§ =44. Nature and origin of this metre. Theories of Trautmann and Luick.= We need not here discuss the theory of Prof. Trautmann, who endeavours to show that the hemistichs of Layamon's verse were composed in imitation of the four-beat short-lined metre in which the Old High German poet Otfrid had written his religious poem _Krist_, a form which, according to Trautmann and his followers, had been frequently employed in late Old English and early Middle English poetry. References to the criticisms of this hypothesis, by the present writer and others, are given by G. Körting in his _Encyklopädie der Englischen Philologie_, p. 388, and by K. Luick in Paul's _Grundriss der Germanischen Philologie_, ed. 2, II. ii. 152. The author of this book, in his larger work on the subject (_Englische Metrik_, i. §§ 67-73), has shown, as English and German scholars had done before him, that Layamon's verse has its roots in the Old English alliterative line. Twelve years after the publication of that work this theory received further confirmation at the hands of Prof. Luick, who has shown in Paul's _Grundriss_ (l.c.) that the five types of the Old English alliterative line, discovered by Prof. Sievers, reappear (although in a modified form) in the lines of Layamon's _Brut_. But we are unable wholly to agree with Prof. Luick's view on the origin and nature of this metre. In order to explain the origin of Layamon's verse he starts from the hypothesis of Prof. Sievers[99] that the Old Germanic alliterative verse, as historically known, which was intended to be _recited_, and therefore not restricted to uniformity of rhythm, originated from a primitive Old Germanic verse meant to be sung, and therefore characterized by rhythmic regularity. According to Prof. Luick this primitive metre, although not represented by any extant example in Old English, had never quite died out, and forms the basis of the metre of Layamon and his predecessors in early Middle English. For this ingenious hypothesis, however, no real evidence exists. On the contrary, the fact that the beginnings of the peculiar kind of metre used by Layamon can be traced back to purely alliterative Old English poems, where they occur amongst regular alliterative lines, and therefore undoubtedly must be of the same rhythmical structure, seems to be decisive against Prof. Luick's theory.