non-Indo-European language. Poetry Poetry and songs were central to Proto-Indo-European society. The poet-singer was the society's highest-paid professional, possibly a member of a hereditary profession that ran in certain families, the art passing from father to son as the poet had to acquire all the technical aspects of the art and to master an extensive body of traditional subject matter. He performed against handsome rewards—such as gifts of horses, cattle, wagons and women—and was held in high esteem. In some cases, the poet-singer had a stable relationship with a particular noble prince or family. In other cases, he travelled about with his dependants, attaching himself to one court after another. A transmitter of inherited cultural knowledge, the poet sang as a recall of the old heroic times, entrusted with telling the praises of heroes, kings, and gods. Composing sacred hymns ensured the gods would in turn bestow favourable fate to the community, and for kings that their memory would live on many generations. A lexeme for a special song, the *erkw ("praise of the gift") has been identified in early Proto-Indo-European. Such praise poems proclaimed the generosity of the gods (or a patron) and enumerated their gifts, expanding the patron's fame, the path to immortality otherwise only attainable for mortals through conspicuous acts of war or piety. The concept of fame (*ḱléwos) was central to Proto-Indo-European poetry and culture. Many poetic dictions built on this term can be reconstituted, including *ḱléwos wéru ("wide fame"), *ḱléwos meǵh₂ ("great fame"), *ḱléuesh₂ h₂nróm ("the famous deeds of men, heroes"), or *dus-ḱlewes ("having bad repute"). Indo-European poetic tradition was probably oral-formulaic: stock formulas, such as the imperishable fame (*ḱléwos ń̥dʰgʷʰitom), the swift horses (*h₁ōḱéwes h₁éḱwōs), the eternal life (*h₂iu-gʷih₃), the metaphor of the wheel of the sun (*sh₂uens kʷekʷlos), or the epithet man-killer (*hₐnr̥-gʷhen), attached to Hektor and Rudra alike, were transmitted among poet-singers to fill out traditional verse-lines in epic song lyrics. The task of the Indo-European poet was to preserve over the generations the famous deeds of heroes. He would compose and retell poems based on old and sometimes obscure formulations, reconnecting the motifs with his own skills and improvisations. Poetry was therefore associated with the acts of weaving words (*wékʷos webh-) and crafting speech (*wékʷos teḱs-). Warfare Although Proto-Indo-Europeans have been often cast as warlike conquerors, their reconstructed arsenal is not particularly extensive. There is no doubt that they possessed archery,