Exeter Riddle 89
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Fri 30 Oct 2020Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 89
Our guest riddler this week is Calum Cockburn, Digitisation Officer of Medieval Manuscripts at the British Library and PhD Student at University College London. He's especially interested in Hellish motifs in early medieval art and literature (who wouldn’t be?!).
Original text:
[………………………………] se wiht,
wombe hæfde [……………….
………..]tne, leþre wæs beg[…….
………………………]on hindan.
Grette wea[…………………..
………………...] listum worhte,
hwilum eft [……………………
………..…] þygan, him þoncade,
siþþan u[………………………
….] swæsendum swylce þrage.Translation:
[………………………………] the creature
had a belly [……………….
………..] in leather, he was […….
………………………] behind
He approached […………………..
………………...] artfully he made
once again [……………………
………..…] to receive, thanked him
then [………………………
….] food, for such a time.Too fragmentary to guess, though Bellows and Leather Bottle have been tentatively suggested
Notes:
This riddle appears on folio 129v 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 240.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 85: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 117.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 89 calum cockburn