Exeter Riddle 74
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Mon 12 Feb 2018Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 74
Riddle 74’s translation is by returning guest contributor James Paz, lecturer in early medieval literature at the University of Manchester. Welcome back, James!
Ic wæs fæmne geong, feaxhar cwene,
ond ænlic rinc on ane tid;
fleah mid fuglum ond on flode swom,
deaf under yþe dead mid fiscum,
ond on foldan stop, hæfde ferþ cwicu.
I was a young girl, a grey-haired woman,
and a singular warrior at the same time;
I soared with the birds and swam in the water,
dove under the waves, dead among the fish,
and stepped on land. I held a living spirit.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 126v 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 234.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 72: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 109.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 74 james paz
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