Riddle Ages

Commentary for Exeter Riddle 62

VICTORIASYMONS

Date: Mon 22 May 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 62

Before we start, there’s something we need to clear up about Riddle 62. This is one of those riddles with two solutions. First, it’s a description of an implement of some sort – probably a poker or a wood-working tool. But, and bear with me here, there’s actually another solution at play. If you think about it really carefully you can maybe see how this riddle might also be describing a penis. I just wanted to get that out the way, in case anyone failed to pick up on the incredibly subtle imagery.
Now, you might not have seen this straight away. You might have read this riddle through and thought: “Ah yes. A poker. That is certainly what is being described here. That and nothing else.”


Not this kind of poker. The kind that goes in a fire. Photo: Graeme Main/MOD via Wikimedia Commons (Open Government Licence).

In which case, well done. It might be that. It might also be a borer or some other woodworking tool. Picture something like this:


Source: Cassell’s Carpentry and Joinery via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).

There’s really not much in it: both are hard, and pointed, and get pushed into things. The former gets hot from the fire. The latter gets hot from friction. It’s a little tricky to account for the womb that our speaker goes beneath if we’re picturing a borer. This is why I think poker makes the better fit. The womb would be an oven, or furnace, or fireplace. Winfried Rudolf has discussed the sexual imagery of ovens in relation to Riddle 45 (pages 511-13; see also Salvador-Bello page 360), and here are some fun images of medieval ovens being suggestively… poked. And with that, let us segue smoothly into our riddle’s less salubrious meanings. Because, believe it or not, a hard and pointy instrument that gets poked repeatedly into someplace warm and inviting lends itself to a different sort of solution entirely.


Still not this. Photo: Graeme Main/MOD via Wikimedia Commons (Open Government Licence).

Yes, we’re continuing the double-entendres from Riddle 61 (and there’s more to come in Riddle 63). The combination of everyday object with sexy subtext is one we’ve seen more than a few times in the Exeter Book, and this riddle pulls no punches with the suggestive imagery. In fact, almost every line includes vocabulary repeated in those other euphemistic riddles.  Our speaker is heard ond scearp and strong; the speaker of Riddle 44 is stiþ ond heard (line 3a), and strong appears in Riddle 54 (line 9b) and 87 (line 3a). The hrægl worn by our speaker’s wielder finds a number of parallels (44.4, 45.4, 54.4), as does the womb (37.1, 87.1) that our mystery subject goes beneath, and the nearo (25.10, 61.6) hol (44.5) it occupies. But just in case we missed all that, the poet drops the word nathwær into the closing lines. This – and the related term nathwæt – is a solid staple of the double-entendre genre, making an appearance in Riddles 25, 45, 54 and 61.
So not only is this riddle suggestive, it’s laden with language used suggestively in other riddles as well. “Keep some mystery in the bedroom” is an idea our poet apparently failed to internalise when composing this little vignette.


“Hey guys! Guys! Have you heard the one about the poker?” Image from Wikimedia Commons (photographic reproduction of work in Public Domain).

In fact, the poet comes perilously close to giving the game away in lines 6b-8a. The subject of the two hwilum clauses must be understood as the hæleð mid hrægle from line 6a. That’s fine for the first clause, as the man pulls his “poker” out from the “fire.” But then in the second clause it isn’t the poker that eft fareð but the man himself. Hang on, why would the man be putting himself back into the fire? As noted by Murphy (page 203), and Williamson before him (page 323), this makes no sense. Unless the tool this man is wielding isn’t really a poker at all, but a part of his own body, and he isn’t really venturing into a fire but into a… nathwær. Just as we think we’ve caught the poet – and the man – in the act, the curtain comes and we’re back in the realm of the implied. “I couldn’t possibly say where,” demurs the speaker, “and no I don’t know what you’re smirking about.”
So even in a riddle as on-the-nose as this, there’s room for ambiguity. My favourite is forðsiþ in line 2a. It means “departure,” but forðsiþ can also refer to “death.” In renaissance literature, “death” is a familiar euphemism for orgasm (the “little death,” or “petite mort”), and it’s likely the metaphor was established at least by Chaucer’s day (Quinn, page 220). Think of Troilus “fainting” in Criseyde’s bed. Is this reference to the speaker’s forðsiþ an earlier iteration of the same euphemism? It might be. That’s the problem with suggestive language – it needs both the riddler and the riddlee to be on the same page, culturally speaking.
Speaking of which, what should we make of the speaker describing itself as scearp? It’s not the most obvious adjective to associate with a penis, right? It’s also not one we might expect based on other riddles of this nature (Riddle 44, for example, pairs heard with stiþ). As well as the modern sense “sharp”, scearp can also mean “keen” (think of something being “sharp sighted”). That sense does fit well enough with the rest of the riddle, which emphasises haste (line 4b) and urgency (line 8b). But scearp is also used to describe weapons – particularly swords – often enough that the suggestion of violence inevitably rears its head here (see Riddle 20). What’s really striking about scearp is that it introduces a perspective that’s otherwise very notably absent from this poem. It’s the person receiving the penis – rather than the penis itself or the man it’s attached to – who would experience its “sharpness”. Throughout the whole poem, scearp is the only insight we get into that other perspective, and (for modern readers at least) it gives a discomforting glimpse into a very different experience of an encounter otherwise dominated by the man’s pride in his own sexual performance.
Which leads us to the biggest scholarly sticking point of Riddle 62: the suþerne secg (line 9a). All the way through the poem, the speaker refers to its wielder in lofty and heroic terms, as frea, rinc, and hæleð. What, then, are we supposed to make of the man’s southern origins? Tupper takes it to mean that our “hero” is actually  a slave, akin to the “dark Welsh” who populate various other euphemistic riddles (page 203). On the other hand, Baum thinks the reference implies a skilled craftsman, as opposed to a “cruder man from northern districts” (page 59). Williamson argues that the line is euphemistic (probably a safe bet, all things considered), providing an oblique reference to “the direction of the thrust” (page 323).
Murphy proposes something a bit different (page 203). Rather than taking the suþerne secg as the subject – parallel to the hæleð mid hrægle – he instead argues that it’s the object: “He [the man] earnestly urges on his southern fellow [by which is understood the penis]”. It’s a fun interpretation, and it makes the riddle’s closing half-line especially bold. Having just referred to itself with a euphemistic epithet, the speaker then demands that we be the one to “say what I’m called.” A “tool,” an “implement,” a “southern fellow”? Don’t know what you’re talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some “fires” to “poke.”


Wellcome Images via Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons licence 4.0).

Notes:

References and further reading

Condren, Edward I. Chaucer from Prentice to Poet: The Metaphor of Love in Dream Visions and Troilus and Criseyde. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008.

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

Rudolf, Winfried. “Riddling and Reading: Iconicity and Logogriphs in Exeter Book Riddles 23 and 45.” Anglia-Zeitschrift für englische Philologie, vol. 130, issue 4 (2012), pages 499-525.

Salvador-Bello, Mercedes. “The Sexual Riddle Type in Aldhelm’s Enigmata, the Exeter Book, and Early Medieval Latin”. Philological Quarterly, vol. 90, issue 4 (2011), pages 357-85.

Tanke, John W. “Wonfeax wale: Ideology and Figuration in the Sexual Riddles of the Exeter Book.” In Class and Gender in Early English Literature. Edited by Britton J. Harwood and Gillian R. Overing. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994, pages 21-42.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 62

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Commentary for Exeter Riddle 63

Exeter Riddle 63

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 29 May 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 63

FYI, the manuscript is pretty damaged here, so the last few lines are impossible to reconstruct. Try to enjoy nonetheless!

Original text:

Oft ic secga      seledreame sceal

fægre onþeon,      þonne ic eom forð boren

glæd mid golde,      þær guman drincað.

Hwilum mec on cofan     cysseð muþe

5     tillic esne,     þær wit tu beoþ,

fæðme on folm[. . . . .]grum þyð,

wyrceð his willa[. . . . . .]ð l[. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . .] fulre,     þonne ic forð cyme

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

10     Ne mæg ic þy miþan,       [. . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .]an on leohte

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

swylce eac bið sona

. .]r[.]te getacnad,     hwæt me to [. . . .

15     . . . .]leas rinc,     þa unc geryde wæs.

Translation:

Often I must prosper fairly among the hall-joy

of men, when I am carried forth

shining with gold, where men drink.

Sometimes a capable servant kisses me on the mouth

5     in a chamber where we two are,

my bosom in his hand, presses me with fingers,

works his will . . .

. . . full, when I come forth

. . .

10     Nor can I conceal that . . .

. . . in the light

. . .

so too is it immediately . . .

indicated, what from me . . .

. . . less warrior, when it was pleasant for us two.

Click to show riddle solution?

Glass beaker, Flask, Flute

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 125r 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 229-30.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 61: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 104-5.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 63

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Aldhelm Riddle 63: Corbus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Dum genus humanum truculenta fluenta necarent

Et nova mortales multarent aequora cunctos

Exceptis raris, gignunt qui semina saecli,

Primus viventum perdebam foedera iuris

Imperio patris contemnens subdere colla;

Unde puto dudum versu dixisse poetam:

“Abluit in terris, quidquid deliquit in undis.”

Nam sobolem numquam dapibus saturabo ciborum,

Ni prius in pulpis plumas nigrescere cernam.

Littera tollatur: post haec sine prole manebo.

Translation:

While stormy floods drowned the race of men

And new waters punished all mortals

With rare exceptions, who beget the seeds of the world,

I, first among the living, forfeited the covenants of law,

Refusing to subject my neck to the father’s command;

Whence I think the poet said long ago in verse:

'It washed away on earth what it did, transgressing, in the waves.'

For I shall never stuff my offspring with feasts of food,

Unless first I spot their feathers growing black in the flesh.

Let a letter be removed: after which I shall remain without progeny.

Click to show riddle solution?

Raven

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 63: Spongia

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Ipsa gravis non sum, sed aquae mihi pondus inhaeret.

Viscera tota tument patulis diffusa cavernis.

Intus lympha latet, sed non se sponte profundit.

Translation:

I am not myself heavy, but the weight of water clings to me;

All my insides swell in open diffuse caverns;

Inside the water lurks, but does not pour forth spontaneously.

Click to show riddle solution?

Sponge

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 63

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Wed 07 Jun 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 63

If Riddle 63 has anything to teach us, it’s that people with hot pokers SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED NEAR MANUSCRIPTS! Sorry…got a bit shouty there. All those years of pent-up scholarly rage have to take their toll at some point. I’m fine now.
Ahem.
So, Riddle 63. This is the first of many very damaged riddles that we’re going to be working through from this point on. They’re damaged because – as you might have guessed – there’s a long, diagonal burn from where someone put a hot poker or fiery brand on the back of the Exeter Book.

A photo of the damage to this page of the manuscript (folio 125r). I am *very* grateful to the manuscripts and archives team for providing this Exeter Cathedral Library photo (reproduced by courtesy of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter)
 
Even with the damage, we can still have a conversation about Riddle 63 because – thankfully – several of its opening lines are intact, and intriguing hints survive further on in the poem. We have enough information, for example, to have a convincing stab at the solution, which seems to be a glass beaker or perhaps glæs-fæt in Old English (though early solvers also suggested “flute” and “flask”).
Glass beakers are a fairly common find in early medieval graves, and there’s pretty good evidence for solving the riddle this way. Some of this evidence comes from within the poem: the references to a servant handling and kissing the object from line 4 onward suggest that it’s a drinking vessel. And the object’s statement Ne mæg ic þy miþan (Nor can I conceal that) in line 10a implies that it’s transparent.

A claw beaker from Ringlemere Farm, Kent, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain). You can find out more about it here.
 
I suppose you could argue that the holes in flutes would make concealing anything difficult too, and of course kissing and pressing with fingers are entirely relevant for a musical instrument of that kind. But we also have evidence for reading Riddle 63 as glass beaker that comes from outside of the poem. There’s a really, really, really useful parallel in one of the Anglo-Latin riddles written by the 7th/8th-century abbot and bishop Aldhelm. His Enigma 80, Calix Vitreus (Glass Chalice) has a similar reference to grasping with fingers and kissing, you see:
Nempe uolunt plures collum constringere dextra

Et pulchre digitis lubricum comprendere corpus;

Sed mentes muto, dum labris oscula trado

Dulcia compressis impendens basia buccis,

Atque pedum gressus titubantes sterno ruina.

(Glorie, vol. 133, page 496, lines 5-9)

(Truly, many wish to squeeze my neck with their right hand and seize my beautifully sinuous body with their fingers;  but I change their minds, while I deliver kisses to their lips,  dispensing sweet kisses to puckered mouths, and yet I throw off the faltering steps of their feet in a fall.)
This is a deeply disturbing vision of a sexual encounter loaded with complicated and competing power dynamics. There’s a lot of kissing here, sure, but there’s also a hint of violence in that term constringere, which can mean “to embrace,” but also “to bind/constrict” (hence I’ve gone for “squeeze”). Fifty Shades of Græg, amirite?
And while it’s the drinkers who initially want to inflict this violence on the drinking vessel, the vessel ends up turning the tables, so to speak, when the drinkers become so intoxicated that they fall over. This leads Mercedes Salvador-Bello to discuss Aldhelm’s Latin riddle in the light of early medieval views on prostitution: she argues convincingly that the riddle imagines a prostitute bringing about the downfall of a man through a combination of sexual charms and excessive wine (page 371). She also suggests the poem might be alluding to the apocalyptic Whore of Babylon from the biblical Book of Revelation (see also Magennis, page 519). Heavy stuff.
I also think there’s a possible pun here in the verb muto (I change), which could easily be confused for the terribly rude noun muto (penis). I mean, it doesn’t work grammatically, but it might have caused an embarrassed titter nonetheless.
And this leads us back again to Riddle 63, which is equally euphemistic but with a very different tone (at least as far as we can tell!). There are certainly similarities between the Latin and Old English riddles – both involve what my mum used to call “kissy face, pressy bod” (otherwise known as “sex”). Riddle 63’s reference to the human in the riddle who wyrceð his willa (works his will) in line 7a should look familiar from Riddle 54 (line 6a). And þyð (presses) also appears in sexual contexts in Riddle 12 (line 8b), Riddle 21 (line 5b) and Riddle 62 (5a).
But what I quite like about this riddle is that the sexual act is clearly a mutually enjoyable one: þa unc geryde wæs (when it was pleasant for us two) (line 15b). Look at that glorious dual pronoun! Unc! “Us two”! This glass beaker is properly into it.
Still, there are some issues with class that muddy the waters a bit. Patrick Murphy reminds us that this riddle – like so many others – confuses the matter of who is serving whom; this speaker is “habitually compelled to serve men but also itself attended at times by a tillic esne ‘useful servant’” (page 205). While the one handling the glass beaker is imagined as a person from a lower status background, the beaker itself is glæd mid golde (shining with gold). This level of bling makes me wonder if Riddle 63’s glass beaker is – rather than a prostitute, like in Aldhelm’s Latin riddle – imagined as a high-status person having a fling with a servant in a private chamber. On a literal level, this gold could be metal ornamentation around the glass beaker (Salvador-Bello, page 372), but figuratively it might point to all those wondrous arm- and neck-rings that bedeck elite lords, ladies and retainers in heroic poetry.
I want to point to one final comparison before I close up shop for the day. A few weeks ago at a fascinating lecture about fear, Alice Jorgensen from Trinity College Dublin reminded me about a funny little reference in Blickling Homily 10, Þisses Middangeardes Ende Neah Is. This late 10th-century homily says that the dead will be forced to reveal their sins on Judgement Day:
biþ þonne se flæschoma ascyred swa glæs, ne mæg ðæs unrihtes beon awiht bedigled (Morris, pages 109/11)

(then the flesh will be as clear as glass, nor may its wrongs be at all concealed).
Isn’t this too perfect? The glassy flesh of sinners will no longer be able to conceal sins when the end of the world comes! Just like the glass of a beaker reveals what’s in it. Those sins – whether consensual sex between people of different social ranks, or the prostitute and drunken patron’s power struggle – are all going to be on display. A sobering note to end on, I know. (get it?)

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Glorie, F., ed. Variae Collectiones Aenigmatum Merovingicae Aetatis. Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, vol. 133-133A. Turnhout: Brepols, 1968.

Leahy, Kevin. Anglo-Saxon Crafts. Stroud: Tempus, 2003, esp. pages 106-7.

Magennis, Hugh. “The Cup as Symbol and Metaphor in Old English Literature.” Speculum, vol. 60 (1985), pages 517-36.

Morris, Richard, ed. The Blickling Homilies. Early English Text Society o.s. (original series) 58, 63, 73. London: Oxford University Press, 1874-80.

Murphy, Patrick J. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011, pages 204-6.

Salvador-Bello, Mercedes. “The Sexual Riddle Type in Aldhelm’s Enigmata, the Exeter Book, and Early Medieval Latin.” Philological Quarterly, vol. 90 (2012), pages 357-85, esp. 371-2.

Stephens, Win. “The Bright Cup: Early Medieval Vessel Glass.” In The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World. Edited by Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011 (repr. 2013 by Liverpool University Press), pages 275-92.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 63 bibliography latin

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Exeter Riddle 64

VICTORIASYMONS

Date: Thu 13 Jul 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 64

More runes, folks! If you can’t see the runes in the Old English riddle below, scroll down to the bottom of this post where you'll find a screenshot.

Original text:

Ic seah · ᚹ · ond · ᛁ ·     ofer wong faran,

beran · ᛒ · ᛖ ·     Bæm wæs on siþþe

hæbbendes hyht     · ᚻ · ond · ᚪ ·

swylce þryþa dæl     · ᚦ · ond · ᛖ ·

5     Gefeah · ᚠ · ond · ᚫ ·     fleah ofer · ᛠ

ᛋ · ond · ᛈ ·     sylfes þæs folces.

Translation:

I saw w and i travel over the plain,

carrying b . e . With both on that journey there was

the keeper’s joy: h and a,

also a share of the power: þ and e.

5     F and æ rejoiced, flew over the ea

s and p of the same people.
w and i = wicg (horse)

b and e = beorn (man)

h and a = hafoc (hawk)

þ and e = þegn (man)

f and æ = fælca (falcon)

ea and s and p = easpor? (water-track)

Click to show riddle solution?

man on horseback; falconry; ship; scribe; writing

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 125r 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 230.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 62: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 105.

Screen shot for the runes:
Riddle 64 with runes

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 64

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Aldhelm Riddle 64: Columba

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Cum Deus infandas iam plecteret aequore noxas

Ablueretque simul scelerum contagia limphis,

Prima praecepti complevi iussa parentis

Portendens fructu terris venisse salutem.

Mitia quapropter semper praecordia gesto

Et felix praepes nigro sine felle manebo.

Translation:

When God then punished unspeakable offences with the sea

And at the same time washed away the contagions of sins with waters,

I fulfilled the first decrees of the parent’s command,

Indicating with fruit that well-being had come to the earth.

On this account I always have a gentle heart

And I shall remain a happy bird without black bile.

Click to show riddle solution?

Dove

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 64: Tridens

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Tres mihi sunt dentes, unus quos continet ordo;

Unus praeterea dens est et solus in imo;

Meque tenet numen, ventus timet, aequora curant.

Translation:

I have three teeth, which one row contains;

And one tooth besides is alone below;

And divinity holds me, the wind fears me, the seas take care of me.

Click to show riddle solution?

Trident

Notes:

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

If you're researching/studying this collection, you should also consult this excellent new edition: T. J. Leary, ed. Symphosius: The Aenigmata, An Introduction, Text and Commentary. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Textual differences in that edition include:

line 1: unus quos > quos unus

Tags: riddles solutions latin symphosius

Exeter Riddle 65

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 10 Aug 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 65

Riddle 65’s translation comes to us from Judy Kendall, Reader in English and Creative Writing at Salford University. She’s especially interested in poetic composition, visual text and translation, both in an academic context and from the standpoint of a creative practitioner. You can see her creative record of the process of translating an Old English riddle in ‘brief brief: a riddle’ in Amsterdam’s Versal Literary & Arts Journal, issue 12.

Original text:

Cwico wæs ic, ne cwæð ic wiht,      cwele ic efne seþeah.

Ær ic wæs, eft ic cwom.     Æghwa mec reafað,

hafað mec on headre,     ond min heafod scireþ,

biteð mec on bær lic,       briceð mine wisan.

Monnan ic ne bite,       nympþe he me bite;

sindan þara monige     þe mec bitað.

Translation:

Quick to life I was, I did not quip at all, yet even so I’m quelled.

Before I was, renewed I came. I’m everybody’s quarry,

they hold me in fetters, and hack off my head,

bite my stripped body, snap my stalk.

I will not bite a man, unless he bites me;

many are they that bite me.

Click to show riddle solution?

Onion, Leek, Chives

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 125r 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 230.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 63: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 105.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 65

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Aldhelm Riddle 65: Muriceps

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Fida satis custos conservans pervigil aedes

Noctibus in furvis caecas lustrabo latebras

Atris haud perdens oculorum lumen in antris.

Furibus invisis, vastant qui farris acervos,

Insidiis tacite dispono scandala mortis.

Et vaga venatrix rimabor lustra ferarum,

Nec volo cum canibus turmas agitare fugaces,

Qui mihi latrantes crudelia bella ciebunt.

Gens exosa mihi tradebat nomen habendum.

Translation:

A sufficiently dependable protector, ever-vigilant, guarding the house,

I roam shadowy recesses on black nights,

By no means losing the light of my eyes in dark caves.

For the unseen thieves, who ravage the treasures of grain,

I quietly set traps of deadly snares.

And I, a roving huntress, search out the lairs of wild animals,

But I do not wish to stir up fierce throngs with dogs,

Who, barking at me, provoke merciless battles.

A race hateful to me bestowed the name I was to have.

Click to show riddle solution?

Cat

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 65: Sagitta

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Saepta gravi ferro, levibus circumdata pinnis,

Aera per medium volucri contendo meatu,

Missaque discedens nullo mittente revertor.

Translation:

Bound with heavy iron, surrounded by light feathers,

I shoot right through the air on a winged passage,

And sent, departing, I am turned back, with no one doing the sending.

Click to show riddle solution?

Arrow

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 65

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 17 Aug 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 65

Riddle 65’s commentary is once again by Judy Kendall, Reader in English and Creative Writing at Salford University. Take it away, Judy!
 
The generally accepted solution to this riddle is Onion, although Moritz Trautmann argued for Leek or Chives. We know that the early English knew their onions. One proof of this is the first Onion riddle in the Exeter Book, the rude lewd Riddle 25. Physical evidence of onion-growing is trickier to find, since onions are small and their tissues, once deteriorated, leave little trace. However, we do know that the Romans grew onions because of onion bulb-shaped holes left in Pompeii gardens and carbonized onions in Pompeii kitchens (there’s a picture of these in Meyer, page 412 – free to read online with a MYJSTOR account).
There is even an onion, white and ash-like, named the Pompeii onion:
Photo (by ayngelina) from Flickr (license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
All this is relevant (to an extent) because we also know that the Romans took onions on journeys to the further reaches of their empire, including Britain, and doubtless grew them there.
Riddle 65 offers a much more polite take on this vegetable than Riddle 25. That said, the two riddles share marked similarities. Frederick Tupper noted how both refer to loss of head and confinement in a narrow place (page 124), and Patrick Murphy points out that both recall traditional riddles of torture in their use of rapid-fire enumerations of various kinds of suffering (pages 223-4). Such “series of tortures” lists surface elsewhere in the Exeter Book too, as in the heart-aching opening list of actions inflicted upon an animal – skinned, stretched and scraped – in order to produce the vellum of Riddle 26’s book.
Riddle 65 also evokes an onion in its use of artful alliteration. The riddle’s striking aural effects are spiky, piquant, biting, even “attractively staccato,” as Kevin Crossley-Holland has it (page 105). Such effects not only describe an onion’s taste and smell, but also replicate onion skins, circling in layers through and around the riddle. Echoing and interlocking, they repeat back to themselves – just like an onion does. This layering effect is also evident in the recurrence of selected words and phrasal structures, as in the unusual use of parallel antithetical clauses in the same half line (line 2a).
In short, if you know your onions, you soon realize Riddle 65 is much more of an onion than a leek or chive. Its features are oniony: distinctive “biting” taste and smell, layered rings of skin – a palimpsest of interconnecting elements, effects on digestion, bulbous bulbs and the opportunities that these afford for bunching in “fetters.”


Photo (by Xemenendura) of bunching onions from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0).

These all fit so much better with the riddle’s sounds, structure and allusions to head, body and bite, than the slimmer milder attributes of the bulbless leek that, for my money, there isn’t really a contest between the two. Apologies, leek…
The author’s composition in Edible Poetry
In the Old English, these clues are embedded in the complex repeating onion-like patterns that extend aurally across the lines. The modern English translation proffered here attempts to keep something of these aural and structural onion clues. Thus, the hard-sounding bite of “cw” of line one is reciprocated in modern English with “qu.”
The repeated use of “cw,” or “qu,” constitute acts of artful alliteration, a term Andy Orchard defines as the use of sound cleverly combined with meaning for overall effect. The “cw” or “qu” marks life – cwico (quick/life), and death – cwele (quelled/death). These two states are thus both linked and contrasted. This is most striking in the Old English where “cw” heads each half-line in line 1, and where the alliteration is picked up again in line 2 with the use of cwom, which constitutes a second reference to life. In the modern English line 2, “came” provides a much weaker echo of the “qu” sound, so “qu” is also inserted in the last word of the second half of that line, as part of “quarry,” another possible allusion to death. This helps sustain the effect of the original doubly and interlinearly alliterative “cw,” bleeding across from one line to the next.
Initially, in line 1, the riddle suggests that death follows life. The advent of death does not seem very remarkable to us, so it is odd that the poet chooses þeah or seþeah (nevertheless/but/yet) to introduce it. However, the parallel antithetical clauses of the first half of line 2 help to explain this emphasis on oddity. Line 2 opens with an allusion to life followed, presumably, by death: Ær ic wæs, but this is then immediately followed by a similarly structured reference to life (eft ic cwom). Life, followed by death, followed once again by life. Peculiar, since, for humans anyway, death tends to be terminal.
Craig Williamson notes that such an arrangement of clauses within the same half line is very unusual in Old English verse – “highly, perhaps deliberately, eccentric” (page 331). He sees it as an indication of a poet who has “radical ideas about breaking the rules of Old English metre” (page 332). Such a deliberate act of rebellion is asking us to pay close attention to these lines. Here, it suggests, is an embedded clue. The half line indicates regular renewal, a life-death-life-death-life-death cycle. Recurring death constitutes a departure from normality in human experience, but not so for onions.
Thus, these unusually-placed antithetical clauses point us definitively away from reading the subject as human towards a focus on the plant world, on onions perhaps. Onions metamorphose from bulb to fully-grown onion and then back again to bulb. These references to the paralleling and continual sequencing of life and death are reinforced by the positioning, sounds and structural phrasings in both line 1 and 2: line 1’s opening life (Cwico waes ic) matches line 2’s opening death (Ær ic wæs); the phrases are knit even more closely together by the use of alliterated “w”s and repeated ic’s; the similar sounding ic efne/eft ic of lines 1 and 2 also serve this purpose. Everything seems to circle and repeat.
In lines 3 and 4, the riddle continues to tease us with apparent illogicalities of sequence. The somewhat bizarre list of abuses and torture places experiences of being bitten and broken after what for a human would surely be the worst fate of all – decapitation. Double alliteration continues to be employed within each line and parallel phrasing and repeated sounds and words across them, again artfully reminding us of the onion’s cyclical life and circular skin. Most notably, in lines 3 and 4, the words mec on/min/mec on/mine link back to the mec in line 2, as well as pushing forwards to the me/mec, in lines 5 and 6, and culminating in the use of “m” as the alliterative link in the last lines – more repetitious circular effect. In addition, the riddle’s initial cross-alliterative pattern is reprised and hyped up in lines 4-5-6, with repeated references to the “biter bitten” motif, a commonplace in early English riddles, and, as many have observed, constituting a strong echo of the mordeo mordentes of Symphosius’s Latin onion riddle (Enigma 44).
Some of the repeated sounds, colour-coded – there are more!
Is the poet just showing off? Or is there something else to consider. Why the repetition of me? Does it suggest self-obsession? If so, it contrasts oddly with the apparent argument of the last lines, in which the violence of human consumers seems to be starkly compared to the reasonable restrain of the meek and gentle onion – a view that the fruitarians and raw foodies of today would find sympathetic perhaps. The onion only bites in self-defence, unlike the aggressive behaviour of its human attackers.
However, just as the skins of the onion are shed to reveal more onion skin, so this poem’s emphasis on “bite” digs deeper than might first appear. We seem to be reading about the bite of man, but the sounds and repetitions of the words in which this is articulated forcefully bring home the bite of the onion. It might not be the first to bite but this does not negate its ever-ready aggression which is communicated through the biting sound that runs throughout the riddle as well as through the repeated alliteration of “bite” at the riddle’s end. The onion may present itself as a meek mild victim but its spiky voice, and the repeated emphasis on me me me, suggest otherwise.
In this regard, it is pleasing to discover an Old English riddle keeping abreast of developments in modern science. In 2008, the New Scientist reported Annika Paukner and Stephen Suomi’s discovery that monkeys grow more solitary and aggressive after washing with onions (Kaplan)! The onion, as Riddle 65 declares in both sound and sense, is both assertive (me me) and aggressive: ready and ripe for a fight, whether full-on or more covertly, as in the sneakily indirect effect of the emphasis of the very last line. This appears to stress the many bites of the human consumer. However, since the previous line has just established that any human act of violence will engender an onion’s retaliation, it also sets up the onion with equally as many opportunities of biting.
Alternatively, just to put a further onion in the works, onions are also beneficial. Pliny the Elder catalogued, before succumbing to the volcanic eruption near Pompeii, the curative properties of onions in relation to vision, sleep, mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago (National Onion Association). Recent scientific research reveals that they have a proven efficacy in the case of asthma (Elmsley).
I could really splurge on onions now by noting how the spikey staccato effects created by alliteration, word order and phrasing give a good impression of difficulty in breathing, gradually evening out in later lines. But better not – wouldn’t want you to think I’ve completely lost my onions.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Crossley-Holland, Kevin, trans. The Exeter Book Riddles. London: Enitharmon, 2008.

Emsley, John. “Onions Run Rings around Chemists.” New Scientist (30 September 1989)

Kaplan, Matt. “Onion Washing Gets Monkeys in a Lather.” New Scientist (21 July 2008).

Meyer, Frederick G. “Carbonized Food Plants of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Villa at Torre Annunziata.” Economic Botany, vol. 34, issue 4 (1980), pages 401-37.

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

National Onion Association. “History of Onions” (2011).

Orchard, Andy. “Artful Alliteration in Anglo-Saxon Song and Story.” Anglia, vol. 113, issue 1 (1995), pages 429-63.

Salvador-Bello, Mercedes. Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2015.

Taylor, Archer. English Riddles from Oral Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951.

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

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

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 65 judy kendall

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Exeter Riddle 66

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 04 Sep 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 66

This translation is by Erin Sebo, lecturer in English at Flinders University in Australia. Erin is especially interested in wisdom literature, heroism and the history of emotions (so, all the good stuff!).

Original text:

Ic eom mare      þonne þes middangeard

læsse þonne hondwyrm,      leohtre þonne mona,

swiftre þonne sunne.      Sæs me sind ealle

flodas on fæðmum      ond þes foldan bearm,

grene wongas.      Grundum ic hrine,

helle underhnige,      heofonas oferstige,

wuldres eþel,      wide ræce

ofer engla eard,      eorþan gefylle,

ealne middangeard      ond merestreamas

side mid me sylfum.      Saga hwæt ic hatte.

Translation:

I am greater than this middle-earth,

less than a hand-worm, lighter than the moon,

swifter than the sun.  All the seas’ tides are

in my embraces and the earthen breast,

the green fields.  I touch the foundations,

I sink under hell, I soar over the heavens,

the home of glory; I reach wide

over the homeland of angels; I fill the earth abundantly,

the entire world and the streams of the oceans

with myself. Say what I am called.

Click to show riddle solution?

Creation, God

Notes:

This riddle appears on folios 125r-125v 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 230-1.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 64: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 105-6.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 66

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Commentary for Exeter Riddles 1-3
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Aldhelm Riddle 66: Mola

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Nos sumus aequales communi sorte sorores,

Quae damus ex nostro cunctis alimenta labore.

Par labor ambarum, dispar fortuna duarum;

Altera nam cursat, quod numquam altera gessit;

Nec tamen invidiae stimulis agitamur acerbis:

Utraque, quod mandit, quod ruminat ore patenti,

Comminuens reddit famulans sine fraude maligna.

Translation:

We are sisters, equals in our common fate,

Who give from our work food to all.

The work of both is equal, the fortune of us both unequal;

For one is in motion, which the other never is;

Nor are we yet vexed by the bitter stings of envy:

Whatever each one of us eats, chews with open mouth,

Crushing, it then returns, making it serviceable, without wicked fraud.

Click to show riddle solution?

Millstone

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 66: Flagellum

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

De pecudis dorso pecudes ego terreo cunctas,

Obsequium reddens memorata lege doloris.

Nec volo contemni sed contra nolo nocere.

Translation:

From cattle’s backs, I frighten all cattle,

Restoring obedience through the remembered law of pain.

I do not want to be despised; on the contrary, I do not want to harm.

Click to show riddle solution?

Whip

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 66

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Tue 26 Sep 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 66

This commentary post is once again by Erin Sebo at Flinders University in Australia. Take it away, Erin!
 
Riddle 66 is the second of the three “Creation Riddles” in the Exeter Book (Riddles 40, 66 and 94). Although it’s common to find several riddles with the same answer – or which seem to have the same answer – the creation riddles are unusual because they are all versions of the same riddle, just “edited” a bit. (Or in the case of Riddle 94, a lot.)
All riddles have a trick at their heart: a paradox, an ambiguity, a misdirection; the thing that makes the riddle hard to solve. It’s the thing that makes a riddle a riddle.
Riddles 40, 66, and 94 and their parent, Aldhelm’s epic Latin De Creatura (the last riddle in his riddle sequence), all have the same trick and the same solution. They’re same riddle, even though the words are different.
If the number of surviving versions is anything to go on (and maybe it’s not), it was the most popular riddle in early England. Or, if not the most popular, perhaps the most important? The best known? Whatever it was, the complier(s) of the Exeter Book thought it was worth the vellum to write out different versions of it.
But it’s not how Riddles 40, 66, and 94 are the same that’s the most interesting bit; what’s really interesting is how they’re different. Each version of this riddle gives us a slightly different insight into how the world was imagined. In the case of Riddle 66, it gives us an insight into how ordinary people, or at least some ordinary people, imagined the world. That’s rare in early medieval texts.
De Creatura was written by a theologian (Aldhelm), and Riddle 40 was translated by someone who was at least educated enough to read Latin, but from the way Riddle 66 has been adapted, made shorter, more focused, more memorable, it may well have spent time in the oral tradition, being told and retold. For example, the litany of oppositions, often illustrated by obscure or exotic animals or materials and underpinned by allusions to scripture, of Riddle 40, is replaced by simple, broad elemental images. On the other hand, the memorable and unusual word hondwyrm is preserved. (Often something that’s characteristic will stick in people’s minds so these elements tend to survive.) Otherwise, very few of the same details survive, just the overall idea, which is typical of the way oral texts change. So while most of the Exeter Riddles are composed and meant to be read this one was probably told – and given the lack of details which reveal specialist knowledge, not to mention the highly unorthodox (potentially heretical) view of the world, it may well have been told by ordinary people.
So, how did the ordinary medieval person of this riddle imagine the world? The most striking thing is that the riddle doesn’t mention God. Riddle 40 imagines Creation more or less like this:


13^th-century Psalter World Map from a manuscript called British Library Add. MS 28681, via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).

God on the outside, who healdeð ond wealdeð (holds and controls) (Riddle 40, line 5a), is keeping an eye on things. But in Riddle 66, Creation is imagined not as a collection of all the things that make up the physical and/or metaphysical worlds, but rather as a force, racing around the world, diving under the seas. Unlike Riddle 40 which has a series of dichotomies, with a positive and a negative side, Creation in Riddle 66 is made up of excellent qualities only: it’s fast and bright and can reach the angels. It’s expansive. Although creation says it’s laesse, most of the riddle is about how it fills the oceans and extends through the fields. By the same token, it dives under hell but there’s no mention of devils, only of soaring as high as angels. It’s an optimistic force. And it’s not clear what its relationship to God is because this is never quite articulated. It is described more like an irresistible force, racing freely around the space it inhabits, than an expression of God. It does not describe itself as enacting God’s plan or acting on his orders. And the fact it only reaches angels, not God himself seems to suggest that they are not connected.
It’s an unusual idea of the world.
And it’s as surprising in its details as it is in its overall conception and I want to end with one of its strangest, tiniest details; tiny hondwyrm. It seems to be a parasitic insect but we’re not sure what kind exactly. And it’s also the only animal mentioned. There are no birds or fish or mammals – including humans. So, I’ll finish the commentary on this riddle with a question – why is this tiny insect more important than all other creatures?

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Michelet, Fabienne. Creation, Migration and Conquest: Imaginary Geography and Sense of Space in Old English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Neville, Jennifer. Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Sebo, Erin. In Enigmate: The History of a Riddle from 400-1500. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017. (coming out in October!)

Wehlau, Ruth. The Riddle of Creation: Metaphor Structures in Old English Poetry. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.

Tags: exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 66 erin sebo

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Exeter Riddle 67

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 02 Oct 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 67

Riddle 67’s translation is by Brett Roscoe of The King’s University, Alberta. Thanks for taking on such a tough riddle, Brett!

Original text:

Ic on þinge gefrægn      þeodcyninges

wrætlice wiht,      wordgaldra [. . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .] snytt[. . . . .] hio symle deð

fira gehw[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5     . . . .] wisdome.      Wundor me þæt [. . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] nænne muð hafað.

fet ne [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .]      welan oft sacað,

cwiþeð cy[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] wearð

10     leoda lareow.      Forþon nu longe m[.]g

[. . . . . . . . . ] ealdre      ece lifgan

missenlice,      þenden menn bugað

eorþan sceatas.      Ic þæt oft geseah

golde gegierwed,      þær guman druncon,

15     since ond seolfre.      Secge se þe cunne,

wisfæstra hwylc,      hwæt seo wiht sy.

Translation:

I have heard of a wondrous creature

in the king’s council,(1) magical words [. . .

[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] it always does

of men[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5     . . . . . . .] wisdom. A wonder to me that [. . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] has no mouth.

No feet [ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .] often contend for wealth,

says [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] “(I) have become

10     a teacher of peoples. Therefore now a long time

[. . . . . . . . .]life eternally live,

in various places, while people inhabit

the expanses of the earth.” I have often seen it,

adorned with gold, treasure and silver,

15     where men drank. Let him who knows,

each one who is wise, say what that creature is.

Click to show riddle solution?

Bible, Religious Book

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 125v 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 231.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 65: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 106.

Translation Note:

(1) “in the king’s council” can describe either the hearing or the wondrous creature.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 67

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Aldhelm Riddle 67: Cribellus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Sicca pruinosam crebris effundo fenestris

Candentemque nivem iactans de viscere furvo;

Et tamen omnis amat, quamvis sit frigida, nimbo

Densior et nebulis late spargatur in aula.

Qua sine mortales grassantur funere leti

(Sic animae pariter pereunt, dum vita fatescit)

Et qua ditati contemnunt limina Ditis.

Liquitur in prunis numquam torrentibus haec nix,

Sed, mirum dictu, magis indurescit ad ignem.

Translation:

Dry, I pour out through many windows a frosty

And shining snow, casting it out from my dark insides;

And yet everyone loves it, although it is cold, thicker

Than cloud and mists, and sprinkled broadly through the hall.

Without it, mortals are vexed by ruin’s death

(Thus do spirits perish equally, when life grows tired)

And enriched by it, they disdain the threshold of Dis.

This snow never melts on burning coals, 

But, miraculous to say, it hardens more in the flame.

Click to show riddle solution?

Sieve

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 67: Lanterna

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Cornibus apta cavis, tereti perlucida gyro,

Lumen habens intus divini sideris instar,

Noctibus in mediis faciem non perdo dierum.

Translation:

Fitted with hollow horns, transparent with a rounded circle,

I have light inside, the likeness of a divine star,

In the middle of the night I do not lose the look of day.

Click to show riddle solution?

Lantern

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 67

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 09 Oct 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddle 67

Riddle 67's commentary is once again by Brett Roscoe of The King’s University, Alberta. Go, Brett, go!


Let me start by assuring you that this is not a connect-the-dot puzzle, though it looks like one. The rows of periods show where we cannot read the riddle because the manuscript has been damaged. In the Middle Ages, manuscripts weren’t used just used for writing. The manuscript in which most of the Old English riddles are found, the Exeter Book, was used as a coaster, a chopping-board, and later even as kindling for fire! (though to be fair, I should say that this last use was accidental). When you add to that dirt, dust and mould, and natural wear and tear over time, it actually isn’t surprising that the manuscript is damaged. It’s more surprising that it survived, and that we’re fortunate enough to read it today.
That said, though, we’re still faced with the problem of reading this riddle. It may not be a connect-the-dot, but what if it were a fill-in-the-blank exercise? Here is the poem after filling in some of the blanks with suggestions made by various scholars (these are summarized in Krapp and Dobbie, pages 368-9):
Ic on þinge gefrægn    þeodcyninges

wrætlice wiht,    wordgaldra [sum

secgan mid] snytt[ro,    swa] hio symle deð

fira gehw[am. . . . . . . . . . . . . .]

. . . .] wisdome.    Wundor me þæt [þuhte

þæt hio mihte swa]    nænne muð hafað.

fet ne [folme. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .]    welan oft sacað,

cwiþeð cy[mlice . . . . . . . . .] wearð

leoda lareow.    Forþon nu longe m[æ]g

[awa to] ealdre    ece lifgan

missenlice,    þenden men bugað

eorþan sceatas.    Ic þæt oft geseah

golde gegierwed,    þær guman druncon,

since ond seolfre.    Secge se þe cunne,

wisfæstra hwylc,    hwæt seo wiht sy.
O.k., so it’s still not perfect, but we could at least say it’s a bit better. And it can help us flesh out our translation:
I have heard of a wondrous creature

in the king’s council, speaking magical words

with wisdom, as it always does

men[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .] wisdom. It seemed a wonder to me that

it could speak as it has no mouth.

No feet or hands[. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . .] often contend for wealth,

says fittingly [. . .] “(I) have become

a teacher of peoples. Therefore now for a long time,

always unto life, I can eternally live,

in various places, while people inhabit

the expanses of the earth.” I have often seen it,

adorned with gold, treasure and silver,

where men drank. Let him who knows,

each one who is wise, say what that creature is.
Now the riddle is – though still unclear – legible enough to point to a solution. Most agree that its solution is “Bible,” or some sort of gilded religious book. Lines 5-6 express amazement that this speaker, whoever or whatever it is, is mouth-less. And a mouth-less speaker in Latin and Old English riddles often suggests a kind of writing or writing utensil, since a written text conveys its message to the eyes of the reader without making a sound (see Riddle 60, Riddle 95, and Eusebius’ Latin Enigma 7, De Littera and 33, De Membrano). Besides having no mouth, this strange speaker also has fet ne (no feet), and possibly no hands (if we accept the reconstruction of folme), and it speaks wordgaldra (magical words). Magical words suggest that the book has power outside of its covers; it has authority in the “real” world. It is, after all, a leoda lareow (teacher of peoples). What kind of book would have this kind of authority and power? The Bible, with its message of salvation and world transformation, would seem to fit the bill.
The strongest hint at the religious nature of this book is the fact that it is gilded with gold and silver (lines 13b-15a). Gold and silver were often used to decorate Bible manuscripts. We’ve already seen this kind of decoration in Riddle 26, but just to refresh our memories, here is an example from the Lindisfarne Gospels showing the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew:
Photo from Wikipedia Commons (public domain)
This kind of attention was usually reserved for religious texts such as Bibles, psalters, lectionaries, and books of hours. The elaborate decorations reflected the value placed on the content of the manuscript.
So if the answer is a Bible, why are we told that it is often seen þær guman druncon (“where men drank,” line 14b)? If you’re like me, you probably think of reading as a quiet, solitary activity. When I read I make myself a cup of tea, go to a quiet room, and maybe turn on some mellow music. I don’t invite friends over for a party and then pull out a book. Though we may not often think of reading as a public event, it is an activity that provides an opportunity for social bonding. Have you ever been to a public poetry or book reading? Or have you ever read a children’s book to your son or daughter at bedtime? Have you heard the Bible read out loud during a Sunday church service? If so, you’ll have a sense of what this riddle is talking about. In fact, in medieval monasteries it was a common practice to listen to the Bible read out loud during meals. We might say, then, that Riddle 67 uses the kingly hall to represent the monastery. I’m not sure who this comparison would flatter more, the monks or the warriors, but it is not an uncommon comparison in the Exeter Book riddles.
If you’re interested in reading more about early medieval Bibles, you might want to compare this riddle to Riddles 26, 59, and perhaps 95.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading:

Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007.

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

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

Tags: anglo saxon riddles old english solutions riddle 67 brett roscoe

Related Posts:
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 26
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 59
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 60

Exeter Riddles 68 and 69

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 16 Oct 2017

Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddles 68 and 69

A quick note about this post: You may be wondering why I’m doing two riddles at once, and I’ll certainly explain more in my commentary. But for now, be aware that the division of this particular riddle or pair of riddles is very controversial! Krapp and Dobbie’s edition of the Exeter Book numbered the first two lines as Riddle 68 and the final as Riddle 69, but many editions now squash them together as one. More to follow! For now, enjoy:

Original text:

Ic þa wiht geseah      on weg feran;

heo wæs wrætlice      wundrum gegierwed.

[Riddle 69] Wundor wearð on wege;      wæter wearð to bane.

Translation:

I saw a creature travel on the way;

it was miraculously adorned with wonders.

[Riddle 69] There was a wonder on the wave; water turned to bone.

Click to show riddle solution?

Ice, Iceberg, Icicle, Frozen Pond

Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 125v 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 231.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 66: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 106.

Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 68 riddle 69

Related Posts:
A Brief Introduction to Riddles
Commentary for Exeter Riddles 68 and 69
Exeter Riddle 83

Aldhelm Riddle 68: Salpix

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Sum cava, bellantum crepitu quae corda ciebo,

Vocibus horrendis stimulans in bella cohortes.

Idcirco reboans tanto clamore resulto,

Quod nulla interius obtundant viscera vocem;

Spiritus in toto sed regnant corpore flabra.

Garrula me poterit numquam superare cicada

Aut arguta simul cantans luscinia ruscis,

Quam lingua propria dicunt acalantida Graeci.

Translation:

I am hollow, with my noise I shall rouse the hearts of warriors,

Spurring cohorts into battle with my dreadful notes.

Therefore, resounding with such a clamour I emit

Because no innards inside me deafen my voice; 

But the gusts of wind exercise power in my whole body.

A chirping cricket will never be able to surpass me,

Nor the lively nightingale, singing at the same time in the broom,

The bird that the Greeks in their own language call 'acalanthis'.

Click to show riddle solution?

Trumpet

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 68: Specular

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Fri 09 Sep 2022

Original text:

Perspicior penitus nec luminis arceo visus,

Transmittens oculos ultra mea membra meantes;

Nec me transit hiems, sed sol tamen emicat in me.

Translation:

I am seen through from within and do not hinder the eye’s sight,

Transmitting the visions passing beyond my parts;

The cold does not pass through me, and yet the sun springs out in me.

Click to show riddle solution?

Window-pane

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 Riddles 68 and 69

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Mon 23 Oct 2017

Matching Riddle: Exeter Riddles 68 and 69

From previous posts, you may now be getting the sense that the final run of riddles in the Exeter Book is where everything has gone to pot. You’re not wrong. As I explained in my commentary for Riddle 63, there’s a rather large and irritating hole that has damaged multiple works toward the end of the manuscript.
That’s not, however, the problem we have here. The problem with Riddles 68 and 69 and deciding whether they’re one poem or two is totally the scribe’s fault! Because, you see, there’s punctuation in the manuscript that suggests Riddle 68 ends at gegierwed, and an enlarged initial W on Wundor that implies Riddle 69 is the start of a new poem. I don’t have a copyright-free photo to share with you, so here’s my finest attempt at an artistic rendering:



What, what, WHAT do we do with this information? Well, let’s remember that this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this sort of situation. Riddles 47 and 48 present us with the complete opposite problem. In that part of the manuscript, we have no punctuation to separate out what – from their content – seem to be two different poems. But they’re run together on the manuscript page, and, where we’d expect a punctuation mark like the one at the end of Riddle 68 (and most riddles), we have nothing.
There’s also the matter of Riddles 1-3, which are set out on the page like separate poems, but all deal with similar subjects. Some editors think they’re one big riddle in three movements. Some think they’re three separate poems that have been placed near each other on purpose.
And the list of problem riddles goes on.
The long and the short of it is…the layout of the riddles (and other poems in the Exeter Book) can be a bit messy! In fact, Mercedes Salvador-Bello argues that the assembling of these particular riddles and the ones around them “was done in a rather careless way” and “the compilers increasingly resorted to opportunistic improvisation in place of planned arrangement” (page 398). Whether there’s any sort of method to this mess is a matter for the manuscript specialists, and not little ol’ me.
But I’ll allow myself to have opinions about the poetic content…because the only thing I love more than poetry is having opinions.
When it comes to Riddles 68 and 69, I’m going to side with the editors who read the poems as one. The sense of wonder and the travelling on ways/waves go quite nicely together – so nicely, that Craig Williamson suggests this variation of on weg (line 1b: on the way) and on wege (line 3a: on the wave) is the “trick” of the riddle (page 335). And that beautiful final half-line, wæter wearð to bane (water turned to bone), explains the whole wondrous situation very tidily. Ice! (Old English Is!)


Photo (by yours truly) of an iceberg at Jökulsárlón in Iceland.

The specific form of ice is up for grabs. The riddle is often solved as Iceberg, hence the dramatic shot above. There is, after all, another iceberg riddle in the Exeter Book: do you remember the monstrous creature of Riddle 33? They’re quite different poems on the whole, but there is some verbal overlap, as we can see in Riddle 33’s first line:
Wiht cwom æfter wege      wrætlicu liþan

(Something wondrous came moving over wave)
Interesting.
Leaving Iceberg to one side, John D. Niles has also suggested Frozen Pond (Old English Is-mere) (page 143), and Patrick J. Murphy recently made quite a good case for Icicle (Old English Gicel) (page 8). Murphy pointed out the riddle tradition’s “penchant for defamiliarizing common objects,” and noted that icicles and bones are associated in folk riddles (page 8). This makes sense, of course, since they have a similar shape! Or as Murphy puts it (rather nicely, I think): “the elongated, rodlike forms of ice […] would most readily activate the image of ossification” (page 8). If we’re worried about the travelling of those elongated ossificatory icicles (say that three times fast!), we needn’t be. Icicles are still made of water, after all, and the travelling could refer to the way they extend and grow longer over time.


Photo (by Barfooz) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0).

Anywho, back to the issue of one vs two riddles: it’s also worth pointing out that – if we don’t solve Riddles 68 and 69 together – the solution to Riddle 68 is a lot harder to come by. A creature travelling on a path who’s miraculously adorned could be…a lot of things. We definitely need more to go on than that! Not to mention the fact that nearly the exact same lines that make up the whole of Riddle 68 are found earlier in the Exeter Book as the start of Riddle 36:
Ic wiht geseah     on wege feran,

seo was wrætlice     wundrum gegierwed.

(I saw a creature travel on the way/wave,

she/it was miraculously adorned with wonders.)
This particular riddle is pretty messy too, and may represent the smooshing together (that’s the technical term, I believe) of two separate riddles. The best solution seems to be Ship – so there’s definitely a thematic connection between water, ice and sea travel.
Riddle 68 seems to be drawing on formulaic language about this sort of thing. It’s possible, of course, that the scribe copying out the riddle simply didn’t finish it, and went straight on to the next one. When I’m tired, my eyes skip across the page all the time. These things happen.
Either way, though, Riddle 69 can certainly function on its own:
Wundor wearð on wege;       wæter wearð to bane.

(There was a wonder on the wave; water turned to bone.)
In fact, it’s a very nice example of the riddle form in brief. This riddle describes something that should be recognizable, but from a strange perspective. Like metaphors, which represent one thing in terms of another, riddles ask us to think outside the box. Here, the riddle asks how water can become bone. It doesn’t say "ice is bony" (not the most eloquent of metaphors!), but instead demands that we make the logical leap from water-turned-bone to ice. What a nice little example of riddling.
And look at all that alliteration! We have no fewer than FIVE "w" words in one line! In fact, apart from the prepositions, bane (bone) is the only word in the line to start with a different letter. The sounds of these letters almost resemble the wobbly flowy-ness of water solidifying into a sharp bursting "b." That’s not the most articulate sentence I’ve ever written, but hopefully you get a sense of what I mean. If not, try reading the line out loud to yourself!
Please do this in public. Or in your workplace. Or maybe in a silent reading room in a library. Are people looking at you funny yet? Then my work here is done.

Notes:

References and Suggested Reading

Murphy, Patrick J. Unriddling the Exeter Riddles. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011, esp. pages 8-9.

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

Salvador-Bello, Mercedes. Isidorean Perceptions of Order: the Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2015, esp. pages 398-9.

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 68 riddle 69

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Commentary for Exeter Riddles 1-3
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 33
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 36
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 47
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 48
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 63

Aldhelm Riddle 69: Taxus

ALEXANDRAREIDER

Date: Thu 14 Apr 2022

Original text:

Semper habens virides frondenti in corpore crines

Tempore non ullo viduabor tegmine spisso,

Circius et Boreas quamvis et flamina Chauri

Viribus horrendis studeant deglobere frontem;

Sed me pestiferam fecerunt fata reorum,

Cumque venenatus glescit de corpore stipes,

Lurcones rabidi quem carpunt rictibus oris,

Occido mandentum mox plura cadavera leto.

Translation:

Always having green foliage on my leafy body,

At no time am I deprived of a thick covering,

Although Circus and Boreas and Chaurus’ gusts 

Devote themselves to peeling off my covering with horrible force;

But the fates of things made me pestilential:

Whenever a poisonous branch grows from my body

Which frenzied gluttons consume with gaping mouths,

I immediately kill dead the chewers’ many corpses.

Click to show riddle solution?

Yew-Tree

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