Peaceful Alliances: The Collocative Policy of friþ- in Old Germanic Poetry

This article examines the collocative behaviour of the Old English term friþ- ‘peace’, ‘protection’, and its Old Saxon and Old Norse cognates across the poetic traditions preserved in these languages. Building on the methodological framework established by Maria Elena Ruggerini, the study identifies and analyses the co-occurring words (collocates) structured around FRITH-, mapping their alliterative, semantic, and phonological features across time and corpora. Particular attention is given to the role of homophony, paronomasia, and formal patterning in shaping inherited pairings and enabling context-specific innovations. The article also explores the thematic range of these collocations, which encompass notions of peace, protection, and divine favour, as well as their absence, and demonstrates how such terms were reconfigured within different cultural, theological, and poetic frameworks. Through a comparative analysis of Old English, Old Saxon, and Old Norse material, the study offers insights into the combinatorial logic underlying Germanic versification and affirms the value of collocative inquiry as a means of tracing both continuity and transformation in the early Germanic poetic lexicon.