Exeter Riddle 44
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Thu 27 Aug 2015Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 44
Wrætlic hongað bi weres þeo,
frean under sceate. Foran is þyrel.
Bið stiþ ond heard. Stede hafað godne.
Þonne se esne his agen hrægl
5 ofer cneo hefeð, wile þæt cuþe hol
mid his hangellan heafde gretan
þæt he efenlang ær oft gefylde.
A wondrous thing hangs by a man’s thigh,
under its lord’s clothing. In front there is a hole.
It stands stiff and hard. It has a good home.
When the servant raises his own garment
5 up over his knee, he wants to greet
with his dangling head that well-known hole,
of equal length, which he has often filled before.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 112v 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 204-5.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 42: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 96.
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