Date: Wed 01 Apr 2015
Matching Commentaries:
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 39
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Response to Exeter Riddle 39
Original text:Gewritu secgað þæt seo wiht sy
mid moncynne miclum tidum
sweotol ond gesyne. Sundorcræft hafað
maran micle, þonne hit men witen.
5 Heo wile gesecan sundor æghwylcne
feorhberendra, gewiteð eft feran on weg.
Ne bið hio næfre niht þær oþre,
ac hio sceal wideferh wreccan laste
hamleas hweorfan; no þy heanre biþ.
10 Ne hafað hio fot ne folme, ne æfre foldan hran,
ne eagena ægþer twega,
ne muð hafaþ, ne wiþ monnum spræc,
ne gewit hafað, ac gewritu secgað
þæt seo sy earmost ealra wihta,
15 þara þe æfter gecyndum cenned wære.
Ne hafað hio sawle ne feorh, ac hio siþas sceal
geond þas wundorworuld wide dreogan.
Ne hafaþ hio blod ne ban, hwæþre bearnum wearð
geond þisne middangeard mongum to frofre.
20 Næfre hio heofonum hran, ne to helle mot,
ac hio sceal wideferh wuldorcyninges
larum lifgan. Long is to secganne
hu hyre ealdorgesceaft æfter gongeð,
woh wyrda gesceapu; þæt is wrætlic þing
25 to gesecganne. Soð is æghwylc
þara þe ymb þas wiht wordum becneð;
ne hafað heo ænig lim, leofaþ efne seþeah.
Gif þu mæge reselan recene gesecgan
soþum wordum, saga hwæt hio hatte.
Translation:Writings say that the creature is
among humankind much of the time
plain and perceivable. She has a special skill
much greater, when people know it.
5 She will seek specially every one
of life-bearers, departs again to travel away.
She is never there a second night,
but she must roam the wretched path
homeless for a long time; she is not humbled by that.
10 She does not have a foot nor hand, she has not ever touched the earth,
nor does she have either of two eyes,
nor a mouth, nor speaks with humans,
nor has a mind, but writings say
that she is the saddest of all creatures,
15 of those who were born naturally.
She does not have a soul nor life, but she must endure
journeys widely throughout this wonder-world.
She does not have blood nor bone, but is a comfort
for many children throughout this middle-earth.
20 She has never touched heaven, nor may she [go] to hell,
but she must for a long time live in the teachings
of the glory-king. It is long to tell
how her life-condition goes afterwards,
the twisted shapes of events; that is a wondrous thing
25 to say. Everything is true
of that which is indicated with words about this creature;
she does not have any limbs, yet lives even so.
If you may say the solution straightaway
with true words, say what she is called.
Click to show riddle solution?
Dream, Death, Cloud, Speech, Faith, Day, Moon, Time, Comet
Notes: This riddle appears on folios 109v-110r of The Exeter Book.
The above Old English text is based on this edition: Elliott van Kirk Dobbie and George Philip Krapp, eds, The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), pages 199-200.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 37: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 90-1.
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anglo saxon
exeter book
riddles
old english
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riddle 39
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Response to Exeter Riddle 39
Exeter Riddle 34
Exeter Riddle 67
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 37
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Wed 15 Apr 2015Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 37
When it comes to over-the-top manly virility, the smith has got it going on (is a sentence I never thought I would write until this very moment). So it makes sense that the smith’s tools – in this case, the bellows – might be associated with a certain amount of naughtiness. If you didn’t realize that this riddle is a bit naughty (bless), then please allow me to direct you to line 2a’s swollenness, whatever is shooting out of an “eye” in line 5b, as well as all the servantile following and filling going on in between. Still don’t believe me that this poem is chock-a-block full of double entendre? Then mosey on down to the final line’s reference to the impossibly incestuous fathering of sons (not unlike Riddle 33’s mother-daughter imagery). This riddle is having fun with tools, in every sense of the word.
“Why a smith?,” you might wonder. To which I reply:
Image of Völundr (apparently) from Wikimedia Commons.
Whoa there, put away those guns! I am joking, obviously. This particular blacksmith is far too grim for my tastes. But it does remind us that hyper-masculinity is associated with smithing, servitude and sexual acts elsewhere in the Old English corpus. I’m referring to the poem Deor (also in the Exeter Book), which mentions the nasty lengths to which Weland/Völundr the Smith will go to take revenge on the enemy who imprisoned him because of his skillful smithing: namely, the rape and impregnation of his daughter, Beadohild/Böðvildr.
The goings on of Riddle 37 may be more consensual, although with a servant involved there’s an element of power/hierarchy here too. Furthermore, violence lurks under the surface in lines 5-7’s reference to death. This death reference is quite clever, since it relates to the expiration of the bellows: it breathes out all of its air, but rather than dying it is revived again and again. It’s this particular clue that makes the solution “bellows” fairly certain (despite “wagon” also having been suggested). In fact, the same clue can be found in Symphosius’ Latin bellows-riddle, Enigma 73, Uter Follis:
Non ego continuo morior, dum spiritus exit;
Nam redit adsidue, quamvis et saepe recedit:
Et mihi nunc magna est animae, nunc nulla facultas.
(Glorie, vol. 133A, page 694)
(I do not die continually, when breath leaves;
for it returns regularly, although it often departs:
sometimes my supply of spirit is large, sometimes not.)
The early English riddler Aldhelm also has a Latin bellows-riddle (Enigma 11, Poalum), but it doesn’t overlap nearly as nicely as Symphosius’ text does.
A further indication that we’re dealing with a bellows rather than a wagon comes in the form of line 7b’s verbal play. Blæd (breath/glory) is the first element of the compound blædbylig, which glosses the Latin follis in The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary (Oliphant F625). What does follis mean? Dun-dah-dah-dun: Bellows! I think we have a winner, folks:
Image from Wikimedia Commons(public domain).
One final thing to mention before I run away to frolic with lambs and stuff vast quantities of hoarded chocolate into my face (I wrote this post over Easter): this is not the only Old English bellows riddle. Oh no, folks, it most certainly is not. You’ll have to wait a while to hear about Riddle 87, but I assure you it is a clear relative of Riddle 37. “Children of the bellows”…now if that isn’t a good title for some Old English riddle-inspired erotic fan fic, then I don’t know what is.
References and Suggested Reading:
Glorie, F., ed. Variae Collectiones Aenigmatum Merovingicae Aetatis. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vol. 133-133A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968.
Murphy, Patrick J. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2011, esp. pages 215-19.
Oliphant, Robert T. The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary. The Hague: Mouton, 1966.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english riddle 37
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