The most rigorous description ever undertaken of the Scandinavian influence on the vocabulary of a major Middle English text, and a new model for the collection and analysis of Norse loans in any English source. * A new survey of the etymological evidence for nearly 500 words in one of the most famous and important Middle English poems * Conducted in accordance with a groundbreaking new system of etymological classification, and with references to all relevant previous scholarship going back to the nineteenth century * Contains new insights into the etymologies, forms, meanings and textual interpretation of hundreds of Middle English words * Includes a new introduction to the scholarly study of the Old Norse influence on English vocabulary, including a detailed discussion of methodologies