Riddle Ages

Aldhelm Riddle 56: Castor

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Hospes praeruptis habitans in margine ripis

Non sum torpescens, oris sed belliger armis,

Quin potius duro vitam sustento labore

Grossaque prosternens mox ligna securibus uncis;

Humidus in fundo, tranat qua piscis, aquoso

Saepe caput proprium tingens in gurgite mergo.

Vulnera fibrarum necnon et lurida tabo

Membra medens pestemque luemque resolvo necantem;

Libris corrosis et cortice vescor amara.

Translation:

A guest living on the edge of steep banks,

I am not sluggish, but am instead a warrior with weapon-teeth;

Moreover, I maintain my life with hard work

And fell large forests directly with these curved axes;

To the watery bottom through which swims the wet fish 

Often I, dipping, plunge my own head in the waters.

Healing internal wounds as well as limbs stinking 

With gore, I destroy both disease and deadly plague;

I am fed on gnawed bark and bitter rind.

Click to show riddle solution?

Beaver

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 56: Caliga

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Maior eram longe quondam, dum vita manebat;

Sed nunc exanimis lacerata ligata revulsa

Dedita sum terrae, tumulo sed condita non sum.

Translation:

I was once much bigger, when life remained;

But now lifeless, lacerated, bound, removed,

I am given to the earth, but I am not hidden in a grave.

Click to show riddle solution?

Boot

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 56

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Fri 14 Oct 2016

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 56

I love Riddle 56 for many, many, many, many, many, many reasons, and I’ve been working on it on and off for about eight years, so BE PREPARED for me to unleash my inner geek. Disclaimer: this inner geek is possibly not quite as well hidden as I sometimes believe it to be. At least I’m self-aware.

So. Riddle 56. Why do I love it so much? Well, one of the reasons is that it’s very hard to solve without knowledge of early medieval material culture and craft. And the harder to solve ones are always more fun, non? The reason we need a bit of insight into early medieval craft is because the two most convincing solutions are Loom and Lathe.

“Tell us more, Megan,” I hear you cry! And I will. Oooooooh, I will.

Let’s start with Loom. One of the main types of weaving looms that early medieval folks used is called the warp-weighted loom (sounds ominous!). Here’s what it would’ve looked like.



Drawing of a loom from Montelius’s Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times, p. 160, via Roth’s Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms, p. 34



Reconstructed loom on display at a Viking craft fair in York, 2010

This sort of loom would’ve stood upright and likely leaned against a wall. It had a large number of vertical threads – together referred to as the “warp” – dangling down to where they were tied in bunches. These threads would be tied not just to each other, but also to clay weights, which kept tension in the threads. Why so tense? Well, the weaver would be hard at work rapidly pulling and pushing the threads forward and backward by means of a horizontal bar partway down the front of the loom (known as a “heddle rod”). When one group of threads was pulled forward, the weaver would insert the horizontal (weft) threads. Then she’d push that lot back and insert the weft thread through a second batch of warp-threads. The tension stops the threads from getting all stuck together and ensures some easy peasy weaving (weavy?). The weights, by the way, often looked like doughnuts. I’m not even joking. Behold some doughnut-like weights!:



Photo of early medieval loom weights at Bedford Museum from Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Doughnutty loom-weights aside, how does this sort of loom map onto the action of Riddle 56? Let’s start with the struggling creature: that appears to be the cloth mid-production. Its swinging and fixed feet seem to be the two separate groups of warp-threads (i.e. the ones pulled back and forth, and the ones that stay hanging at the back). The turning wood is probably a bar holding the finished fabric, which could be rotated to allow for weaving a longer piece of cloth than the actual size of the loom would normally allow.

There’s plenty of room to interpret this set-up as a bit torture-y, and John D. Niles has argued for this very assessment when analysing Old English descriptions of devices for hanging and stretching criminals (pages 61-84). And, of course, all those references to darts and bound wood that together inflict heaþoglemma (battle-wounds) and deopra dolga (deep gashes) in lines 3-4 of the riddle point quite clearly to a context of physical pain and punishment. This is helped along by the fact that the weaver would use a wooden or sometimes iron sword-shaped beater (or batten) to thwack the woven threads up and into place, as well as small picks to straighten out the occasional stubborn patch. Several surviving beaters were actually fashioned out of blunt swords or spear-heads (Walton Rogers, pages 33-4). So, there are definitely some violent undertones to textile-making.



Photo of a 9th-century sword beater from the Portable Antiquities Scheme (license CC BY 2.0).

In the Old Norse tradition, this violence is very noticeable. The poem Darraðarljóð (which can be found in Njáls saga) describes in great and gruesome detail a group of Valkyries weaving on a loom made from human body-parts. Likewise, Jómsvíkinga saga involves a dream sequence of the same sort. Their loom weights aren’t delicious doughnuts at all, but severed heads. Which is obviously gross.

All this means that violence is part and parcel of at least some northern medieval textile traditions. The question is, then, am I just a warped individual (get the pun? get it? get it?) or do I have a more nuanced reason for being attracted to Riddle 56, this most violent of riddles?

Well, I like to believe the latter is true. I personally think the combination of creative construction and violent destruction makes this riddle absolutely fascinating. Even if we don’t take the thing-being-made as a textile (some people have problems with that tree at the end of the poem, though it’s also been explained as a distaff standing near the loom, like in the drawing above), we’re certainly dealing with a riddle that describes a craft. And imagining a skilled craftsperson as a violent tormentor is, frankly, solid gold to anyone interested in ecocriticism (i.e. approaching literary texts by focusing on their representation of the natural world). Whether this is wool or flax twisted into a new shape – or whether it’s a completely different, wooden object – the raw material would once have been a part of the early medieval environment.

Which leads me to the second option for the riddle’s solution: Lathe. This is one that I become more and more convinced by each time I read the riddle. I know I’ve spent years talking about the poem in the light of textiles research, but a little part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, the lathe reading works…even better. Here’s a video of a reconstructed pole lathe in process:



So, what we have here is a very clear case of one foot being fixed (i.e. the bit of the wooden pole stuck into the ground) and one swinging (i.e. the bit of the wooden pole that’s pulled and released by the foot treadle). Riddle 56’s reference to turning wood is especially apt, since a lathe is used to rotate wood while the operator shaves and grinds it into a particular shape (this is what’s going on behind the group of onlookers). A metal blade is also an essential part of the process, which explains all those battle-wounds. What do we make of that leafy tree in line 9, though? Well, this could potentially refer to the use of a fresh, green tree, which would be necessary for the lathe to keep its springiness.

And, finally, the creature that’s brought into the hall – well in this case it would be a bowl, cup or another dish made from wood. In the case of the loom, it would be a high-status textile, perhaps an item of clothing or a wall-hanging for decking out the hall. Either would be appropriate in the context of a feast for warriors. But, of course, a cup would add to the drinking party atmosphere in a pretty obvious way.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read many interpretations of this riddle that accept Lathe as the solution. Drawing on the passing suggestion of early riddle-scholars, Hans Pinsker and Waltraud Ziegler solve it this way in their German edition of the riddles, but they don’t go into a great detail (pages 277-8). This is too bad, because I think someone out there could make a real go of this. Maybe it could be you? If so, be sure to get in touch, eh?

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Cavell, Megan. “Looming Danger and Dangerous Looms: Violence and Weaving in Exeter Book Riddle 56.” Leeds Studies in English, vol. 42 (2011), pages 29-42. Online here.

Cavell, Megan. Weaving Words and Binding Bodies: The Poetics of Human Experience in Old English Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016.

Clegg Hyer, Maren. “Riddles of Anglo-Saxon England.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, c. 450–1450. Edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Erhardt-Siebold, Erika von. “The Old English Loom Riddles.” In Philologica: The Malone Anniversary Studies. Edited by Thomas A. Kirkby and Henry Bosley Woolf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1949, pages 9-17.

Montelius, Oscar. Civilisation of Sweden in Heathen Times. Translated by Rev. F.H. Woods. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan, 1888.

Niles, John D. Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

Pinsker, Hans, and Waltraud Ziegler, eds. Die altenglischen Rätsel des Exeterbuchs. Heidelberg: Winter, 1985.

Roth, H. Ling. Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms. Halifax: Bankfield Museum,  1913. Online at Project Gutenberg.

Walton Rogers, Penelope. Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450–700. York: Council for British Archaeology, 2006.

More:

You may also enjoy this conversation with Sharif Adams about Riddle 56 and pole lathes/wood turning on our Youtube channel! Available here.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 56

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Exeter Riddle 57

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 12 Jan 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 57

Today’s translation post is by Michael J. Warren. He has just completed his PhD on birds in medieval English poetry at Royal Holloway, where he is now a visiting lecturer. His new projects continue to focus on animal studies and ecocritical approaches to the natural world. Check out Michael’s blog, The Compleat Birder, here.

Original text:

Ðeos lyft byreð      lytle wihte

ofer beorghleoþa.      Þa sind blace swiþe,

swearte salopade.      Sanges rope

heapum ferað,      hlude cirmað,

tredað bearonæssas,      hwilum burgsalo

niþþa bearna.      Nemnað hy sylfe.

Translation:

The air bears little creatures

over the hillsides. They are very black,

swarthy, dark-coated. Bountiful of song

they journey in groups, cry loudly,

tread the woody headlands, sometimes the town-dwellings

of the sons of men. They name themselves.

Click to show riddle solution?

Swifts, Swallows, Crows, Jackdaws, Starlings, House martins, Letters, Musical notes, Gnats, Stormclouds, Hailstones, Raindrops, Bees, Midges, Damned souls, or Demons

Notes:

There is an interactive Riddle 57 activity available here.

This riddle appears on folios 114r-114v 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 209.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 55: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 101.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 57

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Eusebius Riddle 57: De strutione

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021

Original text:

Infandus volucer sum et nomen habeo Pelasgum.

Et pennas velut usurpans avis, advolo numquam

Altius a terra, et conceptum neglego foetum

Forte fovere meum, sed foetu pulveris ova

Sparsa foventur, vel potius animantur in illo.

Translation:

I am an unspeakable winged thing and I have a Greek name.

Though I pretend to wings like a bird, I never fly

Higher from the ground, and I fail to care for my offspring 

Conceived casually, but by dust’s incubation are the scattered eggs

Kept warm, or rather, in it are they infused with life.

Click to show riddle solution?

On the ostrich

Tags: riddles latin Eusebius

Aldhelm Riddle 57: Aquila

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

“Armiger infausti Iovis et raptor Ganimidis”

Quamquam pellaces cantarent carmine vates,

Non fueram praepes, quo fertur Dardana proles,

Sed magis in summis cicnos agitabo fugaces

Arsantesque grues proturbo sub aetheris axe.

Corpora dum senio corrumpit fessa vetustas,

Fontibus in liquidis mergentis membra madescunt;

Post haec restauror praeclaro lumine Phoebi.

Translation:

“The esquire of unfortunate Jove and abductor of Ganymede” 

Deceitful poets may sing of me in their verses,

But I was not that bird by which the Trojan youth was brought,

Rather, I chase fleeing swans high in the air 

And I drive away rattling cranes beneath the pole of the heavens.

While weary old age destroys my body with decline,

My limbs grow wet, dipped into liquid streams;

After this I am restored by the brilliant light of Phoebus.

Click to show riddle solution?

Eagle

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 57: Clavus caligaris

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

In caput ingredior, quia de pede pendeo solo.

Vertice tango solum, capitis vestigia signo;

Sed multi comites casum patiuntur eundem.

Translation:

I walk on my head because I hang alone from the foot.

With my crown I touch the ground, I mark out traces with my head;

But many fellows suffer the same fate.

Click to show riddle solution?

Hobnail

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 57

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Tue 24 Jan 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 57

This commentary post is once again by Michael J. Warren from Royal Holloway. Take it away, Michael!
 
This has to be my favourite of all the Old English riddles, for two reasons. Firstly, the solution is probably a bird (my specialism), but even more intriguing is the fact that we just don’t know what the solution is. The Exeter Book riddles are renowned, of course, for their enigmatic absence of answers in the manuscript (unlike the various Anglo-Latin examples), but this is one of the few that still lacks a solution with general or near unanimous agreement. Scholars are still debating the possible solutions for this little critter; the only thing most scholars agree on is that the “subject is quite firmly assigned to the category bird” (Barley, page 169).
For John D. Niles, the “most likely self-naming black bird we are ever likely to snare” (page 129) is the crow, but a wide number of avian suspects have been recommended over the years, and various other “flying” answers as well (see the solutions following my translation of this riddle). For starters, then, what this pithy riddle does is demonstrate very nicely how this collection of conundrums is still playing out its effects over a thousand years after the poems were written down: they continue to tease us with a curious blend of obfuscation and illumination. As it turns out, this is something birds characteristically do as well. I like to think it’s no accident that birds are probably the answer to Riddle 57: a devious subject at the heart of a devious genre that continually escapes identification and finality.
Pretty much all European corvid species have been suggested as solutions to Riddle 57, but only jackdaws and rooks habitually gather in groups. Photo (by Bob Jones) of jackdaws from Wikipedia Commons (license: CC BY-SA 2.0).
When we compare the mystery subjects of this Riddle 57 with the other bird riddles (Riddles 7, 8, 9, 10 and 24), there are enough similarities to make me think that some sort of bird must be the answer. These creatures hlude cirmað “cry loudly” (like the nightingale in Riddle 8, line 3b), the lyft byreð “the air bears” the birds in the same way it does the swan (Riddle 7, lines 4b-5a) and barnacle goose (Riddle 10, line 9b), and both the swan and the birds of Riddle 57 tredað “tread” when they alight, inhabiting opposing human and nonhuman territories. These nifty birds also inhabit what I call the “sometimes” motif – hwilum “sometimes” (line 5b) behaviours typify these creatures. As we’ll see below, birds are known for this sort of unpredictability (see Riddle 24’s jay for a whole load of hwilum!).
The final half line also seems like it really should be a clincher: Nemnað hy sylfe. The grammar of this line allows us to read it in two ways: either “Name them yourselves,” which fits the usual instruction from the riddles’ subjects (“Say what I am called”), or the now more popular reading, “They name themselves.” The latter might point us, then, to song as a clue. Certainly in other bird riddles, sound can be an important indicator, and many Old English bird names recorded in the glossaries onomatopoeically mimic song. On this basis, Dieter Bitterli has argued for an etymological tactic for solving the bird riddles: the diversity of the bird’s call in Riddle 8 leads us to nightingale (OE niht “night” + galan “to sing”) as evident in the poem’s synonym æfensceop “evening-singer” (line 5a). Similarly, Riddle 7 leads us to Old English swan (mute swan) through the use of paronomasia (word play on similar sounding words): the various /sw/ words direct us towards the name of the bird and its characteristic wing-music in flight.
Photo of swifts (by Keta) – a popular solution to Riddle 57 – from Wikipedia Commons (license: CC BY-SA 3.0).
Bitterli’s theory is convincing. The problem is that while birds do conveniently sometimes spell out their names for us with their calls, they also have a tendency to transform, obscure and avoid identity. Take Riddle 24, for instance. We know what the answer is here, because it’s spelt out for us in runes which we must translate into Old English (higoræ “jay”), but the most distinctive sonic feature of this bird is that its tell-tale song keeps changing – it’s defined, apparently, according to the fact that it sounds like just about everything else. And birds generally in the Exeter Book riddles are characterised by their continual changing: the swan (Riddle 7) is paradoxically silent and loud, and travels afar. The cuckoo (Riddle 9), also a far-traveller, grows to be a huge bird that far outsizes the nest of its host and its usurped earlier identity, so moving from cuckoo to host-species to cuckoo again. The barnacle goose (Riddle 10) undergoes a remarkable metamorphosis, emerging and deriving from another creature entirely, and, like two other birds, does a disappearing act for half the year. The nightingale (Riddle 8) and jay (Riddle 24) change their voices as they please, also appropriating new identities.
Readers will undoubtedly continue to propose answers to Riddle 57. I’m for swift or swallow as it goes, but, actually, I think this might be beside the point. Perhaps we shouldn’t be in the business of seeking an answer at all. In fact, my point is rather to suggest that these secretive lytle wihte “little creatures” (line 1b) achieve their impact so well because they can’t be identified. This might seem counterintuitive on the face of it, but it’s borne out by other early medieval writings on birds. Indeed, scholars across the medieval period stress that what is most birdy about birds is their transformative abilities. Or to put it another way, what most defines birds is their habit of avoiding definition – they’re intrinsically unknowable in some respects, escapologists.
The most popular encyclopaedist of the late Middle Ages, Bartholomew the Englishman, notes repeatedly that there’s an in between-ness apparent in their very substance, þat beþ bytwene þe tweye elementis þat beþ most heuy and most liȝt (that is between the two elements that are most heavy and most light) (Seymour, page 596). Bartholomew’s immediate source, though, is one of the most influential texts of the early medieval period – Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies. In his introduction to birds, Isidore remarks how “They are called birds (avis) because they do not have set paths (via), but travel by means of pathless (avia) ways” (Barney, page 264). In his commentary on Riddle 51 on this site, Britt Mize makes a great case for the importance of paths or tracks (a motif that occurs in a number of the riddles). In Riddle 51, birds and (inky) paths are associable. As Britt suggests, “a reader, just like a hunter or tracker, must carefully observe and interpret the signs he or she finds, endeavouring to stay with them, going where they lead in pursuit of a goal.”
Page of from Isidore’s Etymologies (8^thcentury), Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, from Wikipedia Commons (public domain)
In Isidore’s statement, however, and in Riddle 57, this pursuit turns out to be rather more complicated. Birds outfly our pursuit, and overwhelm us with their great variety and multitude: “There is a single word for birds, but various kinds, for just as they differ among themselves in appearance, so do they differ also in the diversity of their natures” (Isidore, in Barney, page 263). Names and categories, it is implied, just aren’t sufficient to account for all the bird species that there are, even if we could know them all, which we can’t, because birds can disappear without signe neiþer tokene (sign nor token) (Bartholomew, in Seymour, page 596) – it’s impossible for mankind “to penetrate all the wildernesses of India and Ethiopia and Scythia, so as to know the kinds of birds and their differentiating characteristics” (Isidore, in Barney, page 263). These sentiments are echoed in a 10^th century Latin poem on birdsong:
Quis volucrum species numeret, quis nomina discat?

Mille avium cantus, vocum discrimina mille.

Nec nostrum (fateor) tantas discernere voces.

(De cantibus avium, lines 1-3, in Buecheler and Riese, page 197)
(Whoever counts the types of birds, who learns their names? There are a thousand songs of birds, a thousand different voices. Nor do I, myself, claim to distinguish such voices.)
These sorts of issues seem to me to be at the heart of Riddle 57. The brief description identifies something which is very bird-like (particularly in comparison with the other bird riddles), and yet avoids offering us anything more precise. They force us to inhabit a space somewhere between knowledge and ignorance, just as the birds themselves sometimes dwell with niþþa bearna “the sons of men” (line 6a) and sometimes move beyond our boundaries to the bearonæssas “woody headlands” (lines 5a). Whatever its immediate sources or contexts may have been, Riddle 57 manifests the sorts of anxieties over naming birds and their characteristics evident in texts like Isidore’s – these are birds that apparently name themselves, but (still) can’t be named.
All of this avian mystery points up another potential, related concern of this poem. Birds remind us how frequently these poems cause us to go round in circles: the switchback evasions of the dark birds in Riddle 57 place them firmly in line with an important effect of the Exeter Book riddles’ strategies – they expose the limits of knowledge, even within texts that urge us to exceed limitations and certify uncertainties. In my reading of Riddle 57, then, two important aspects come together – birds and elusive answers – to emphasise the sophistication of these texts that are so often about testing the limits of knowledge. Birds, that is, might actually be employed purposefully in this riddle and in other bird riddles, because like the mysterious and evasive solutions that we’re required to guess at through complex linguistic play, they’re continuously seen to escape definition or certainties.
In her discussion of wonder in the Exeter Book riddles, Patricia Dailey observes that by “forcing us to think through the means of how we come to know the creature described in language,” these texts highlight “a link in epistemological knowing and a limit inscribed in naming” (page 464). In other words, even if we can correctly guess a solution, a name can only get us so far – there is still a gap between the mysterious thing itself and the name we choose to give it; mysteries still exist. Birds, I think, show us this particularly well. In Riddle 57, the grammatical ambiguity of line 6b demands, on the one hand, that we partake in the typical naming game, and on the other states that the birds, in fact, name themselves, neither requiring our intervention (as namers), nor, in fact, allowing us this privilege. Naming birds doesn’t satisfactorily encompass their ever-changing, diverse identities, and particularly not when we can’t saga “say” a name at all.

Editorial note: if you'd like to play with Riddle 57 some more, check out this interactive activity here.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Barley, Nigel F. “Structural Aspects of the Anglo-Saxon Riddle.” Semiotica, vol. 10 (1974), pages 143-75.

Barney, Stephen A., and others, trans. The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Bitterli, Dieter. Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Buecheler, Franciscus, and Alexander Riese, eds. Anthologia Latina, sive Poesis Latinae supplementum. 2 vols. Leipzig: B. G. Teubneri, 1869-1926. Translation from Latin by Virginia Warren.

Dailey, Patricia. “Riddles, Wonder and Responsiveness in Anglo-Saxon Literature.” In The Cambridge History of Early Medieval English Literature. Edited by Clare A. Lees. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pages 451-72.

Krapp, George Philip, and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie, eds. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. 6 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1931-1953.

Niles, John D. Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

Seymour, M. C., and others, ed. On the Properties of Things: John Trevisa’s Translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 57 micheal warren

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Exeter Riddle 58

VICTORIASYMONS

Date: Thu 12 Jan 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 58

Original text:

Ic wat anfete      ellen dreogan

wiht on wonge.      Wide ne fereð,

ne fela rideð,      ne fleogan mæg

þurh scirne dæg,      ne hie scip fereð,

5     naca nægledbord;      nyt bið hwæþre

hyre mondryhtne      monegum tidum.

Hafað hefigne steort,      heafod lytel,

tungan lange,      toð nænigne,

isernes dæl;      eorðgræf pæþeð.

10     Wætan ne swelgeþ      ne wiht iteþ,

foþres ne gitsað,      fereð oft swa þeah

lagoflod on lyfte;      life ne gielpeð,

hlafordes gifum,      hyreð swa þeana

þeodne sinum.      Þry sind in naman

15     ryhte runstafas,      þara is Rad foran.

Translation:

I know a one-footed thing, working with strength,

a creature on the plain. It does not travel far,

nor rides much, nor can it fly

through the bright day, no ship ferries it,

5     no nail-planked boat; it is however a benefit

to its master at many times.

It has a heavy tail, a little head,

a long tongue, not any teeth,

a share of iron; it treads an earth-hole.

10     It swallows no water nor eats a thing,

nor desires food, often however it ferries

a flood into the air; it boasts not of life

of a lord’s gifts, nonetheless it obeys

its own ruler. In its name are three

15     right rune-letters, with ‘rad’ at the front.

Click to show riddle solution?

Well-sweep

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 114v 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 209.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 56: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 101-2.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 58

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Eusebius Riddle 58: De noctua

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021

Original text:

Garrula, nigriferas noctis discurro per umbras,

Vitans luciflui suffundi lumine Phoebi.

Nomen habens furvum, visus habitatus ob ortam

Titanis lucem, at Cretensis tellus habere

Sola nequibit me, potius, aliunde relata,

Extemplo austriferi patior discrimina loeti.

Translation:

Noisy, I run through the night’s dark-bearing shadows,

Avoiding suffusion with the light of shining Phoebus.

I have a nocturnal name, my vision weakened by the rising

Light of Titan, but the land of Crete alone

Will never hold me, but rather, brought here from elsewhere, 

I immediately suffer the crises of violent death brought on the south wind.

Click to show riddle solution?

On the night owl

Tags: riddles latin Eusebius

Aldhelm Riddle 58: Vesper sidus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Tempore de primo noctis mihi nomen adhaesit,

Occiduas mundi complector cardine partes;

Oceano Titan dum corpus tinxerit almum

Et polus in glaucis relabens volvitur undis,

Tum sequor, in vitreis recondens lumina campis

Et fortunatus, subito ni tollar ab aethra,

Ut furvas lumen noctis depelleret umbras.

Translation:

My name sticks because of the early time of night,

When I encircle the western parts at the axis of the world;

While Titan immerses his nourishing body in the ocean,

And the sky, sliding down, is revolved into the grey waves,

Then I follow, hiding my lights in the glassy plains,

And I am fortunate that I am not suddenly removed from the skies,

So that my light may dispel the night’s dark shadows.

Click to show riddle solution?

Evening Star

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 58: Capillus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Findere me nulli possunt, praecidere multi.

Sed sum versicolor, albus quandoque futurus.

Malo manere niger: minus ultima fata verebor.

Translation:

None can divide me, many cut me.

Though I am multicoloured, at some future time I will be white.

I prefer to remain black: I dread that last fate less.

Click to show riddle solution?

Hair

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 58

VICTORIASYMONS

Date: Mon 06 Feb 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 58

Well, well, well. Here we go with Riddle 58.
Early critics had little trouble solving this riddle, because apparently early critics were far better versed in basic irrigation technology than I am. Have you ever seen one of these?

 
Photograph (by Rafał Klisowski) from Wikimedia Commons (license: CC BY-SA 3.0).

No, neither have I. It’s a well-sweep, also known as a shaduf or shadoof, a counterpoise lift, a well-pole, or a swep. Also the creature described in Riddle 58 (proposed long ago by Holthausen).
It’s actually a pretty snazzy piece of machinery. That tall vertical pole (the anfot of the riddle) creates a base on which the diagonal rod can pivot. The diagonal rod is weighted on the one end (the heavy tail), and the other (the small head) is attached to a long rope (the tongue), carrying a bucket. When you want water, you pull on the rope to lower the bucket; when it’s full (and heavy), you simply let go – the counterweight does the job of raising the water so you don’t have to. Genius.
Ok, so here’s my first question. Why isn’t this one of the obscene riddles? How is it that early medieval folks found more suggestive imagery in an onion than this particular contraption? Maybe it was just too easy. Low-hanging fruit and all that. Moving on.
Any fan of the Exeter Book riddles knows how fond they are of playing positive and negative attributes against one another: things are in turn portrayed by what they are and what they’re not. But I can’t think of another riddle that manages the balance between the two quite as skilfully as this one. Starting at the start (where else?) we get a very important detail: our wiht is one-footed. But that’s left behind almost immediately, as we move onto a list of the things it doesn’t do. This creature doesn’t get around much on its lone foot: not by riding, nor flying, nor sailing on boats – and that’s pretty much all the travel options covered. But then we’re back to what it is, or at least what it has. Its body parts include a tail, a head, a tongue – but no teeth – and a measure of iron. It doesn’t drink, but it does carry water; it doesn’t boast of life but it does serve its master (nice iteration of the implement trope here; see Neville).
There’s a kind of rhythm that develops as we read through this flip-flopping description. The repeated use of ne gives a secondary alliteration on n-, particularly in lines 2-4, but it’s only in line 5 that we find n- carrying metrical alliteration, and that finishes by describing something that the creature is (a nyt “benefit”) rather than what it isn’t. We could compare these oscillations to the see-sawing motion of the well sweep in action. Or at least, I assume we could. I’ve only seen them in pictures.



A well-sweep in “action” from Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

These oscillations continue across the poem. The verb ferian (to carry) is used three times (lines 2, 4, 11). The first two are negative: this is a creature that neither moves itself nor is carried by ships. But then in line 11 we’re told that it fereð (carries) water – and it does it a lot. Water, too, is evoked both positively and negatively. This creature doesn’t drink (line 10a), but it does raise lagoflod (water: line 12a). It’s also a wiht (thing: line 2a), but it ne wiht iteþ (doesn’t eat a thing: line 10b). No nægledbord (nail-boarded) boat carries it (line 5a), but it does have its own share of isern (iron: line 9a), and we might think here of the visual and material affinities between a boat and a bucket. We’re told it doesn’t travel – either on the earth, in the air, or over water (lines 2-4). And yet later we find it traversing an earthen hole in order to lift water into the air (lines 9-12).
I said that critics have had little trouble solving Riddle 58 and that’s true. Sort of. The thing being described does seem to answer to all the attributes of a well-sweep. But what’s the Old English for well-sweep? Apparently it’s a three letter word with rad at the start. Unfortunately, no early medieval person ever bothered to write it down for us.
I ask because the riddle ends not by describing its subject, but by describing the name of its subject. Specifically, a name comprised of three ryhte runstafas (right rune-letters), and starting with rad (lines 14b-15). Runes aren’t all that common in the Exeter Book riddles, and when they are used they tend to be something of a showpiece: either introduced early (as in Riddles 19, 42 and 64), or discussed over several lines (as in Riddle 24, and also the other three I just mentioned). But Dieter Bitterli isn’t wrong when he describes these closing lines as rather abrupt (page 98). I guess if there’s anything better than runes, it’s surprise runes. The rune here is indicated using its name rather than its letter (a technique we’ve also seen in Riddle 42). In the manuscript there’s an accent over rad, perhaps as a hint at the word’s significance.
On its surface the runic conundrum that ends Riddle 58 is as straightforward as they come. Rad (riding) is the name of the rune ᚱ (‘r’). There’s only so many three-lettered words, and not even most of them start with r-. How hard can it be? Early critics settled on rod (rod). Job done.
Others, though, took the puzzle another way: they put the element rad– at the start of a three-letter word to make a compound, like radlim (riding-pole) or radpyt (riding-pit, well) (see Blakeley and Grein). Williamson notes, entirely in passing, that radrod (riding-rod, sweep?) may be a better fit, since “it is the pole and not the pit that is the subject” (page 312).


And yet, still not about sex. Photograph (by Jan Stubenitzky) from Wikimedia Commons (license: CC BY-SA 3.0).

Hang on, though. Radrod? That works both ways! It’s a compound comprising rad– and a second element, with that second element being a three lettered word starting with r- (Murphy, page 65). It even captures tonally the poem’s see-sawing rhythm. Better yet, because runic letters can stand for their names as well as their phonemes, it’s possible to write rad-rod in runes as ᚱ-ᚱᚩᛞ. As Niles points out (page 92), this construction contains only three distinct letters (with ᚱ repeated), and it starts with rad. So much for a creature that ne fela rideð (doesn’t ride much: line 3a), and yes I do think that’s an intentional joke by the riddle’s author (see Bitterli, page 105). By the end of the poem there’s quite a lot riding on ᚱ.
I’ll stop now.
The runic conundrum at the end of this riddle is uniquely peripheral, but it raises an interesting question. When we solve riddles, do we do it with objects or with words?
I have to confess, the term “well-sweep” meant not a thing to me the first time I read it; my “aha!” moment only came when I saw the photo at the top of this post. Niles argues for the importance of answering the riddles in their own language (that is, Old English rather than modern English), but the riddles themselves tend to place much greater emphasis on their subjects’ physical attributes than on their names. Many of the riddles begin by describing the form of a thing (ic seah “I saw,” or ic eom “I am”). Then again, many also end by asking us to say or to name their subject (saga hwæt ic hatte “say what I am called”).
So, have we solved Riddle 58 when we’ve identified an object that fits all the clues in its first fourteen lines, or when we’ve found an Old English word that answers the letter game in its final two? Is this riddle asking us to think about a thing in the world, or about the word used to signify that thing?


Bonus question: does it matter that the word radrod is a modern invention not attested anywhere in the Old English corpus? Photograph (by Andrzej Otrębsk) from Wikimedia Commons (license: CC BY-SA 3.0).

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Bitterli, Dieter. Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

Blakeley, L. “Riddles 22 and 58 of the Exeter Book.” Review of English Studies, vol. 9 (1958), pages 241-252.

Grein, Christian W. M. “Kleine Mittheilungen.” Germania, vol. 10 (1865), pages 305-310.

Holthausen, Ferdinand. “Beiträge zur Erklärung und Textkritik altenglischer Dichtungen.” Indogermanische Forschungen, vol. 4 (1894), pages 379-88.

Murphy, Patrick J. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.

Neville, Jennifer. “The Unexpected Treasure of the ‘Implement Trope’: Hierarchical Relationships in the Old English Riddles”. Review of English Studies, vol. 62 (2011), pages 505-519.

Niles, John D. Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

Symons, Victoria. Runes and Roman Letters in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.

Williamson, Craig, ed. The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 58

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Exeter Riddle 59

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Sun 19 Feb 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 59

The following translation post is by Brett Roscoe, Assistant Professor at The King’s University in Alberta, and researcher of medieval wisdom literature. Take it away, Brett!

Original text:

Ic seah in healle      hring gyldenne

men sceawian,       modum gleawe,

ferþþum frode.      Friþospede bæd

god nergende       gæste sinum

5      se þe wende wriþan;       word æfter cwæð

hring on hyrede,      hælend nemde

tillfremmendra.      Him torhte in gemynd

his dryhtnes naman      dumba brohte

ond in eagna gesihð,      gif þæs æþelan

10      goldes tacen       ongietan cuþe

ond dryhtnes dolg,      don swa þæs beages

benne cwædon.      Ne mæg þære bene

æniges monnes      ungefullodre

godes ealdorburg      gæst gesecan,

15       rodera ceastre.       Ræde, se þe wille,

hu ðæs wrætlican      wunda cwæden

hringes to hæleþum,       þa he in healle wæs

wylted ond wended       wloncra folmum.

Translation:

I saw in the hall men behold

a golden ring, prudent in mind,

wise in spirit. He who turned the ring

asked for abundant peace for his spirit

5      from God the Saviour.(1) Then it spoke a word,

the ring in the gathering. It named the Healer

of those who do good. Clearly into memory

and into the sight of their eyes it brought, without words,

the Lord’s name, if one could perceive

10      the meaning of that noble, golden sign

and the wounds of the Lord, and do as the wounds

of the ring said. The prayer

of any man being unfulfilled,(2)

his soul cannot reach God’s royal city,

15      the fortress of the heavens. Let him who wishes explain

how the wounds of that curious ring

spoke to men, when, in the hall,

it was rolled and turned in the hands of the bold ones.

Click to show riddle solution?

Chalice

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 114v-115r 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), pages 209-10.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 57: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 102-3.

Translation Notes:

(1) Here I follow Craig Williamson in translating god nergende as the object of the clause. Given the meaning of biddan (to pray, entreat, ask), I don’t think it likely that God is the subject. After all, who would God pray to?

(2) P. J. Cosijn suggests changing the manuscript ungefullodre to ungefullodra, translating it “of the unbaptized” (“Anglosaxonica. IV,” Beitrage, vol. 23 (1898), pages 109-30, at 130), the sense then being that the prayer of the unbaptized will not get them to heaven. The translation given here adopts the suggestion made by Frederick Tupper, Jr., The Riddles of the Exeter Book (Boston: Ginn, 1910), page 198.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 59

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Eusebius Riddle 59: De psittaco

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021

Original text:

India litoribus propriis me gignit amoenam,

Collum nam torques ruber emicat, ala colore

Tam viridi decorata est, et mea latior instat

Lingua loquax reliquis avibus. Hinc verba sonabo,

Nomina et humanae reddam de more loquelae,

Nam natura mihi “Ave!” est vel iam dicere “Care!”

Cetera per studiam depromam nomina rerum.

Translation:

India begets lovely me (1) within her own shores,

For a red torc shines on my neck, and my wing is

Highly decorated with a green color, and my chattering tongue

Goes on more extensively than that of other birds. Hence I speak words,

And I give names in the manner of human speech,

For it is my nature to say “Hail!” or now “Greetings!” (2)

I declare other names through the study of things.

Click to show riddle solution?

On the parrot

Notes:

(1) Or, it could be “lovely India.” The grammar does not work perfectly in either instance.
(2) This is a Latin transcription of the Greek Χαίρε.

Tags: riddles latin Eusebius

Aldhelm Riddle 59: Penna

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Me dudum genuit candens onocrotalus albam,

Gutture qui patulo sorbet de gurgite limphas.

Pergo per albentes directo tramite campos

Candentique viae vestigia caerula linquo,

Lucida nigratis fuscans anfractibus arva.

Nec satis est unum per campos pandere callem,

Semita quin potius milleno tramite tendit,

Quae non errantes ad caeli culmina vexit.

Translation:

The bright pelican begot me, white, a short time ago,

(The bird) who drinks waters from the sea with its throat wide open.

I go through whitened fields on a straight path

And leave dark traces on the gleaming road,

Darkening the shining earth with blackened twists and turns.

It is not enough to open one path through the fields,

Rather, the path stretches out in a thousand routes

And takes those who do not err from it to the summits of heaven.

Click to show riddle solution?

Quill Pen

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 59: Pila

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Non sum compta comis et non sum calva capillis,

Intus enim crines mihi sunt quos non videt ullus.

Meque manus mittunt manibusque remittor in auras.

Translation:

I am not adorned with hair and I am not bald of hair,

For I have hair inside, which none see.

Hands send me and I am returned by hands through the air.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ball

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 59

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 27 Feb 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 59

This week’s commentary post is once again from Brett Roscoe of The King’s University, Alberta.
 
Imagine a hall where a lord and his warriors are drinking and laughing and generally just having a good time. The lord rewards a fighter with a ring, and the warrior proudly sends it around the table for all to admire (it is wylted ond wended wloncra folmum (rolled and turned in the hands of bold fighters)). This is the picture painted by Riddle 59, and at first it seems like a standard heroic scene. But there are some oddities that suggest there is more to this poem than meets the eye (cue eerie music). If the men are just looking at a ring, what makes them gleaw (prudent) and frod (wise) (lines 2b-3a)? And if the ring is a tacen (sign/emblem/symbol), what is it a sign of? Though in the foreground of this riddle we see warriors drinking in a hall, in the background we can hear the faint sounds of a priest’s sermon or a church choir.
The solution to Riddle 59 is “chalice,” which means the riddle is closely related to Riddle 48, whose possible solutions are “paten,” “chalice,” or “sacramental vessel” (though Megan thinks “paten” most likely). When Jesus instituted what we now know as the Lord’s Supper (or the Eucharist or Communion), he took a cup of wine and offered it to his disciples, and he said, “Drink ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins” (Bibite ex hoc omnes. Hic est enim sanguis meus novi testamenti, qui pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum; Matthew 26:27-28). So now we know why the ring (the chalice) is called a golden tacen (sign/symbol/emblem). To the church, this chalice is more than just a cup; it is a sign of Jesus’ death and of God’s gift of forgiveness. It is meant for all of Jesus’ disciples, and so it is wylted and wended (rolled and turned) from hand to hand, the riddler’s tricky way of saying the cup is passed from person to person.


Here’s a nice, little, early medieval chalice from Hexham Abbey 
(photo courtesy of C.J.W. Brown).
Now, the only time I stare at my mug is when I’m bored, and I don’t think that’s why the men gaze at this cup (lines 1-3a). So what is it about the cup that makes people stare? It probably helps that the cup is wounded (lines 11-12). I might not stare at any old cup, but I might look twice at a bleeding one. The riddle shows us a cup that is similar to Jesus, who was wounded on the cross. But how is a cup wounded? By chipping or denting it? By throwing it across the room and then stomping on it? Craig Williamson suggests that the wounds on the cup refer to engravings in the gold gilding (page 313). To help us see what he means, here is a picture of the Tassilo Chalice, a cup from the 8th century:
Photo (by Andreas Püttmann) from Wikipedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 de).
 The chalice is engraved (or wounded) with pictures of Jesus and the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist, and all the portraits are surrounded by a beautiful interlace pattern. If I had a cup like this, I’d probably stare at it too! The people gazing at the chalice, though, are doing more than admiring the artwork. They are called gleaw (prudent) and frod (wise) because by looking at the cup they are meditating on Christ’s death. Through its engravings, the cup brings a clear image of Christ into the gazers’ eyes and minds (lines 7b-9a), helping them contemplate the grace offered by God to those who take and drink.
If lines 12b-15a (“The prayer of any man…”) confuse you, you are in good company. Even scholars don’t agree on what they mean. I’ve followed the translation suggested by Frederick Tupper Jr., which should clarify a bit, but the lines are still somewhat cryptic. Let’s start by looking at the phrase þære bene (the prayer). Though Tupper translates þære as “the,” it could also be translated “that,” and so we can assume the phrase þære bene refers to a specific prayer that has already been mentioned in the riddle. If we move backwards through the riddle looking for a prayer, it doesn’t take long before we find one. Two, actually. The first is in 3b-5a (“He who turned the ring asked for abundant peace…”), and the second in lines 5b-7a (when the ring speaks and names “the Healer”). The first prayer is from a Christian who drinks from the chalice, and the second prayer is from the chalice itself, possibly on behalf of the drinker. Since both are probably praying for grace for the drinker, we might say that they are both part of the same prayer, “that prayer” mentioned in line 12b. And if that prayer were to go ungefullodre (unfulfilled), if the person were not granted grace through the drinking of the wine, or, in other words, if the person did not have the gift of the eucharist and the sacrifice it represents, then he or she would never reach heaven.
So what’s in a cup? Wine, blood, and a lot of religious meaning. Looking up from writing this post, I suddenly find myself disappointed in my coffee mug.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Allen, Michael J. B., and Daniel G. Calder, trans. Sources and Analogues of Old English Poetry: The Major Latin Texts in Translation. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1976.

Cosjin, P. J. “Anglosaxonica. IV.” Beitrage, vol. 23 (1898), pages 109-30.

Krapp, George Philip, and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie, eds. The Exeter Book. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936, pages 209-10, 351-52.

Tupper, Frederick Jr., ed. The Riddles of the Exeter Book. Boston: Ginn, 1910.

Williamson, Craig, ed. The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977, pages 102, 313-14.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 59 brett roscoe

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Exeter Riddle 60

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Fri 17 Mar 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 60

Riddle 60’s translation is once again by Brett Roscoe of The King’s University, Alberta. (thanks, Brett!)

Original text:

Ic wæs be sonde,      sæwealle neah,

æt merefaroþe,*      minum gewunade

frumstaþole fæst;       fea ænig wæs

monna cynnes,      þæt minne þær

5    on anæde      eard beheolde,

ac mec uhtna gehwam     yð sio brune

lagufæðme beleolc.      Lyt ic wende

þæt ic ær oþþe sið      æfre sceolde

ofer meodubence       muðleas sprecan,

10     wordum wrixlan.       Þæt is wundres dæl,

on sefan searolic      þam þe swylc ne conn,

hu mec seaxes ord       ond seo swiþre hond,

eorles ingeþonc      on ord somod,

þingum geþydan,       þæt ic wiþ þe sceolde

15     for unc anum twam       ærendspræce

abeodan bealdlice,      swa hit beorna ma

uncre wordcwidas     widdor ne mænden.**

Translation:

I was by the shore, near the sea-cliff,

with the surging of the waves.* I remained

fixed at my first place; there were few

of mankind who there,

5     in that solitude, could see my home,

but each morning the wave in its dark,

watery embrace enclosed me. Little did I know

that ever before or after,

I – mouth-less – across the mead-bench would have to speak,

10     exchange words. It is a kind of wonder

to one who does not know such things,

how, with a clever mind, the point of a knife,

the right hand and the thought of man together in a point,

press me for this purpose: that I with you should,

15     in the presence of us two alone,

boldly declare my message, so that no men

should spread our words more widely.**

Click to show riddle solution?

Reed (pen), Rune staff

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 122v-123r 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 225.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 58: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 103.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 60 brett roscoe

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Eusebius Riddle 60: De bubone

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Mon 27 Dec 2021

Original text:

Ignava volucris, venturi nuntia luctus,

Pigraque preseverans vertor prepondere plumae,

Noctibus et phoebis, latitans, tam foeda, sepulchris,

Furva per umbriferas semper constabo cavernas

Atque sono vocis nomen tractabo vocandum.

Expliciunt enigmata Eusebii.

Translation:

A lazy bird, messenger of grief to come,

I turn, continuing sluggishly because of the weight of my wings,

Night and day, hiding, very ugly, in tombs, 

I will always stay, gloomy, in the shadowy caves,

And with the sound of my voice I will make to my name.

Here end the riddles of Eusebius.

Click to show riddle solution?

On the owl

Notes:

Both of the manuscripts give the solution De bubalo, but, cute though it is, that word does not exist.

Tags: riddles latin Eusebius

Aldhelm Riddle 60: Monocerus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Collibus in celsis saevi discrimina Martis,

Quamvis venator frustra latrante moloso

Garriat arcister contorquens spicula ferri,

Nil vereor, magnis sed fretus viribus altos

Belliger impugnans elefantes vulnere sterno.

Heu! fortuna ferox, quae me sic arte fefellit,

Dum trucido grandes et virgine vincor inermi!

Nam gremium pandens mox pulchra puerpera prendit

Et voti compos celsam deducit ad urbem.

Indidit ex cornu nomen mihi lingua Pelasga;

Sic itidem propria dixerunt voce Latini.

Translation:

Not at all do I fear the hazards of furious Mars,

Although the hunter with the dog barking in vain

Should chatter, the archer brandishing iron-tipped arrows, 

On the lofty hills; rather, equipped with great strength, 

I, an aggressive warrior, fell elephants with a blow.

Alas! Savage Fortune, who tricked me thus with guile,

For I slaughter great things and am overcome by a harmless virgin!

For, revealing her bosom, the beautiful woman catches me immediately 

And, with her wish fulfilled, leads me to the city.

The Greek language gave my name from my horn;

Thus do the Latins speak likewise in their tongue.

Click to show riddle solution?

Unicorn

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm

Symphosius Riddle 60: Serra

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Dentibus innumeris sum toto corpore plena.

Frondicomam subolem morsu depascor acuto,

Mando tamen frustra, quia respuo praemia dentis.

Translation:

I am full of innumerable teeth along my whole body.

I feed upon a leafy shoot with sharp bite,

And yet I chew in vain, because I spit out the teeth’s reward.

Click to show riddle solution?

Saw

Notes:

This edition is based on Raymond T. Ohl, ed. The Enigmas of Symphosius. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1928.

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 60

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 24 Apr 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 60

Brett Roscoe from The King’s University, Alberta leads us through Riddle 60’s commentary:
 
You know the kinds of kids who always have to be different? They stand when others sit and lie down when others stand. They dye their hair purple, and when the rest of the class dyes their hair purple they shave their heads. Well, that’s the kind of riddle we’re looking at. Almost all the other riddles in the Exeter Book fall into two large groups, 1-59 and 61-95. But Riddles 30b and 60? They refuse to conform, appearing instead in the middle of a series of Old English elegies (such as The Wife’s Lament and The Ruin) and religious poems (such as The Descent into Hell and Pharaoh). So the first question we need to ask is whether or not Riddle 60 is successful in its quest for independence.
Here’s the problem: the riddle is on folio 122b of the Exeter Book, and on the very next page (123a) is a poem called The Husband’s Message. Because of the proximity of these two works and similarity in phrasing, some have suggested that they actually belong together and should be seen as a single poem. If Riddle 60 were a teenager, I’m sure s/he would have thrown something at me as I wrote that last sentence, but it’s true. And those who want to see Riddle 60 together with The Husband’s Message usually hold that the answer to the riddle is a “rune staff.”


Artwork (by Olaus Magnus) from Wikipedia Commons (public domain).

This is a woodcut from Olaus Magnus’ description of Nordic history, customs, and folklore in a book called Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus (1555). It shows two wise men, each holding a rune-staff. And here is a picture of a rune-staff from 17^th century Norway:
Photo (by Roede) from Wikimedia Commons (license CC BY-SA 3.0).
The Husband’s Message is, as the title suggests, a message from a husband to his wife. He was exiled, and so he has not seen his wife in years, but now he decides it’s safe to send her a messenger. The messenger finds the woman and tries to convince her to come to where her husband now lives. The messenger presumably shows her a rune-staff (or stick or stone) with the runes S, R, EA, W, M engraved on it, a cryptic record of earlier vows made by the husband and wife. In relation to Riddle 60, the most important figure is not the husband or wife, and not even the message. It’s the messenger. The Husband’s Message begins,
Nu ic onsundran þe   secgan wille

[. . . . . . . . ] treocyn   ic tudre aweox;

in mec æld[. . . . . . . . . .] sceal   ellor londes

settan [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]   sealte streamas

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]sse. (lines 1-4a)
(“Now will I tell to you who live apart

How I grew up in youth among the trees.

On me must sons of men write messages,

Send me from foreign lands across the waves.”)

(trans. by Hamer, page 79)
It may be just me, but these lines sound very much like a riddle. And if they are a riddle, the clear solution would be a rune-staff, which is made from wood and engraved with messages. Admittedly, the messenger could just be a human who carries a rune-staff, and The Husband’s Message may not be a riddle at all. Though scholarly consensus favours the latter, either reading is possible. Seen in the context of Riddle 60, the rune-staff solution does seem tempting. A rune-staff speaks or conveys a message even though it is muðleas (mouth-less; line 9); it is pressed (or carved) with a knife that is guided by human hands and intent (lines 12-14a); and it can also be used to convey secret messages (lines 14b-17). In fact, in the Old Norse-Icelandic Völsunga saga Guðrun uses runes for that very purpose—she sends a secret runic message to her brothers to warn them of a plot against their lives (ch. 35). (Unfortunately Guðrun’s messenger is not as trustworthy as the one in The Husband’s Message. If you want to find out what happens, feel free to read the story for yourself—you can download a text and translation here). It would seem that a rune-staff fits a lot of the details of the riddle.
But what, then, are we to do about lines 1-7? These lines tell us that the solution to the riddle lives near the shore, that it is so close to the sea it actually touches the waters. F. A. Blackburn suggests that the lines describe a swamp, and the rune-staff is made from the wood of a willow or a swamp cedar (page 7), but this seems like a stretch to me. And what are we to make of the fact that the riddle solution speaks ofer meodubence (across the meadbench; line 9a)? As we will see in Riddle 67, written texts were often read out loud in public settings in the Middle Ages, but the last lines of this riddle suggest the message is a secret. Who would read a secret message out loud in a meadhall? (unless the person were exceptionally bad at keeping secrets!)
In fact, the present consensus is not to read Riddle 60 as part of The Husband’s Message. In modern editions and translations, the two are printed as separate works. And most now agree that the answer to Riddle 60 is a reed or reed pen. A possible source or influence can be found in Symphosius’ Latin Enigma 2 (called Harundo or Reed):
Dulcis amica dei, semper vicina profundis,

Suave cano Musis, nigro perfusa colore

Nuntia sum linguae digitis signata ministris.
(Sweet mistress of a god, the steep bank’s neighbor, sweetly singing for the Muses; when drenched with black, I am the tongue’s messenger by guiding fingers pressed.) (text and trans. from Ohl, page 36)
The interesting thing about Symphosius’ riddle is that the reed takes on a number of forms: first it is the nymph Syrinx, who, according to Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 1, lines 689-721), is pursued by the god Pan and transformed into a reed; then it is just a plain old reed along the bank; then it starts to sing, probably in the form of a reed flute; and then, as a reed pen, it writes. We’re dealing with quite a multi-talented reed here.
Similarly, Riddle 60 also describes a reed near the bank (lines 1-7), and then it goes on to talk of the reed as a tool. A knife is used to carve the tip of a reed pen, which is then gripped by a hand and guided by human intent as it is pressed onto parchment (lines 12-14a). The ic (I) of lines 14b-17 is the reed pen, and the þe (you) could be the reader of the lines (the person to whom the pen, through its writing, “speaks”), or it could even be the writer, in whose presence the pen “declares” its message (i.e. puts the message on paper or parchment). The pen speaks ofer meodubence (across the mead-bench) by writing books that are subsequently read aloud or discussed at meals. This last point may seem odd, given that the end of the riddle focuses on secrecy. But we have to keep in mind that, like Symphosius’ riddle, Riddle 60 lists more than one use of the reed. In fact, lines 7b-10a may not even be about a reed pen, but about a reed flute, played during meals as entertainment. Capturing all of these reed forms in a single English word is difficult, which is why I’ve added the word “pen” in parentheses to the solution. John Niles suggests that instead of answering Riddle 60 with a Modern English word, we answer it with an Old English one, hreod, which is flexible enough to mean reed, reed pen, or reed flute (pages 131-2).
So please join me in congratulating Riddle 60! It seems that it has achieved its independence after all. But it must keep its guard up—the rune-staff solution still lurks in dark places, just waiting to latch on to this fascinating riddle.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Blackburn, F. A. “The Husband’s Message and the Accompanying Riddles of the Exeter Book.” Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 3 (1901), pages 1-13.

Hamer, Richard, trans. “The Husband’s Message.” A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse. London: Faber and Faber, 1970, pages 79-81.

Krapp, George Philip, and Elliott van Kirk Dobbie, eds. The Exeter Book. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936, pages 225, 361-62.

Niles, John D. Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of Texts. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

Ohl, Raymond. The Enigmas of Symphosius. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1928. (an online version of Ohl’s editions and translations can be found here)

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 60 brett roscoe old norse

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Exeter Riddle 61

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 10 Apr 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 61

Original text:

Oft mec fæste bileac      freolicu meowle,

ides on earce,     hwilum up ateah

folmum sinum      ond frean sealde,

holdum þeodne,     swa hio haten wæs.

5     Siðþan me on hreþre      heafod sticade,

nioþan upweardne,     on nearo fegde.

Gif þæs ondfengan     ellen dohte,

mec frætwedne      fyllan sceolde

ruwes nathwæt.      Ræd hwæt ic mæne.

Translation:

Often a noble woman, a lady, locked me

fast in a chest, sometimes she drew me up

with her hands and gave me to her husband,

her loyal lord, as she was bid.

5     Then he stuck his head in the heart of me,

upward from beneath, fitted it in the tight space.

If the strength of the receiver was suitable,

something shaggy had to fill

me, the adorned one. Determine what I mean.

Click to show riddle solution?

Shirt/Kirtle/Tunic, Garment, Helmet

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 124v 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 229.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 59: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 103-4.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 61

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Aldhelm Riddle 61: Pugio

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

De terrae gremiis formabar primitus arte;

Materia trucibus processit cetera tauris

Aut potius putidis constat fabricata capellis.

Per me multorum clauduntur lumina leto,

Qui domini nudus nitor defendere vitam.

Nam domus est constructa mihi de tergore secto

Necnon et tabulis, quas findunt stipite, rasis.

Translation:

I was first formed with skill from the earth’s bosom;

The other material came from savage bulls

Or perhaps stands constructed from disgusting goats.

The eyes of many are closed in death through me,

Who, naked, endeavours to defend the life of my lord.

For my house is constructed from parcelled-out skin

As well as scraped wood, which they cut from a tree trunk.

Click to show riddle solution?

Dagger

Notes:

This edition is based on Rudolf Ehwald, ed. Aldhelmi Opera Omnia. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi, 15. Berlin: Weidmann, 1919, pages 59-150. Available online here.

Tags: riddles latin Aldhelm