Exeter Riddle 37
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Wed 01 Apr 2015Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 37
Ic þa wihte geseah; womb wæs on hindan
þriþum aþrunten. Þegn folgade,
mægenrofa man, ond micel hæfde
gefered þæt hit felde, fleah þurh his eage.
5 Ne swylteð he symle, þonne syllan sceal
innað þam oþrum, ac him eft cymeð
bot in bosme, blæd biþ aræred;
he sunu wyrceð, bið him sylfa fæder.
I saw that being; its belly was in the back
greatly swollen. A servant followed it,
a mighty, strong man, and the great one had
brought forth what filled it; it flew through its eye.
5 He does not die continually, when he has to give
his insides to the other, but there comes again from him
a remedy in the breast, breath is raised up;
he makes sons, he is his own father.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 109v 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 198-9.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 35: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 89-90.
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