Alliteration in The Return of the King

While re-reading The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, I found multiple instances where Tolkien's writing style emulates that of Anglo-Saxon poems.  Most of my knowledge of Anglo-Saxon poems comes from the introduction to my edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  The version I have is in the Oxford World's Classics series, translated by Keith Harrison with an introduction by Helen Cooper.  In the introduction Cooper notes the frequent alliteration in the poem: "the defining feature of the poems of the movement [the "Alliterative Revival" of the 14th century] is the repetition of key sounds within each line, rather than a rhyme or a strictly regular metrical pattern."  Additionally, the introduction to one of my editions of Beowulf mentions this alliteration.  The translator - Burton Raffel - notes that he "felt it advisable, even obligatory, to alliterate much more freely, occasionally as the Old English alliterates," and in the afterword Roberta Frank notes that the lines are "linked by alliteration."  While Beowulf is older than Sir Gawain the Green Knight, through that particular stylistic element they're connected (based on Cooper's comments on the "Alliterative Revival," it seems as if the alliteration in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight might be reviving that of poems like Beowulf).  The themes (of knights and battles) are similar too.  Tolkien studied - and, if I'm not mistaken, even taught - Anglo-Saxon literature (I recently got his translation of Beowulf), so I'm pretty sure that he would have been familiar with this particular feature and it's not surprising that he includes it in The Lord of the Rings.

This posts contains spoilers for The Return of the King.

The first instance I found of this alliteration is at the end of Chapter 3 (The Muster of Rohan).  Before the knights of Rohan go to aid Gondor, they sing a song about Théoden:

From dark Dunharrow in the dim morning
with thane and captain rode Thengel's son:
to Edoras he came, the ancient halls
of the Mark-wardens mist-enshrouded;
golden timbers were in gloom mantled.
Farewell he bade to his free people,
hearth and high-seat, and the hallowed places,
where long he had feasted ere the light faded.
Forth rode the king, fear behind him,
fate before him.  Fealty kept he;
oaths he had taken, all fulfilled them.
Forth rode Théoden.  Five nights and days
east and onward rode the Eorlingas
through Folde and Fenmarch and the Firienwood,
six thousand spears to Sunlending,
Mundburg the mighty under Mindolluin,
Sea-kings' city in the South-kingdom
foe-beleaguered, fire-encircled.
Doom drove them on.  Darkness took them,
horse and horseman; hoofbeats afar
sank into silence: so the songs tell us.

Once they arrive and the battle begins (at the end of Chapter 5, the title of which [The Ride of the Rohirrim] is alliterative in itself), there's an-other alliterative cheer:

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

But, interestingly, that alliterative element also makes its way into Tolkien's prose here:

With that he [Théoden] seized a great horn from Guthláf, his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder.  And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

... 

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away.  Behind him his banner blew in the wind.  ...  Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore.  ...  Fey he [Théoden] seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins.  ...  His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed.  ...  The hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them,  ...  And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

When Éomer takes up the kingship in Chapter 6 (The Battle of the Pelennor Fields), he continues the alliterative verses:

Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!

And the alliteration is present in the song that recounts the battle:

We heard of the horns in the hills ringing,
the swords shining in the South-kingdom.
Steeds went striding to the Stoningland
as wind in the morning.  War was kindled.
There Théoden fell, Thengling mighty,
to his golden halls and green pastures
in the Northern fields never returning,
high lord of the host.  Harding and Guthláf,
Dúnhere and Déorwine, doughty Grimbold,
Herefara and Herubrand, Horn and Fastred,
fought and fell there in a far country:
in the Mounds of Mundburg under mould they lie
with their league-fellows, lords of Gondor.
Neither Hirluin the Fair to the hills by the sea,
nor Forlong the old to the flowering vales
ever, to Arnach, to his own country
returned in triumph; nor the tall bowmen,
Derufin and Duilin, to their dark waters,
meres of Morthond under mountain-shadows.
Death in the morning and at day's ending
lords took and lowly.  Long now they sleep
under grass in Gondor by the Great River.
Grey now as tears, gleaming silver,
red then it rolled, roaring water:
foam dyed with blood flamed at sunset:
as beacons mountains burned at evening;
red fell the dew in Rammas Echor.

And finally, there's the song sung at Théoden's funeral (in Chapter 6 [Many Partings] of Book Six), which is similar to what Éomer says when he rides into battle:

Out of doubt, out of dark, to the day's rising
he rode singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
Hope he rekindled, and in hope ended;
over death, over dread, over doom lifted
out of loss, out of life, unto long glory.

I started paying attention to all of the alliteration of the characters from Rohan only while reading The Return of the King, so I might have missed a lot in The Two Towers and even in the beginning of The Return of the King.  However, I still think there's enough alliteration present to connect Rohan to those Anglo-Saxon poems.

There are some other elements in The Lord of the Rings that I feel have precedents in Beowulf (for instance, Meduseld seems to be Tolkien's version of Herot), but I'm going to have to re-read both in order to find specific descriptions of each to compare.