Exeter Riddle 44

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 27 Aug 2015
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 44
Original text:

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.

Translation:

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.

Click to show riddle solution?
Key and lock, Phallus, Dagger sheath


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.



Tags: anglo saxon  exeter book  riddles  old english  solutions  riddle 44 

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