Exeter Riddle 81
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Thu 27 Sep 2018Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 81
Judy Kendall, Reader in English and Creative Writing at Salford University, returns with a translation of Riddle 81.
Ic eom byledbreost, belcedsweora,
heafod hæbbe ond heane steort,
eagan ond earan ond ænne foot,
hrycg ond heardnebb, hneccan steapne
ond sidan twa, sag[ol]* on middum,
eard ofer ældum. Aglac dreoge,
þær mec wegeð se þe wudu hrereð,
ond mec stondende streamas beatað,
hægl se hearda, ond hrim þeceð,
[.]orst […..]eoseð, ond fealleð snaw
on þyrelwombne, ond ic þæt [.]ol[………..
………..] mæ[.] wonsceaft mine.
I am bulging-breasted, big-throated;
I have a head and my tail is elevated,
eyes and ears and a single leg,
a spine and stiff beak, a stretched-out neck
and two sides, with a stake up the middle,
my place set high above the people. I put up with the strain
when that which shakes the wood strikes me,
and streaming rain sluices over me standing,
harsh hail and rime hood me
frost grips, and snow falls
on my hollow stomach; and I so …
….… measured my misfortune
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 127v 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 235.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 77: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 111.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 81 judy kendall
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