Exeter Riddle 55
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Wed 21 Sep 2016Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 55
Riddle 55’s translation is by Franziska Wenzel from Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Franziska is currently writing a PhD on the Exeter Book riddles, their Latin counterparts and narratological theory.
Ic seah in healle, þær hæleð druncon,
on flet beran feower cynna,
wrætlic wudutreow ond wunden gold,
sinc searobunden, ond seolfres dæl
5 ond rode tacn, þæs us to roderum up
hlædre rærde, ær he helwara
burg abræce. Ic þæs beames mæg
eaþe for eorlum æþelu secgan;
þær wæs hlin ond acc ond se hearda iw
10 ond se fealwa holen; frean sindon ealle
nyt ætgædre, naman habbað anne,
wulfheafedtreo, þæt oft wæpen abæd
his mondryhtne, maðm in healle,
goldhilted sweord. Nu me þisses gieddes
15 ondsware ywe, se hine on mede
wordum secgan hu se wudu hatte.
I saw in the hall, where the warriors drink,
four different kinds carried onto the floor,
a wondrous forest-tree and twisted gold,
a cunningly bound treasure, and some silver
5 and the sign of the cross of him who
raised a ladder for us up to the skies, before he
conquered the stronghold of the hell-dwellers. I can
easily speak before men of the tree’s nobility:
there was maple and oak and the hard yew
10 and the tawny holly. All of them
together are useful to a lord; they have one name,
wolf’s-head-tree, that often obtained a weapon,
for its lord, treasure in the hall,
a gold-hilted sword. Now reveal to me
15 the answer of this song, he who has the courage
to say with words how the wood is called.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 114r 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 208.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 53: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 100-1.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 55
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