Old English give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The change to Old English from Old Norse was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in
Old English literature the Bible ("Old English Hexateuch"), portions have been assigned to Ælfric on stylistic grounds. He included some lives of the saints in the "Catholic Homilies", as well as a cycle of saints' lives to be used in sermons. Ælfric also wrote an Old English work on time-reckoning, and pastoral letters. In the same category as Ælfric, and a contemporary, was Wulfstan II, archbishop of York. His sermons were highly stylistic. His best known work is "Sermo Lupi ad Anglos" in which he blames the sins of the English for the Viking invasions. He wrote a number of clerical legal texts