Exeter Riddle 86

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Tue 06 Aug 2019
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 86
Original text:

Wiht cwom gongan         þær weras sæton
monige on mæðle,         mode snottre;
hæfde an eage         ond earan twa,
ond II fet,         XII hund heafda,
hrycg ond wombe         ond honda twa,
earmas ond eaxle,         anne sweoran
ond sidan twa.         Saga hwæt ic hatte.

Translation:

A creature came walking to where men sat
many in a meeting, wise in mind;
it had one eye and two ears,
and two feet, twelve hundred heads,
a back and a belly and two hands,
arms and shoulders, one neck
and two sides. Say what I am called.

Click to show riddle solution?
One-eyed Seller of Garlic (yes, really…)


Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 128v-129r 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 238.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 82: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 115.



Tags: anglo saxon  exeter book  riddles  old english  solutions  riddle 86 

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