Riddle Ages

Exeter Riddle 5

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Tue 09 Apr 2013

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 5

Original text:

Ic eom anhaga         iserne wund,

bille gebennad,         beadoweorca sæd,

ecgum werig.         Oft ic wig seo,

frecne feohtan.         Frofre ne wene,

5     þæt me geoc cyme         guðgewinnes,

ær ic mid ældum         eal forwurðe,

ac mec hnossiað         homera lafe,

heardecg heoroscearp,         hondweorc smiþa,

bitað in burgum;         ic abidan sceal

10     laþran gemotes.         Næfre læcecynn

on folcstede         findan meahte,

þara þe mid wyrtum         wunde gehælde,

ac me ecga dolg         eacen weorðað

þurh deaðslege         dagum ond nihtum.

Translation:

I am a lone-dweller, wounded by iron,

savaged by a sword, worn out by war-deeds,

battered by blades. Often I see battle,

fraught fighting. I do not expect succour,

5     that relief from war might come to me,

before I perish utterly among men,

but the leavings of hammers lash me,

hard-edged and sword-sharp, handiwork of smiths,

they bite me in strongholds; I must wait for

10     the more hateful encounter. Never am I able

to find medic-kin in the dwelling-place,

those who might heal my wound with herbs,

but the scars of swords become wider on me

through a death-blow by day and by night.

Click to show riddle solution?

Shield (most widely supported), Chopping Block, Guilt

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 102v 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 183-4.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 3: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 71.

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 5

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Tue 09 Apr 2013

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 5

This riddle is most commonly solved as "shield" and this is the solution I’m adopting here. The shield is one of the most common accessories of the protagonists of heroic poetry (see for example the importance of this piece of battle-equipment in poems like Beowulf or The Battle of Maldon) and as such is one of the most important symbols of this social world. In this riddle, the usual connotations are subverted. While the poem uses the common associations of the shield with swords (ecg, bill) and battle (wig, beadoweorc), the shield is cast in the role of an exile, as suggested by the poetic term anhaga, familiar to readers of Old English poetry from the first line of The Wanderer (Oft him anhaga are gebideð…, "Often the solitary man himself experiences favour…"), a poem which explores the mental landscape of somebody who is no longer a part of the heroic social world (full translation here). It may for example also be considered significant that the shield cannot find any security in the burg, the "stronghold," a word that is etymologically and semantically connected to other words relating to "safety" in Old English.


Here’s a reconstructed Viking shield from the Barrow-in-Furness Dock Museum.

Like the main character of The Wanderer, the shield is unable to do anything about what’s happening to it – note that it talks about the things being done to it, with me as the object of the sentences in the middle of the poem and the final two lines. Where the shield is the subject, the verbs are not ones of action (seo: "I see"; forwurðe: "I perish"; findan meahte: "I might find"). As we have already seen in some of the other riddles, the shield – an inanimate object – speaks in the first person (a literary technique known as "prosopopeia"). Through this, the shield to a certain extent takes on the persona of a human warrior, scarred by many battles and left without companions.
The riddle therefore plays with several aspects of the shield’s identity: it is a heroic object, used in potentially glorious battles, but its essentially defensive nature means it’s less glamorous than an active, attacking weapon like a sword – it has things done to it and can do nothing to change its fate. Like the exiles whose plight is evoked in the Old English elegies, the description of the shield shows what one might call the flipside of the heroic world: the scars, the injuries, the grittiness of battle, the potential for the individual to be left without help or companionship.

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Exeter Riddle 5

Exeter Riddle 6

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Thu 25 Apr 2013

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 6

Original text:

Mec gesette soð         sigora waldend

Crist to compe.        Oft ic cwice bærne,

unrimu cyn         eorþan getenge,

næte mid niþe,         swa ic him no hrine,

5     þonne mec min frea         feohtan hateþ.

Hwilum ic monigra         mod arete,

hwilum ic frefre         þa ic ær winne on

feorran swiþe;         hi þæs felað þeah,

swylce þæs oþres,         þonne ic eft hyra

10     ofer deop gedreag         drohtað bete.

Translation:

Christ, the true ruler of victories, placed me

in battle. Often I burn the living,

uncounted peoples I oppress upon the earth,

crush them cruelly, when my lord

5     commands me to fight, but I do not touch them.

Sometimes I comfort the mind of many,

sometimes I console those whom I earlier struggled against

from very far away; although they feel it,

just like that other time, when I again

10     improve their way of life above deep tumult.

Click to show riddle solution?

Sun

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 102v-103r 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), page 184.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 4: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 71.

Tags: riddles riddle 6

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 6

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Mon 06 May 2013

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 6

As we have already seen with the other riddles, the poet here employs language familiar from other contexts to show the sun in a new light (if you’ll excuse the pun). In Riddle 5, elegiac exile imagery was transferred to an object intimately associated with the social world of heroic poetry; here, a part of the natural world is described as a warlike thing. Again, the language of the relationship between a lord and his follower is evoked. The emphasis on Christ as commanding the sun also serves to set this riddle very much in a Christian context. This coming together of heroic imagery and Christian themes is something that is quite common in Old English poetry. In this case, for example, some scholars have argued that the dual nature of the sun, which is sometimes pleasant and sometimes painful, reflects the nature of Christ himself – his "warmth" is pleasant to faithful believers and painful to sinners. There is thus a metaphorical focus within the poem that raises it beyond the playful description of a natural object, which is something worth bearing in mind when reading the riddles in general. At any rate, I’m sure we can agree that the riddle shows a certain early medieval ambiguity about the sun (which some might say has persisted up to the present day).
In the manuscript, the text of the riddle is followed by a single rune, usually taken as representing the letter "s" and standing for Old English sigel or possibly Latin sol. Both of these words mean "sun," so the rune might be a further hint towards the solution of the riddle. We will come back to runes with some of the other riddles.


Photo (by Jessie Eastland) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0).

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 6

Exeter Riddle 10

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Thu 25 Apr 2013

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 10

Original text:

Neb wæs min on nearwe,         ond ic neoþan wætre,

flode underflowen,         firgenstreamum

swiþe besuncen,         ond on sunde awox

ufan yþum þeaht,         anum getenge

5     liþendum wuda         lice mine.

Hæfde feorh cwico,         þa ic of fæðmum cwom

brimes ond beames         on blacum hrægle;

sume wæron hwite         hyrste mine,

þa mec lifgende         lyft upp ahof,

10     wind of wæge,         siþþan wide bær

ofer seolhbaþo.         Saga hwæt ic hatte.

Translation:

My nose was in a tight spot, and I beneath the water,

underflowed by the flood, sunk deep

into the ocean-waves, and in the sea grew

covered with waves from above, my body

5     touching a floating piece of wood.

I had living spirit, when I came out of the embrace

of water and wood in a black garment,

some of my trappings were white,

then the air lifted me, living, up,

10     wind from the water, then carried me far

over the seal’s bath. Say what I am called.

Click to show riddle solution?

Barnacle goose

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 103v 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 185-6.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 8: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 73.

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 10

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Thu 08 Aug 2013

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 10

While the solutions that have been proposed for this riddle range from "alchemy" and "baptism" to "bubble" and "water lily," the most commonly accepted solution is "barnacle goose" (Old English byrnete). This puts this riddle in line with the preceding bird riddles – once again the bird speaks of itself in the first person and tells the audience of its particular identifying characteristic: in this case, the genesis of the bird from wood and water. It was commonly believed in medieval times that barnacle geese were somehow grown from the barnacle shells that cling to driftwood floating in the sea. In fact, the word "barnacle" stems from the name for the bird rather than the other way around! And while this folk belief in the origin of the barnacle goose pops up a lot in the later Middle Ages, this riddle is in fact the earliest evidence that people thought this. Dieter Bitterli, whose work on the bird riddles has already been mentioned in some of the other commentaries, suggests that this myth may have originated in Britain where the arctic barnacle geese spend the winter and was handed down over generations to the authors of later medieval zoology text books.

The process of the birth of the barnacle goose is somewhat obscurely referred to in lines 4b-5 (with the bird’s body "touching" a floating piece of wood) and in the first half-line, which might allude to the bird’s hanging from the piece of wood by its beak, thus obtaining nourishment. Another characteristic is the "black garment" with "white trappings" which the speaker describes (see below for visual proof of this, though there are probably many other creatures to whom this might apply!). And barnacle geese are indeed "carried widely over the seal’s bath" – they breed on islands in the North Atlantic and come south to winter in Great Britain and the Netherlands (nothing like a balmy British winter to take the chill off…).


A goose! Photo (by Andrey) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY 2.0).

One interesting expression in this riddle is the feorh cwico of l. 6. I’ve translated this as "living spirit," but Leslie Lockett discusses feorh as meaning something more like "life-force," something that has to enter a thing to give it life – even one born from wood and water (page 44)! If you look back at Riddle 9, the cuckoo likewise explains that it did not have feorh when it was in the egg, so it’s something that comes with being born. And like the cuckoo, which was covered in a protective garment, the barnacle goose is protected by water which allows it to grow and become lifgende.
For those of you who might now be worrying that early medieval folks were a bit obsessed by birds, stay tuned for the next post’s change in direction.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Lockett, Leslie. Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 10

Exeter Riddle 13

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Thu 12 Sep 2013

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 13

Original text:

Ic seah turf tredan,      X wæron ealra,

VI gebroþor      ond hyra sweostor mid;

hæfdon feorg cwico.      Fell hongedon

sweotol ond gesyne      on seles wæge

5     anra gehwylces.      Ne wæs hyra ængum þy wyrs,

ne siðe þy sarre,      þeah hy swa sceoldon

reafe birofene,      rodra weardes

meahtum aweahte,      muþum slitan

haswe blede.      Hrægl bið geniwad

10     þam þe ær forðcymene      frætwe leton

licgan on laste,      gewitan lond tredan.

Translation:

I saw them walk on the ground, there were ten of them in all,

six brothers and their sisters with them;

they had living spirits. The skins of each of them hung

clear and visible on the walls

5     of the hall. It was not worse for any of them,

nor the journey more grievous, though thus they,

bereft of their clothing, awoken through the might

of heaven’s guardian, were compelled to tear with their mouths

the dusky harvest. The garments are renewed

10     for them who, before having come forth, left their trappings

lying in their wake, they depart to walk on the ground.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ten chickens (this is the generally accepted one), ten pheasants, butterfly cocoon, alphabet, moth, fingers and gloves

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 104r 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), page 187.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 11: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 74-5.

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 13

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Tue 08 Oct 2013

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 13

Having moved into the realm of four-footed animals with Riddle 12, we now leave the oxen to plough his lone furrow and return – supposedly – to the realm of birds. That being said, we immediately encounter the riddle’s first paradox: both the first and last half line refer to the riddle object’s ability to walk or tread (tredan) on the ground (turf and lond). However, some of the motifs used in this riddle may be familiar by now: the feorg cwico (living spirit) mentioned in line 3 takes us back to Riddles 9, 10 and 12 and strongly suggests that we are dealing with an animal. The hrægl of line 9 recalls the swan’s feathers being described by the same term back in Riddle 7. And thus, the argument goes, we are dealing with a kind of bird. At the centre of the riddle is again the transformation that this creature undergoes, when it is awoken through God’s might and gains its living spirit. However, the riddler wants us to puzzle over a more serious paradox: what kind of creature lives, walks and eats even though its skin is hanging on the wall? And who are the six brothers and four sisters of the first two lines? 

Early solutions to this riddle focused on the transformation aspect and suggested, for example, a caterpillar which metamorphoses into a butterfly. But I’m sure you’ll agree that this does not really cover all the clues the riddle gives us. A more metaphorical solution was that of ten fingers in a glove (which accounts for the numerological clue and gloves were made out of a fell or skin, but the second part of the riddle doesn’t really fit the metaphor). It was the German scholar Moritz Trautmann who first hit upon the solution of "chick" or "chicken." This quickly gained general acceptance as it matches something we know from the real world: in this reading, the "skin on the wall" is the membrane on the inside of the egg that a newly-hatched chick leaves behind, its "renewed" garment is its new down. Furthermore, the idea of the chick shedding its skin as its distinctive aspect seems to have been part of a wider riddle tradition. There are several Latin riddles that play on this phenomenon; in fact most of them are boiled down (the pun is courtesy of Martha Bayless, who edited one of these Latin riddles) to a couple of lines or so but they all mention the shedding of the skin. On the other hand, one of our readers, Linden Currie, suggests that the "skin hanging on the wall" may in fact refer to the caul of a new-born calf which was used in early medieval Iceland to cover the window-holes in houses when stretched over a frame and made translucent to let light in. Might we not imagine something similar for early medieval England? Such an object, Linden argues, could easily be described as sweotol in the sense of "transparent" as well as "visible" (gesyne). And would the description of something "treading the ground" not fit a calf better than a chicken? Such a solution would also yoke (or yolk?) this riddle to its predecessor.*

At any rate, I hear you cry, what of the six brothers and four sisters? Back in 1950, Erika von Erhardt-Siebold hit on an ingenious solution to this part: she suggested that the answer to the riddle in Old English is ten ciccenu or "ten chickens." Now count the number of consonants and vowels in this phrase and what do you get? Six…and four! Brilliant! Only…the word ciccenu doesn’t really exist in Old English, at least in the texts we have. The standard Old English (or West Saxon) version of this word would be cicenu which ruins our nice solution (and it should really be tien, but we won’t mention that). But we can’t rule out that this is a possible Northern spelling, and nobody has really come up with a better solution – the most recent commentators also accept it, though Patrick Murphy is slightly unhappy with the fact that the "ten" of the answer refers both to the number of chickens in the solution and to the letters in the "name" of the solution (though this is again not unknown in medieval riddle tradition in general). 

 
Ten chickens! What are the chances of finding a photo with the right number? Image from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0).

Murphy has also pointed out that this riddle may evoke other associations: some creatures who lose their garments, are "awoken" by their creator and have to walk the earth and are forced to eat what they can get through their own toil? I hope you’ve realised this is of course the story of Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden. Murphy finds some parallels between the language of this riddle and Old English poetic versions of the Edenic story. Somebody who focuses on this allusive metaphorical reading might come up with the solution Adam ond Eue – and if we count the consonants and vowels there…I assume you can guess what the answer is. Murphy is not necessarily disputing the accepted solution but it is a reminder that it is worth keeping in mind that riddles can work on several levels.

By the way, despite all this work, there are some bits in the riddle that have so far defied solution, in particular the haswe blede of line 9. Both of these words have a range of meanings – if we look at the work of previous translators and commentators, the average meaning is something like "grey(ish) fruit," though nobody has been able to come up with a convincing explanation beyond "the stuff that new-born chicks eat" – which, like greyish fruit, is slightly unsatisfying. Any thoughts on this (and anything else) would be welcome in the comments!
Not wishing to overegg the pudding, I have chickened out of giving you the full arguments, but if you want to brood on it a bit more, here are some references you can follow up on:

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Bitterli, Dieter. Say What I am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009, pages 115-21.

Murphy, Patrick J. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011, pages 53-60 and 91-95.

von Erhardt-Siebold, Erika. “Old English Riddle 13.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 65 (1950), pages 97-100.

Williamson, Craig, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1977, pages 168-70.

*If you want to know more details, Linden can be contacted under linden.currie(at)gmail.com.

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Exeter Riddle 16

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Thu 21 Nov 2013

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 16

Original text:

Oft ic sceal wiþ wæge winnan      ond wiþ winde feohtan

somod wið þam sæcce,      þonne ic secan gewite

eorþan yþum þeaht;      me biþ se eþel fremde.

Ic beom strong þæs gewinnes,      gif ic stille weorþe;

5     gif me þæs tosæleð,      hi beoð swiþran þonne ic

ond mec slitende      sona flymað,

willað oþfergan      þæt ic friþian sceal.

Ic him þæt forstonde,      gif min steort þolað

ond mec stiþne wiþ      stanas moton

10     fæste gehabban.      Frige hwæt ic hatte.

Translation:

Often I must struggle against the waves, and fight against the wind,

war against them both together, then I endeavour to seek out

the ground covered by waves; the land is alien to me.

I am strong in that fight, if I become still;

5     if it should go wrong for me, they will be stronger than I,

and, ripping, will straightaway put me to flight,

they want to ferry away what I am meant to protect.

I prevent them from that, if my end endures

and stones are able to keep me fixed

10     resolutely fast. Figure out what I am called.

Click to show riddle solution?

Anchor

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 104v-105r 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 188-9.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 14: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 77.

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 16

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Tue 24 Dec 2013

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 16

Happily (or boringly, you decide), this is one of the few riddles for which there is little to no argument about the solution. Ever since Franz Dietrich proposed "anchor" in the 19th century, people have looked at it, nodded appreciatively and moved on. So, what can we say about it? Well, first of all, it’s (presumably) based on a Latin riddle by a chap called Symphosius (whose name literally means "party-er" – which is not only cool in and of itself but may also give us a hint about when riddles might have been performed), though the Old English riddler expands on the original. So, for example, the anchor (an inanimate object) speaks of itself as if it were a living creature – it has a steort (which I have translated as"‘end" but can also mean "tail") and, as Dieter Bitterli puts it, strives against wind water like a restless exile or a wild beast (page 101). The paradox is that despite these struggles it remains stiff and still, a description that tells us that it’s probably not an actual living thing.


A reconstruction of an early medieval anchor from Poland from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0).

But let’s look a bit more carefully at this riddle. Like a lot of Old English riddles, this one can be read on two levels – on the one hand we have the literal solution of "anchor," an everyday object, but on the other we can again draw comparisons with the character of the exile in Old English poetry (such as in The Wanderer, which we have already referred to in Riddle 4). The exile has been cast out of his homeland which has become alien to him (compare line 4 – eþel usually specifically means "homeland"). He yearns for stability in his life because the transience and constant movement of his restless earthly existence seem horrible to him. What he wants is a place of security, something fixed and unchanging – which he can ultimately only find with God in the afterlife. But like the anchor striving against the elements, he needs to resist the pulls of worldly possessions and enjoyments because they want to "ferry away what he is meant to protect," i.e. his soul and spirit. He needs to find a place where he can be still and fastened to something, otherwise the "bad things" will be stronger than him and overcome him. In this way, what looks like a fairly straightforward riddle about an object that would have been familiar to many early medieval folks becomes a metaphorical description of the trials of an individual soul, anchored in faith.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Bitterli, Dieter. Say What I am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Jember, Gregory K. “Literal and Metaphorical: Clues to Reading the Old English Riddles.” Studies in English Literature (Tokyo), vol. 65 (1988), pages 47-56.

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Exeter Riddle 16

Exeter Riddle 18

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Mon 06 Jan 2014

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 18

Original text:

Ic eom wunderlicu wiht;      ne mæg word sprecan,

mældan for monnum,      þeah ic muþ hæbbe,

wide wombe

Ic wæs on ceole      ond mines cnosles ma.

Translation:

I am a strange creature, I cannot speak words,

nor talk with men, although I have a mouth,

and a broad belly.

I was on a boat with more of my kin.

Click to show riddle solution?

Jug, Amphora, Cask, Leather bottle, Inkhorn, Phallus

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 105r 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), page 189.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 16: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 78.

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Exeter Riddle 22

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Mon 21 Apr 2014

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 22

Original text:

Ætsomne cwom      LX monna

to wægstæþe      wicgum ridan;

hæfdon XI      eoredmæcgas

fridhengestas,      IIII sceamas.

5     Ne meahton magorincas      ofer mere feolan,

swa hi fundedon,      ac wæs flod to deop,

atol yþa geþræc,      ofras hea,

streamas stronge.      Ongunnon stigan þa

on wægn weras      ond hyra wicg somod

10     hlodan under hrunge;      þa þa hors oðbær

eh ond eorlas,      æscum dealle,

ofer wætres byht      wægn to lande,

swa hine oxa ne teah      ne esna mægen

ne fæthengest,      ne on flode swom,

15     ne be grunde wod      gestum under,

ne lagu drefde,      ne on lyfte fleag,

ne under bæc cyrde;      brohte hwæþre

beornas ofer burnan      ond hyra bloncan mid

from stæðe heaum,      þæt hy stopan up

20     on oþerne,      ellenrofe,

weras of wæge,      ond hyra wicg gesund.

Translation:

Together 60 men came

riding to the bank on horses;

11 horsemen had

noble steeds, 4 had white ones.

5     The warriors could not pass over the water,

as they intended, but the sea was too deep,

the terrible tumult of the waves, the banks too high,

the streams too strong. Then the men began

to climb up on the wagon together with their horses,

10     to load under the pole; then the wagon carried the horses,

mounts and men, proud in spears,

to land across the bay of the water,

in such a way that no ox pulled it, nor the strength of slaves,

nor a draught horse, nor did it swim on the water,

15     nor did it wade along the ground under its guests,

nor did it disturb the waters, nor fly in the air,

nor turned back; nevertheless it brought

the warriors over the stream, and their horses with them

from the high bank, so that they stepped up

20     onto the other, strong in courage,

the men from the waves, and also their horses, unharmed.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ursa Major, (days of the) month, bridge, New Year, stars

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 106r-106v 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 191-2.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 20: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 80-1.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 22

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Exeter Riddle 29

MATTHIASAMMON

Date: Fri 26 Sep 2014

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 29

Original text:

Ic wiht geseah      wundorlice

hornum bitweonum      huþe lædan,

lyftfæt leohtlic,      listum gegierwed,

huþe to þam ham      of þam heresiþe;

5     walde hyre on þære byrig      bur atimbran

searwum asettan,      gif hit swa meahte.

Ða  cwom wundorlicu wiht      ofer wealles hrof,

seo is eallum cuð      eorðbuendum,

ahredde þa þa huþe      ond to ham bedraf

10     wreccan ofer willan,      gewat hyre west þonan

fæhþum feran,      forð onette.

Dust stonc to heofonum,      deaw feol on eorþan,

niht forð gewat.      Nænig siþþan

wera gewiste      þære wihte sið.

Translation:

I saw a creature wondrously

carrying spoils between its horns,

a bright air-vessel, skillfully adorned,

the spoils to its home from the war-journey,

5     it wanted to build for itself a dwelling in that stronghold,

skilfully set it, if it could.

Then a wondrous creature came over the roof of the wall,

it is known to all earth-dwellers,

it liberated the spoils and drove the stranger

10     back to its home against its will, it departed west from there

going in strife, it hastened forth.

Dust rose to the heavens, dew fell on the earth,

the night departed. Afterwards none of men

knew the journey of that creature.

Click to show riddle solution?

Sun and moon, swallow and sparrow, cloud and wind, bird and wind

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 107v-108r 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), page 195.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 27: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 85.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 29

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