of the five ages of the world in the concluding lines is obviously due to recollection of the opening of the Heliand (lines 46–47). It is therefore certain that the Versus, as well as the Praefatio, attribute to the author of the Heliand a poetic rendering of the Old Testament. Their testimony, if accepted, confirms the ascription to him of the Genesis fragments, which is further supported by the fact that they occur in the same MS. with a portion of the Heliand. As the Praefatio speaks of the emperor Ludwig in the present tense, the former part of it at least was probably written in his reign, i.e. not later than AD 840. The general opinion of scholars is that the latter part, which represents the poet as having received his vocation in a dream, is by a later hand, and that the sentences in the earlier part which refer to the dream are interpolations by this second author. The date of these additions, and of the Versus, is of no importance, as their statements are incredible. That the author of the Heliand was, so to speak, another Caedmon – an unlearned man who turned into poetry what was read to him from the sacred writings – is impossible according to some scholars, because in many passages the text of the sources is so closely followed that it is clear that the poet wrote with the Latin books before him. Other historians, however, argue that the possibility that the author may have been illiterate should not be dismissed because the translations seem free compared to line-by-line translations that were made from Tatian's Diatessaron in the second quarter of the 9th century into Old High German. Additionally, the poem also shares much of its structure with Old English, Old Norse, and Old High German alliterative poetry which all included forms of heroic poetry that were available only orally and passed from singer to singer. Repetitions of particular words and phrases as well as irregular beginnings of fits (sentences begin at the middle of a line rather than at the beginning of a line to help with alliteration) that occur in the Heliand seem awkward as written text but make sense when considering the Heliand formerly as a song for after-dinner singing in the mead hall or monastery. There is no reason for rejecting the almost contemporary testimony of the first