However, his legendary status in later tradition gave him a reputation for having done so, as the Middle English poem The Owl and the Nightingale likewise suggests.
At the same time, the proverbs resemble the gnomic compositions of earlier Anglo-Saxon instruction.
The proverbs are expressed as highly compressed metaphors that are halfway to the poetry found in the Anglo-Saxon riddle and Gnomic Verses.
Collections of sayings and precepts were common in Latin as well, but the distinctive compression of the Alfredian proverbs is clearly a sign of their Anglo-Saxon origin.
Given that it is most likely that the author and his antecedents gathered up proverbs over time, the heterogeneous contents of the book are predictable.
If heo beo i-wreþþed myd worde oþer myd dede wymmon wepeþ for mod oftere þan for eny god And ofte lude & stille for to vor-drye hire wille.
Heo wepeþ oþer-hwile for to do þe gyle Salomon hit haueþ i-sed þat wymmon can wel vuelne red.