poem may have been written between the end of the eighth century and the beginning of the ninth. Sample The following passage describes the Advent of Christ and is a modern English translation of Lyric 5 (lines 104-29 in the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records): Sources and structure As presented in the Exeter Book, Christ I is divided into five sections, each marked by a large capital, a line-break, and punctuation, as follows: lines 1-70, 71-163, 164-272, 275-377, 378-439. However, researchers have found it helpful to understand Christ I as comprising twelve sections or 'lyrics'. Each lyric is introduced with a selection from a Latin antiphon (verses from Scripture sung before and after the reading of a psalm chosen to reflect the fundamental ideas presented in the psalm), followed by lines of poetry in Old English which expand on that source. Most of the antiphons used are known as the O Antiphons, which receive their name because they all begin with the Latin interjection O (rendered in the poem with the Old English interjection ēalā). Medieval manuscripts of the O Antiphons vary in order and content, meaning that the precise sources for several of the Christ I lyrics are uncertain. Several of the Greater Antiphons are not used in Christ I, leading some scholars speculate that, since we know that the beginning of Christ I is missing, the missing antiphons ("O Sapientia", "O Adonai", and "O radix Jesse") were originally used in the poem but have been lost. The following table summarises the content and sources of each of the twelve lyrics. Unless otherwise stated, information on sources comes from Burgert and the antiphon text from Bamberg State Library, MS Misc. Patr. 17/B.11.10, folios 133-62, 10c. Interpretation of structure The order of antiphons that the author uses for the lyrics imply that the poet was not concerned about any distinctions between antiphons, or the order that he had found them in his sources. Upon analysis of the position of each poem, no rational order can be found, suggesting that the order of each poem in the sequence is unimportant. Influence on other writers J.R.R. Tolkien was influenced by the following lines from Christ I (lines 104-5), which inspired his portrayal the character Eärendil in his legendarium and is one of many examples of the Old English word middangeard which partly inspired Tolkien's fantasy world: Tolkien wrote "There was something