This study demonstrates, through the detailed examination of a specific example of written Old English, that a very large proportion of the general vocabulary of Old English survives in some form in Late Modern English. The "Finnsburg Fragment" is parsed and translated and its lexicon glossed. After a brief discussion of several special semantic categories and the traditional categories of semantic change, the study enlarges upon the historical setting which influenced the loss, retention, shift, or stability of these two hundred Old English words. Appendices group the lexicon by parts of speech as well as by semantic history.