at the Wanderer.
Here is a very close translation of Beowulf. From the Beowulf on Steorarume . Beowulf in Hypertext
Beowulf lesson plan resources from ReadWriteThink.
A site dedicated to the scop, the Saxon equivalent of the bard.
Verbal Dueling: Comparing Unferth's sparing and rap.  Hwaet, yo. On a related note, a lesson plan: Scops, Rappers and You: Historians with Style!
To aid in composition, here is a Vocabulary of Alliteration.



Nordic/Icelandic Poetry

A page about constructing  Nordic poetry, and an overview of Skaldic poetry.

Nordic Prosody, featuring Fornyrðislag, Málaháttr, Kviðuháttr, Ljóðaháttr, and Runhenda.

Overview of Norse Poetry from Wikipedia.

Jörmungrund: Icelandic Poetry website.

Poetic Edda: the Thorpe Translation.

Alliterative Verse: Wikipedia article compares Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Germanic styles.

A list of Nordic (okay, Viking) Links.

Skaldic Project homepage: An international project to edit the corpus of medieval Norse-Icelandic skaldic poetry.

The Mead Hall: contemporary examples of the style, sung.


Welsh Poetry

Katherine Bryant's Introduction to Welsh Poetry. 

And another, with some modern examples.

The Four Branches of the Mabinogion.

Wiki article on Y Gododdin.

The texts and translations of various Welsh manuscripts from the Celtic Literature Collective.

Y Gododdin, translated and with background information, and in the original .

Welsh Literature from Go Britannia.


Irish Poetry

Wikipedia entries on Irish Poetry and Metrical Dindshenchas

Irish Poetic Forms by Russel Gilman-Hunt

Irish Poetic Forms by Maureen  O'Brien.

Introduction to forms, from the Poets Garret.

The texts and translations of various Welsh manuscripts from the Celtic Literature Collective.