It is well known that Anglo-Saxon poems, including Beowulf, go in for a device of repetition in varied form of key words and phrases, presumably to get the point across without boring an audience listening to the poem. No device gives the scholar more headaches. Some of these synonyms concern weapons. A lot of different words have to be rendered flatly in modern English by ‘sword’, ‘spear’ and so on. It seems to me this is more serious than many commentators have taken it to be. In Beowulf's world, swords and sword-play were the very matter of survival. My instinct tells me that the mysterious and fallible swords Beowulf used in his fights have an important significance not yet elucidated, but I do not think we shall ever know what it is. It was pointed out to me by one of the greatest scholars of the last generation that many of these so-called synonyms were in fact words for different types of weapons. It is obvious from the archaeological evidence that the Anglo-Saxons had a variety of swords and spears of different types and it takes no great guessing to think they had different names, different functions, and different, quite socialized and common-place, emotions attached to these names.