Exeter Riddle 92
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Wed 02 Dec 2020Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 92
Judy Kendall, Reader in English and Creative Writing at Salford University, returns with a translation of Riddle 92.
Original text:
Ic wæs brunra beot, beam on holte,
freolic feorhbora ond foldan wæstm,
weres wynnstaþol ond wifes sond,
gold on geardum. Nu eom guðwigan
hyhtlic hildewæpen, hringe beg...
...e... byreð,
oþrum.Translation:
I was the boast of red-brown things, a bough in a forest
flourishing life-giver and fruit of the soil
stock of man’s merry-making and woman’s love missive
gold at the hearth. Now I am a hero’s
exultant battle-arm, with a ring
bears,
to another.Beech, Beech-wood Shield, Beech Battering Ram, Ash, Book, Oak
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 130r 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 241.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 88: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 118.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions judy kendall riddle 92