The Old English rune poem, dated to the 8th or 9th century, has stanzas on 29 Anglo-Saxon runes.It stands alongside younger rune poems from Scandinavia, which record the names of the 16 Younger Futhark runes. The poem is a product of the period of declining vitality of the runic script in Anglo-Saxon England after the Christianization of the 7th century. A large body of scholarship has been devoted to the poem, mostly dedicated to its importance for runology but to a lesser extent also to the cultural lore embodied in its stanzas.