Exeter Riddle 24
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Tue 03 Jun 2014Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 24
Righto, folks…we’ve got runes again this week. If you can’t see the runes in the Old English riddle below, scroll down for a screen shot at the bottom of the post.
Ic eom wunderlicu wiht, wræsne mine stefne,
hwilum beorce swa hund, hwilum blæte swa gat,
hwilum græde swa gos, hwilum gielle swa hafoc,
hwilum ic onhyrge þone haswan earn,
5 guðfugles hleoþor, hwilum glidan reorde
muþe gemæne, hwilum mæwes song,
þær ic glado sitte. . ᚷ. mec nemnað,
swylce . ᚫ. ond . ᚱ. . ᚩ. fullesteð,
. ᚻ. ond . ᛁ . Nu ic haten eom
10 swa þa siex stafas sweotule becnaþ.
I am a wondrous creature, I vary my voice,
sometimes I bark like a dog, sometimes I bleat like a goat,
sometimes I bellow like a goose, sometimes I yell like a hawk,
sometimes I echo the ashy eagle,
5 the noise of the war-bird, sometimes the voice of the kite
I convey from my mouth, sometimes the gull’s song,
where I sit gladly. G they call me,
likewise Æ and R. O helps,
H and I. Now I am named
10 as those six characters clearly connote.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 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 192-3.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 22: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 82.
Screen shot for the runes:
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anglo saxon
exeter book
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old english
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riddle 24
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