The heroic and elegiac traditions were the two most prominent in Anglo-Saxon poetry. A nice example of an elegiac poetry is "The Seafarer." This poem is about a fisherman who loses his wife. He goes to sea in search of peace, but does not find it. The last line of the poem is "No rest for the weary." Elegies usually end with this kind of statement. Heroic poems, on the other hand, celebrate great men such as kings or warriors. One example of a heroic poem is "The Battle of Brunanburh" by King Alfred of England. This is one of the oldest surviving English poems. It is written in Old English and deals with the victory of King Athelstan over the Danes at Brunanburh in 937. The poem is composed in stanzas of three lines, with the exception of the last line of each stanza which has four lines. These are just two examples of how Anglo-Saxon poets wrote their works. There are many more genres including acrostics, distichs, tercets, quatrains, and octaves. Anglo-Saxons loved writing poetry. Some scholars believe that they even had contests to see who could write the best poem.