The entry for 755 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is remarkable for its length. Breaking from the pattern of terse entries restricted to the major events of successive years, it expands into an account of a power struggle lasting almost thirty years between two royal kinsmen for the kingdom of Wessex. The entry is a carefully crafted narrative with a purpose beyond mere record. It has been argued that the piece, the ‘Cynewulf and Cyneheard’ episode, must have derived from a preexisting source outside the Chronicle, perhaps a poem or an oral tradition; it has been claimed also that the style has something in common with that of the Icelandic sagas, though there is little to support this. Lexical evidence in fact associates the writer of this annal with the one who put together the entries for the 870s. After the episode, the Chronicle returns to 756 and resumes with a more typical assortment of short annals.

The style of the episode, with its paratactic syntax (mostly short sentences joined by ‘and’), is breathless. It can be confusing, too, as the result of the swift alternation of subjects, which often leaves the reader doubtful about the referents of ‘he’ and ‘they’.