“Hold me now. La, la, la, la!” Often, when I am writing on a particular theme, a song starts playing over and over in my head. My internal soundtrack for this commentary has been the 1983 hit, “Hold Me Now,” by The Thompson Twins. And it is a very fitting song, since this is the first of three riddles that are all about things that hold other things—that is to say, containers!

This riddle is all about a cup. Cups are a common riddle topic—they also feature in the Lorsch (Riddle 5) and Aldhelm (Riddle 80) riddles, and possibly the Exeter Book riddles too (Riddle 63). In the Early Middle Ages, cups and goblets were generally made from wood. Those made from glass or metal were luxury items at the upper end of the market.

Glassmaking was a highly specialist skill in early medieval Europe, just as it is today. There is plenty of archaeological and textual evidence for glassmaking in 7th and 8th century England—religious hubs such as Glastonbury Abbey were also early centres for glass production, and several sources mention the emigration of glassmakers from the continent during this period (Broadley, pages 1-7).

Several centres of glassmaking existed in medieval northern Italy, with Venice being the most notable. Some of the earliest evidence for Venetian glassmaking comes from the excavation of a 9th century glass factory on the Venetian island of Torcello. Glass droplets and smashed crucibles were found, alongside what may have been a furnace—the glass was produced by fusing silica with natron (a naturally occurring mix of soda ash and other minerals) imported from the Middle East (Whitehouse, pages 76-7).

The cup in our riddle is made from translucent glass, as made clear by lines 1 and 2—it isn’t decorated with gems, as some expensive metal goblets or chalices might be. Line 3 refers to the melting of silica (i.e. sand or limestone) in a furnace to produce molten glass. It also notes that fire-damaged glass will fracture easily.

Lines 4 to 6 are particularly fun, because they describe the cup as a kind of amorous zombie who kisses everyone. They begin by explaining that the cup cannot rot (unlike wooden cups), and that the cup does not care about death. They then go on to talk about the cup’s own death and resurrection—perhaps with the Christian idea of the resurrection of Jesus in mind. The word defunctus means “dead,” but also “used up’ or “finished.” Thus, the cup that has been finished will be raised again when it is reused. This reminds me of when I worked in a pub—when I cleared the bar, I would ask drinkers if their nearly empty glasses were “dead.” Alternatively, defunctus alludes to the practice of melting down and reusing discarded glass (see Wickham, page 702). The riddle closes with the once-dead object offering kisses. Figurative kissing appears in several Bern riddles, including nos. 5, 35, 42, and 46. In this case, kissing is a metaphor for drinking.

So there we have it. Time and time again, the Bern Riddles show how a few lines about an everyday object can hold the most extraordinary ideas. Next time you drinking from a cup, remember that you are also kissing a zombie.

The second of three container riddles, this is an interesting and rather tricky riddle, which describes an animal bladder used in two different ways. Bladders, usually from domesticated pigs, are excellently stretchy containers.

Lines 1 and 2 are all about stretchiness. They refer to the use of a bladder to carry water when used by humans. In line 1, the expanding bladder “follows” (sequi) the liquid that it hides when it stretches as it is filled. The beating of the liquid in line 2 probably refers to the water sloshing around during a traveller’s journey (cursus).

At this stage, the bladder still speaks in the first person. However, from line 3 onwards, the third person is used—and then it starts to describe an empty bladder. This is introduced with the apparent paradox of a thing that is both “filled” (impletur) and “empty of stuff” (vacua rebus). The problem of the vacuum was an ancient one, which had been debated by Plato and Aristotle. As Paul Winterfeld observed, we should not be surprised that the Bern riddler also found this scientific-philosophical problem intriguing (Winterfeld, p. 292).

The weightless citizen in line 4 is air, which the bladder holds for as long as it “endures” (permanet). Some manuscripts replace civem (‘citizen’) with cibum (“food, nourishment”), but the idea of a sausage or other food that is both empty and filled does not really work.

In the final two lines, we are told that the bladder floats when blown up with air, and it cannot carry anything when burst. The Middle Ages had balloons too!

It is amazing that six short lines about an ordinary container can hold so many extraordinary ideas. Riddle 7 begins with the bladder’s stretchiness, before taking in vacuums, the weight of air, and balloons. As I suggested in the previous commentary, riddles are perhaps the most fantastic containers of all.

There are several words that describe the last of the container riddles. Egg-cellent! Egg-quisite! Ab-shell-utely egg-ceptional! Can you guess what it is yet?

Line 1 begins egg-actly as you would expect a riddle about eggs—with a ‘who came first’ paradox. However, this is not the usual chicken-and-egg paradox, but rather an embryo-and-egg one. The paradox is resolved by recognising that the mother (the egg) and child (the embryo) are siblings because they were both born together. Unusual birth stories like this are very common in the Bern riddles.

Line 2 explains that the egg remains unbroken whilst it is ‘pregnant.’ The word intacta can mean “intact,” but also “chaste,” which plays on the idea of a virgin birth. Although the Bern riddles are never explicitly Christian, they do occasionally refer subtly to religious motifs such as this one.

The final two lines hint at the idea of caesarean birth and maternal death during childbirth, but they really describe the breaking of the egg by the emerging young.

This riddle shares several interesting language features with others in the collection. Firstly, rather than using the genitive personal pronoun, mei (“my”), it uses the dative, mihi (“to me”). This dative of possession is not at all unusual, but the Bern riddler seems to have been a fan of this construction—they use it extensively. Secondly, this is the first time that we encounter the words venter (“belly, womb, bowels”) and fundere (“to pour out,” “to give birth to”)—both words feature prominently in other descriptions of birth and the body in the Bern riddles (see Riddles 19, 21, 23, 31, 40, 47, and 53).

This takes us to the end of the “container” series of riddles. Sadly, it also brings us to the end of all my egg puns. I guess the yoke is on me!

Riddles are usually fun, but this one really grinds you down—because it is about millstones!

Three Bern riddles describe the process of processing cereals into flour. Riddle 12 describes how it is reaped and threshed, and Riddle 17 describes how the flour is sieved. In this riddle, the grain is ground into flour—and this process described in a charmingly bizarre fashion.

Millstones always come in pairs. In larger, water-powered mills, a runnerstone would rotate and grind against a static bedstone. In smaller handmills, a pair of quernstones would be placed together and the top stone would be rotated by hand—this could be a laborious process. Animals could also be used, as demonstrated by the Old English word esolcweorn (lit. “donkey-millstone”). Grain was poured through the hole in the centre of the stone, and, once ground into flour, found its way out to the millstone’s outer edge through furrows cut into the stones. Although windmills did not arrive in Europe until the 11th century, watermills and handmills were both common across Europe from ancient times. Because of its economic and cultural importance, milling is a common theme in all kinds of medieval documentary and literary texts, from Gregory the Great in the 6th century to Chaucer and Boccaccio in the 14th.

Now back to the riddle! It is easy to overlook the poetic form of the Bern Riddles, simply because the content is so interesting. But this riddle begins with a great example of how these riddles can use alliteration and assonance within and across lines. The word “Eva” alliterates and assonates nicely with the previous riddle subject, ovum (“egg”), as well as the words aevum (“age”) and ego (“I”) in the same line. The first line also contains two-fold alliteration on s- (“senior,” “sum,” “senior”).

Line 1 also contains an intriguing sub-riddle: why is the millstone older than Eve? It could simply refer to the hard-wearing limestones, granites, and sandstones that were typically used for milling. Or it could allude to the fact that, according to Genesis, God created the earth on the first day, and dry land—including rocks—on the third day, three days before he fashioned Adam and Eve. But it also seems to be drawing on wider associations of millstones with cyclic time and aging—the stone’s hardness and heaviness, circular shape, and associations with work naturally lent itself to this. For example, in Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, a reference to the millstone in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 18:6) is said to represent “the cycle and labour of this worldly life” (secularis vitae circuitus ac labor) (Gregory, PL77:16B). When viewed in this way, the riddle seems to be playing with the idea that the millstone is as old and unstoppable as worldly time itself.

Line 3 relies on the extended sense of vita (“life”) as “sustenance.” The millstone takes the “many” dead grains and transforms them into flour for everyone. Line 4 continues this theme, by explaining that the millstone destroys or humbles (prosternere) thousands, i.e. it crushes thousands of individual grains. It does this without striking or punching them, since the process is one of crushing and cutting.

Line 5 alludes to a very real problem. When turned without grain, millstones could create dangerous sparks, and when combined with combustible flour in the air, this was a serious hazard for millers. Thus, the millstone makes food when fed, but fire when “hungry.”

Riddles like this one rely on a whole host of cultural and intertextual references, and we have only touched the surface here. We often imagine of writing as a creative act, but we do not often think this about reading. This is one of the great things about the Bern Riddles—you get to be a really creative and imaginative reader, trying out all kinds of associations and seeing if they fit. Even if you know a riddle’s solutions straight away, it is only the beginning of the game. If I wanted to put it into puns, I might even say that the best riddle-readers go against the grain and leave no stone unturned. If you can do that, then riddling is sedimentary, my dear Watson!

Some riddles are more straightforward than others. But what about those riddles where it is not clear whether we are supposed to read them literally or figuratively? Well, this is one of them.

I have translated the title of this riddle as ‘On the ladder.’ However, it seems to be referring to a single rung or step, or perhaps the side-rail of a ladder. The riddle-creature explains that if she lived alone, then she could not go upon the directam viam (“straight path”). However, when joined with her twin sister—twin because they are identical—they allow everyone an iter velox (“speedy journey”) all the way to the top.

The riddle echoes several other Bern riddles. The opening line about “firm feet” (firma planta) recalls the “squishy places” of the extra-brilliant Riddle 4 and its eccentric horse-bench. Similarly, the closing two lines are reminiscent of the final line of Riddle 4, when the horse-bench explains that he dislikes being kicked. In this case, if the ladder is to be used, she must put up with having its feet stood on all the time. The “firm places” trope also turns up in the fish riddle, Riddle 30.

I mentioned at the start of this commentary that I am not sure how straightforward this riddle is. The question is whether the ladder just represents a ladder, or whether it has a deeper and more spiritual significance. On the one hand, there is no overt religious message in the riddle. It could be all about a very ordinary, bog-standard ladder. The riddle tells us that people use the ladder to reach what they want—perhaps the fruit or honey mentioned in nearby riddles. On the other hand, it might suggest the occasion in the Book of Genesis when the patriarch Jacob dreamt of a ladder or stairway leading from earth to heaven, with angels travelling up and down it (Genesis 28:12). In medieval exegesis, the ladder was an allegory for the path to heaven that the faithful must take, with the steps representing the piety, virtues, or ascetic struggles that led there.

I will leave you with this question: is the ladder supposed to be understood literally or figuratively? Or perhaps both? Is it is the kind of ladder you’d find in a shed, or is it an allegorical stairway to heaven.

Regular readers of The Riddle Ages will have noticed that I like to communicate ideas using tangentially related music videos. This occasion is no exception—our riddle plays upon what it means to be dead or alive, so take it away, Bon Jovi.

Riddles often use binaries to generate surprising ideas; one of the most common is the binary of living/dead. In Line 1, the dead wood (in the form of a ship) carries a maiorem laborem (“greater burden”) than the living tree did. Interestingly, although death in the early Middle Ages was often depicted as a relief from a lifetime of hardship, here the idea is reversed. The “greater burden” is, of course, all the contents of the ship that it carries. Line 2 continues this theme: the wood does far more work when lying down than standing up. Again, this is the exact opposite of us humans.

Line 3-4 describe the unloading of a ship as if it were an animal being disembowelled. The word viscera (“innards”) occurs on three other occasions in the Bern collection (Riddles 23, 24, and 32)., and each time it is used in a new and creative way. It also appears in Exeter Riddle 90 (the only Latin riddle of the Exeter Book). The various uses of viscera are testament to the importance in riddles of disclosing the hidden interior of things.

The creature tells us that it is intact and inedible once dead, before returning to the theme of travel and feet from the previous riddle. When alive, the creature moves as if it was never there, leaving no marks behind it. This “no traces” trope is very common in the medieval riddle tradition, from Symphosius to the Exeter Book. For example, Symphosius’ Riddle 13, which is also about a ship, tells us that curro vias multas, vestigia nulla relinquens (“I run many roads, leaving no tracks behind”). Alcuin of York even uses it as a trick question in his mathematical puzzles, Propositiones ad acuendos iuvenes. He asks, Bos qui tota die arat, quot uestigia faciat in ultima riga (“If an ox ploughs for the whole day, how many footprints does he make in the final furrow?”). The solution is “none,” since the plough that the ox pulls will cover all his footsteps with earth.

This riddle manages to pack so much into six lines: live and death turned upside down, things turned inside out, and a traveller that leaves no traces. If you want to compare it to another very interesting ship riddle, you can read Megan’s commentary for Exeter Riddle 32 here.

One of the hallmarks of the early medieval riddle tradition is describing ordinary things in fantastic ways. A description of the humblest object can become an extraordinary drama, full of twists and turns. Our subject today, Riddle 12, is a tiny epic masterpiece. It takes the story of a cereal grain being prepared for sowing and transforms it into a tragic story of parental self-sacrifice. It is the second of a trilogy of riddles on cereal crops, along with Riddles 9 and 17.

The story is a violent one, just like Bern Riddle 9, which describes milling as a massacre. Are we meant to feel sorry for the grain? After all, we are told that no one mourns it. I think we are, at least momentarily, before we realise the absurdity of it all. The death is the reaping, and the torture is the threshing and winnowing. Since this grain will eventually be sown rather than used for food, the story does not include milling for flour. The grain undergoes all these hardships so it eventually will produce a new cereal crop. However, this noble act is ignored by “all parents” (cuncti parentes), who are glad at the grain’s death. Presumably these parents are the humans, and their rejoicing is the festivals that developed around harvesting and threshing.

The grain’s burial is, as you might have already guessed, its sowing, but the reference to the vilis urna (“cheap or vile urn”) is a bit trickier to explain. In one sense, it seems to be referring to the older, pagan practice of storing the ashes of the dead in cremation urns—the ancient Romans built underground tombs, or columbaria, to store theirs. But how does this refer to agriculture? Perhaps the urn is the furrow into which the grain is sown, although you would expect this to be described as a grave.

After all this hardship and sadness, the plot twists dramatically in the final line. Turning the tables on its oppressors, the grain rises from the dead in the maiori forma (“greater form”) of a new cereal plant. This line also has echoes of the Resurrection of Christ—the grain, who has willingly accepted death for the sake of his children and then been entombed, now rises from death. But it would be wrong to claim that the whole riddle is an allegory for Christ, since it is hard to explain why Jesus would be pusillus (“minuscule”) or buried in an urn. Unlike many other medieval riddles, the Bern Riddles are never particularly religious, and they can be quite profane at times. In this respect, they really go against the grain.*

*Shame on me for reusing the pun from my commentary for Riddle 9.

Just like the previous riddle on the cereal grain, Riddle 13 is a tiny epic. And it continues the theme of depicting the harvesting of crops as an act of extreme violence and revenge, but this time the topic is viticulture and winemaking.

In ancient Rome, wine was ubiquitous, it was drunk by all social classes and it had a unique place in Roman culture. Expensive wines were served at aristocratic banquets, soldiers received a daily ration of posca (a mixture of souring wine and water), and wealthy politicians would often distribute mulsum (“sweetened wine”) to curry favour with the plebeians. Wine was also a popular offering to many deities, and it was considered to have important medicinal properties. There is little evidence that the turmoil of the 5th and 6th centuries involved the destruction of viticulture, although the general decline in long-distance trade and the decline of urban populations in this period certainly gave wine production a more restricted and local character (Unwin, pages 122-4). In fact, when Paul the Deacon described the Goths’ conquest of Italy in his History of the Lombards, he claimed that they came because they liked the wine so much (Paul the Deacon, page 78).

The importance of wine in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist reinvigorated Italian viticulture, and early medieval subsistence viticulture began to be bolstered by new, monastically run vineyards. In southern Europe, wine remained the drink of all ranks of society. In the north, on the other hand, wine was largely the drink of the aristocratic and religious elites. Nevertheless, the techniques of winemaking were known in pre-Conquest England, and several vineyards operated in southern England during the 10th and 11th centuries (Unwin, pages 135-6). This is important for our understanding of the Bern Riddles, since it means that we cannot take the riddle as definite evidence that Bern was written in southern Europe.

The riddle begins by alluding to the vine’s hospitality in producing grapes, by imagining it as a custom of offering food and drink to outsiders. Yet this kindness is not returned, since the weeping vine (“the mother”) is pruned to remove the bunches of grapes (“the children”). Even worse, the new-born children are simili damnandos nece (“condemned to a similar death”). Thus, the uncontroversial act of grape harvest is transformed into a horrific tale of mutilation and infanticide.

However, as with the previous riddle, there is a twist in the last two lines. In this case, the parent’s death is avenged by the dead children. Whereas in Riddle 12 the story of the resurrected grain hinted at the Resurrection of Christ, Riddle 13’s vengeful zombie children seems to have echoes of the revenants and ghosts that were so popular in medieval folklore. When they take their revenge in the final line, blood is spilt, but it is theirs—the blood refers either to the process of squeezing and pressing the wine or to the messy drinking of the wine, and the revenge is the inebriating effect of the alcohol on humans. Thus, the children versant (“whirl about” or perhaps “pervert”) the walk of those who are literally stumbling and falling about. If there is a moral to this riddle-story, it is “watch out when you drink wine, or you might suffer the wrath of grapes.”

We have already had riddles about cereal grains and grape vines, and now it is the turn of the top of the crops—the olive tree! Olives were a key crop for many medieval Mediterranean communities, and consequently some scholars have taken this as evidence that the Bern Riddles were composed in southern Europe (see Klein, page 404). I agree that an Italian origin for the riddles is the most likely explanation, but the olive riddle is not definitive evidence—northern European Christians would be very familiar with the numerous biblical references to olives and olive trees. They would also have been familiar with olive oil, which was particularly valued as a fuel for lamps, as well as its liturgical use as holy oil. As a result, olive oil became closely connected with Christian identity and prestige, and churchmen around early medieval Europe went to great lengths to obtain it (Graham, pages 344-66). In England, it does not seem to have been used for cooking, but there is good evidence for its importation throughout the pre-Conquest medieval period (Gautier, pages 393-4).

The first four lines play with the fact that the olives are harvested in the autumn and winter, when they begin to ripen. The parental trope so common to these riddles is used to describe how the children (i.e. the olives) are not born until the end of the year, when the “sea storm” rages, rather than in the summer and autumn like many crops. The idea that the tree’s children are “noble” (inlustris) and “excellent” (superbus) probably alludes to the anointing of kings and priests with olive oil in the Old Testament, and perhaps also its sacramental role as the chrism. Since olive trees do not need too much attention, at least when compared to grapes and grain, anyone can “tame” or “conquer” (domare) their children by cultivating and picking them.

Line 5 may relate to the process of ripening, but I think it is more likely that it refers to the process of milling, pressing, and decanting the olives (“hard sons”) to produce olive oil (“soft grandchildren”). This leads nicely into line 6, which describes the oil’s use. It can “restore light” because the oil can be used as fuel for lamps—recalling Riddle 2’s oil lamp. And it can restore salutem (“safety” or “health”)—a phrase that may allude either to oil’s use as a preservative for food and leather or its liturgical use.

This riddle is interesting in that, whilst we are very familiar with olives today, we probably attach a different sense of importance to them. In the twenty-first century, we think of olives as primarily a food and a source of cooking oil. They were used in this way in the medieval period too, but this is not mentioned—its role in artificial light was much more important. And this is another reason why olive this riddle so much!

Medievalists love dates. The date of Charlemagne’s coronation as emperor, the dating of Beowulf’s composition, the computation of a date of Easter—we just cannot get enough of them. Well, this riddle is all about the place where dates come from: the date palm!

I have already discussed whether the olive tree and grape vine riddles (Nos. 13 and 14) are evidence of a southern European origin for the Bern Riddles. As with these others, I agree that the presence of a Mediterranean plant would suggest this (see Klein, page 404), but I do not think it is definitive, since the date palm is a common biblical plant.

As with the last three riddles, Riddle 15 describes the generosity of plants. Happily, unlike those, the palm tree is not afflicted with beatings, torture, or mutilation. Instead, we get the image of a beautifully haired woman who happily offers dates to those who ask. The mention of cetera ligna (“other trees”) and poma (“fruits”) in line 2 gives the solution away, but it does make me wonder whether the point of these riddles is not so much to name a solution as to unpick the description and admire the riddle’s ingenuity.

The final two lines allude to sexual relations, which it characteristically turns upside down. Line 5 explains that the date is not sown as one would sow many other crops. The verb serere (“to sow”) can also mean to impregnate or beget, and the noun fructus (“fruit”) can have the transferred sense of both produce and pleasure. Thus, the implied meaning seems to be that the date palm cannot become pregnant or gain pleasure from conventional forms of cis heterosexual sexual intercourse. Line 6 develops this conceit further, explaining that the tree is an amata socia (literally “beloved female companion”) when she is in flore (“in flower”), a term that can also be used to describe maidenly virginity. At the same time, this line alludes to a line in Psalms 92:12: “The righteous will flourish like the palm tree.” Like some of its Old English siblings, this riddle is a clever combination of the sacred and the profane.

As readers may already know, the Old English riddles of The Exeter Book do not have their solutions included. Because Latin riddles usually include these in their titles, people often think—wrongly, in my opinion—that they are somehow less enigmatic and mysterious. But what about those cases where the titles do not appear to be correct? Well, Bern Riddle 16 is a great example of this. In the past 1500 or so years, people have understood this riddle to be about, variously, the cedar tree, cedar oil, juniper berry, and the lemon. See what you think!

The manuscript title is Cedrus (“cedar tree”) and De cedris (“about the cedar”). But when you read the riddle, it does not seem to be about a tree at all, but rather what it produces. Some scholars have assumed that the correct title is “about cedar oil” (cedriis), but this cannot be correct. Firstly, the description does not match this—for example, oil does not have a caro (“body,” “flesh”) that can be cut. Secondly, cedrium is a neuter noun, and the speaker of the riddle is unmistakably feminine singular. (I told you in the commentary to Riddle 1 that the gender of Latin nouns would come in useful!) Other scholars have corrected the title to De citria (“about the citron fruit”), which matches the riddle creature’s grammatical gender and explains the reference to spinae iniquae (“painful thorns”), acetus sapor (“sour or bitter taste”) and teres forma (“round form”) (Meyer, page 420; Salvador Bello, page 260). A third solution, which is preferred by Glorie (page 562) and Klein (page 403-4), is De cedride (“about the juniper/cedar berry”). If this is correct, then it would suggest that, at some point in the manuscript transmission, the ablative cedris (“cedar”) became confused with the nominative cedris (“juniper berry”). This is the solution that I have followed here.

The riddle begins with a seemingly unpleasant childhood spent within thorns and needles, which refers to the needles of the juniper tree. It may also allude to the biblical Crown of Thorns—another example of how these riddles play with ideas of the sacred and profane. Most manuscripts give mater (“mother”) in line 1, but at least one manuscript gives pater (“father”). My guess is that pater is correct because the Latin for the juniper tree (cedrus) is also masculine—and the juniper tree is the parent of the berry. The cera rubens (“red wax”) in line 3 is the berry itself, which does not ooze its “blood” when cut; it must be crushed with a pestle to extract its juice. Juniper berry juice has been used throughout history as a flavouring and as an ingredient in various kinds of medicine. It is also extremely sour, as lines 5 and 6 explain. Personally, I prefer mine in the form of a gin & tonic, ideally whilst lying in the sun and reading riddles on a hot summer’s day!

Sometimes riddle-reading can be very inten-sieve! Today’s riddle is about a sieve—not a kitchen sieve, but an agricultural one.

The opening two lines of this riddle are a great example of riddling disguise and misdirection, describing the sieve as if it were a loquacious Mr Ed. Line 1 explains that the riddle creature’s mouth that is always open and the lips that are never sealed—a quality of both sieves and talkative people. Line 2 goes on to describe how the creature is urged on its cursus (“course”) by frequenti verbere (“a well-used whip” or “a frequent blow”). It describes the act of shaking the sieve as if it were the whipping of a horse, which recalls the eccentric horse-bench of Riddle 4. The material that is being sieved is probably flour—made with Riddle 12’s grain and Riddle 9’s millstone—which is being separated from any bran or other impurities and made finer for baking.

The sieve begins to come into focus in line 3, which tells us that the object has no exta (“insides, bowels”) unless they are placed in there by hand, referring to its concave nature. The riddle then describes sieving as a violent act—the minutum vulnus (“tiny wound[s]”) represents the sieve’s holes, and the moving is the act of sieving.

The last two lines were not the easiest to translate, but the general idea is of separating good (i.e. the flour) from bad (i.e. the bran). This idea has distinctly a biblical feel, and I suspect that the author had Jesus’ remark to Simon Peter that Satan would sift the disciples like wheat (Luke 22.31). Whether he did or not, the central motif in this part of the riddle is that the sieve, who is left with only the detritus, gets the worst of the deal. Even worse, he is then abandoned, having served his purpose. What a sad ending for the poor sieve!

Those readers who have seen Disney’s Fantasia will know all about the enchanted broom-on-legs whom the sorcerer’s apprentice summons to do his chores, with unintended consequences. Well, this riddle is about another anthropomorphic broom—but this time, the broom does not get the upper hand.

The riddle tells the story of an apparently respectable woman from the woods, who is transformed into a wretched and much-abused servant in the home. It also tells the story of a tree branch that is made into a broom. The riddle is all about power and status. It plays upon the social standing of the maidservant in the home, which it compares to the broom’s “servitude” to humans. As Samuel Röösli explains, the broom and the servant are the same “in that they both suffer a loss of agency and dignity in the interior space to which they are confined and which they must keep lovely” (Röösli, page 99). Often in classical and medieval texts, it is the wild woods and countryside that are associated with dishevelment and a humble station, but here they are linked to the domestic world. The movement from the countryside to the home also has a sexual element to it—the flowering of the branch in nature is juxtaposed against the filthiness of its work as a broom, probably with ideas of virginity and promiscuity in mind.

If we were not aware that the subject is a broom, then lines 4 and 5 of this riddle would be extremely disturbing. The servant-broom’s turpis (‘filthy’ or ‘sordid’) work would be a horrific act of domestic abuse—she is dragged about the floor so that she loses her hair (i.e. the straw or twigs of the broom’s head). Even more concerning is the fact that “everyone” (cuncti) participates in this abuse. The Bern Riddles often give you the sense that all humans are guilty of violent acts against the non-human world–and this is a prime example. They also frequently depict this violence as necessary for human life, as we see in the final line—despite her tribulations, the servant-broom nevertheless makes the home look beautiful. Just as the servant is considered equally lowly and indispensable, so is the humble broom.

Sometimes, the Bern Riddles like to make us work hard for their solutions. You might remember Bern Riddle 16, which can be solved as either citrus fruit or cedar/juniper berry. Well, this is another riddle where we get to choose the solution. Many manuscripts give it the title of De pice (“About Pitch”), but one gives De nimpha (“About the fountain/siphon”) and another gives De cera (“About [bees]wax”). My preference is definitely “wax,” which fits with the next two riddles (“honey” and “bee”). Having said all this, it is a tricky riddle to read, and it took me quite a while to work out how the solution fits—see if you agree with my reading.

The first two lines are all about likeness between a mother and her child—as with so many other riddles, we are expected to guess who the parent is. Originally, I thought that she was a mould for wax candles, but recently I have changed my mind: the mother is the beehive, who is utterly unlike her child, and who gives birth to the wax without any “manly seed” (virili… de semine). The wax caps are then cut out of the honeycomb “womb” (venter) by humans. As line 3 explains, although the hive has had the wax cut from it, it “lives on.” In this way, the riddle uses the virgin birth and caesarean birth motifs that we have already come across with Bern Riddle 8’s egg.

The wax is then burnt as a candle. Most early medieval candles would have been made of tallow, but expensive beeswax candles burnt brighter and with a more pleasant odour. Because of this, beeswax candles were frequently reserved for their use in liturgy, and particularly the Easter Vigil, where a candle would be lit on the night of Holy Saturday in the image of the Resurrection.

The final two lines are quite tricky to account for. Why is wax only valuable when it is darkened? My best guess is that these lines refer either to the process of rendering beeswax (i.e. melting and then straining it) to remove any impurities, or to the process of hand-dipping candles. If heated excessively, both processes can lead to the wax being discoloured. But I would welcome any other suggestions. Like I said, the Bern Riddles like to make us work!

This riddle is, to quote everyone’s favourite 90s Scottish noise-pop band, The Jesus and Mary Chain, “just like honey”—mainly because it is all about honey! It is the second of three bee-themed riddles (see Riddle 19 and Riddle 21).

Beekeeping was an important and very profitable economic activity throughout the European Middle Ages. Honey was a sweetener for food, it was a medicine, and it was fermented to produce mead; beeswax was used to make candles, adhesives, waterproof clothing, and paints, among other things.

In Italy, the ancient Roman culture of beekeeping continued into the early medieval period, albeit affected by the general decline in trade of the fifth and sixth centuries. Beekeeping was enthusiastically adopted by many monastic houses. The image below, taken from a late eleventh century Easter scroll (known as an “exultet roll”) from Monte Cassino gives us an idea of what these monastic beehives might have looked like—here, a beekeeper is harvesting wax from the hive.

Bees were also kept in pre-Conquest England. The Rectitudines Singularum Personarum, an English manual of estate management from c. 1100, mentions that a freeman who keeps bees (a beoceorl) should pay a tax to the landowner of 4 sestels (about 10 pints) of honey per year (Rectitudines, 6). Other English texts mention fines for theft from beehives (Attenborough, pages 68-71), and what to do if bees kill someone by stinging them—kill them and eat their honey (OE Scrifboc, CCC MS 190, fol. 382)! Bees and honey also feature in Old English poetry: Exeter Book Riddle 27 and the brilliant Old English metrical charm, For a Swarm of Bees.

Bern Riddle 20 begins by describing honey that is dripping “from the bright home” (lucida de domo) and scattered in a mysterious way. Reading this for the first time, you might think that the “bright home” is the beehive. But the riddle seems to be alluding to something much more interesting—the idea that honey is a form of dew created in the heavens, which falls upon plants and is collected by bees. If this is the case, then the “bright home” would be the sky. Several classical and medieval sources mention this belief, including Virgil and Isidore of Seville. Perhaps the most memorable description is found in Pliny the Elder’s encyclopaedic Natural History:

Venit hoc ex aere et maxime siderum exortu… sublucanis temporibus. Itaque tum prima aurora folia arborum melle roscida inveniuntur, ac si qui matutino sub divo fuere, unctas liquore vestis capillumque concretum sentiunt, sive ille est caeli sudor sive quaedam siderum saliva sive purgantis se aeris sucus.

[Honey] comes from the air, and largely from the rising of the stars… shortly before dawn. Thus, at first light, the leaves of the trees are found moist with honey, and if someone who has been under the morning sky, they feel their clothes are damp and their hair is matted, whether this is the sky’s moisture, or some kind of saliva of the stars, or the juice of the vomiting air.]
—Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book XI, page 450. (translation mine)

Pliny was writing this in the 1st century AD, but his work continued to be influential throughout the early medieval period—Isidore of Seville used it when writing his own encyclopaedia, as did Bede. Interestingly, the riddle’s reference to the uncertain nature of celestial honey (line 2) also agrees with what Pliny says here. Perhaps the riddler was familiar with Pliny’s work? After all, the use of encyclopaedia-knowledge is very common in medieval riddles (see Mercedes Salvador-Bell, Isidorean Perceptions of Order).

The rebirth in lines 3 and 4 returns to the religious motif of rebirth and resurrection that appears in Riddles 6, 12, 13. But it also describes how the bees collect the nectar from the plants and then regurgitate it into the honeycomb. We saw in Riddle 19 that the honeycomb was a “womb” (venter). Likewise, here it is a “womb” (uterus), within which the honey “grows.”

In the final two lines, the thousands who seek honey are the humans who crave its sweet taste. The “flyer” (ales is, of course, the bee. Since bees create their honeycomb cells using regurgitated wax, it can be said that they “paint” their “golden home” (aureum domum) using their mouths.

Like many works of medieval literature on the natural world, Riddle 20 is a mix of curious myths and detailed observational truths. On the one hand, it mistakes pollen-collecting with celestial honey-collecting. At the same time, it recognises how bees build their honeycombs. It is a mixture of nature documentary and an un-bee—lievable story!

We have already had riddles about beeswax and honey. Now we turn to the bees themselves. RELEASE THE BEES!

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

This riddle begins with a variation on the virgin birth trope that also appears in Riddles 8 and 19. In this case, the speaker is a “spouse” (coniux) who is masculus non… sed neque femina (“neither man nor woman”). Moreover, the father is ignotus (“unknown”). These lines play with two ideas about bees that sometimes crop up in late antique and medieval texts: their apparent sexlessness and their spontaneous generation. For example, Ambrose of Milan, writing in the 4th century, says:

Communis omnibus generatio, integritas quoque corporis virginalis omnibus communis et partus, quoniam neque inter se ullo concubitu miscentur, nec libidine resolvuntur, nec partus quatiuntur doloribus, et subito maximum filliorum examen emittunt, e foliis et herbis ore suo prolem legentes.

Procreation is common to all, as is childbirth and the chastity of the virgin body, since neither do they mix between themselves in any sexual intercourse, nor is their libido unleashed, nor are their childbirths affected with pains, and they suddenly send forth a huge swarm of offspring, gathering the child from leaves and blades of grass.
–Ambrose, Hexameron, Book V, 21, 68 (PL14:234B).

As a result of ideas like this, bees became associated in the visual arts and literature with ideas of virginity, chastity, and the Virgin Mary. The spontaneous generation of bees is repeated in line 4 of the riddle—whereas the previous two riddles described the hive as a “womb,” the bee has none.

Line 4 also has an interesting crux: ab ore cretos… sumpsi. If you did not know the context, you might be tempted to read it as “I consumed… by mouth.” Thus, it would be referring to a gruesome act of cannibalistic fratricide! However, the correct translation is probably “I gather… by mouth.” This alludes to another medieval bee “fact” mentioned in Ambrose’s passage that I quoted earlier—the idea that bees gather their larvae from plants. When I think about it, sumpsi (“I gathered”) might even have the sense of “adopted” which would fit nicely with the unknown father of line 2.

The final line describes how the larvae are surrounded with food in the honeycomb, which involves a nice little pun on dulci amore (“with sweet love”). Oh, how nice it is to have a riddle with an unambiguously sweet ending!

Some riddles are very good, and some are just baaaa… Immediately after the three bee riddles (Riddles 19, 20 and 21), we come to another creature who produces a valuable commodity: the sheep.

The opening line tells us that the riddle-subject has little virtus, a word derived from the Latin word vir (“man”), and which can mean “manliness” or “virility” as well as “courage” and “excellence.” This description is easy to grasp. Even though some sheep can be remarkably feisty, sheep are not well-known for their courage—and this was true in the Middle Ages too. For example, Isidore of Seville, writing in the early 7th century, tells us in his Etymologies that the sheep is molle pecus lanis, corpore inerme, animo placidum (“a placid livestock animal with an unarmed body and a peaceful disposition”) (Isidore, Etymologies, page 247). The first line of the riddle also says that the sheep has facultas, which plays on two meanings of the word: “capacity” and “abundance.” The primary meaning seems to be “I have little courage but great resources” but you could also read it as “I have little courage, but I am really capable.”

The middle section of the riddle depicts the sheep as an itinerant wanderer or pilgrim. The metaphor is a very apt one for an animal who wanders about the field or hillside, always hungry for grass and having given up her “wealth” (i.e. her fleece). Wandering riddle-creatures feature in several other Bern riddles, including Nos. 37 (pepper), 40 (mice), 41 (wind) and 59 (moon). I will be going into more depth on the topic of “wanderers” in my forthcoming commentary on Riddle 37, so watch this space!

In the final two lines, the image of the poor, wandering sheep is juxtaposed against the idea that the sheep has a great wealth, fit for everyone, even kings. Perhaps this image of the humble and placid creature, upon whom we nevertheless all depend, is intended as an allegory for Christ. After all, Jesus is frequently depicted in medieval liturgy and art as the Lamb of God, based the title that John the Baptist is said to have bestowed upon him. However, the fact that the sheep is female might give us second thoughts. This seems to be another example of the riddler playing with the boundaries of the sacred and the profane. What do ewe think?

This riddle is all about starting fires and then putting them out. Regular readers will know that I take every opportunity to quote songs that I like. So, “let me light your fire” with this great riddle.

The riddle opens with the kind of polysemic play that typifies many riddles of the Bern collection. If you were unaware that this was a riddle about fire, you would probably read lines 1-2 as a disturbingly violent story of two “severe” (durus) parents who conceive the child after a “great beating” (verbere… multo). However, since we already know the solution, we recognise that the “hard” (durus) parents that are probably an iron firestriker, i.e. the iron or steel and flint device that was used as a firelighter in many pre-modern societies. The fire is born from the union of steel and flint only after “a great bashing” or “striking” (verbere… multo). Note that the term for “to birth” is fundere (literally “to pour out”), a word that will crop up again and again in these riddles—it appears, sometimes with prefix of pro- or dis-, in seven other riddles (Nos. 8, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29 and 49).

In the immortal words of Bruce Springsteen, “You can't start a fire without a spark.” And similarly, our fire begins its life “in tiny form” (a ventre figura) as a spark. From line 4 onwards, the child’s relationship with his parents is reversed, as he grows up to become a mighty fire who will eventually “soften” its parents. Presumably, this refers to the blistering fire of a smith’s forge —iron melts once it reaches 1538°C. The final line explains that water—which is “life to all” (vitam cunctis)—nevertheless brings about the fire’s death.

I have mentioned the term “tiny epics” in some of my commentaries before. Well, this riddle is certainly worthy of that name. It manages to tell the story of life-cycle of fire in six short, clever lines—from the birth of young spark to the death of an old flame.

Like so many of the riddles in the final part of the Exeter Book, Riddle 93 is a bit of a mess. The long burn that stretches across both pages of the open book befuddles (yes, befuddles!) both the beginning and end of this poem. Luckily, it’s one of the longer riddles in the collection, so there is plenty of detail in the middle to sink our teeth into.

Riddle 93 is one of those rare riddles whose solution doesn’t cause much scholarly in-fighting. Everyone is pretty much agreed that this riddle describes an antler that is used to make an ink-well. In Old English, we might solve it as either horn (antler/horn) or blæc-horn (ink-well/ink-horn).

Behold, a 12th-century inkhorn! St Matthew is busy at work in © British Library, Add MS 11850, folio 17v.

The riddle is easy to solve in part because it builds upon the many other antler/horn and stag references throughout the Exeter Book. In particular, it’s a companion piece to Riddle 88, which also frames the shed antlers of a stag as exiled warriors – brothers – facing violence at the hands of human craftsmen. But here in Riddle 93, it's the relationship between stag and antler – lord and retainer – that is prized above all and mourned when the antler is displaced.

The first 16 lines of the riddle describe the antler’s place on the head of a stag, his frea (lord) in lines 1a and 7a. The stag’s behaviour is described as he wanders the wilderness and its hills, seeking out a duguþ (troop) in line 11b, which is presumably his herd. Dieter Bitterli emphasizes just how accurate the riddle’s account of red deer is – both their behaviour and their habitat: “male and female red deer segregate for most of the year. Whereas the hinds remain in a herd with their young, stags form their own, less stable groups, or sometimes live alone, and seek out the hinds only during the rut” in the autumn, leaving again when winter comes (page 158). At that point, “hind populations tend to occupy richer soils and grassland, while stags are generally found on poorer ground; this tallies with the ‘stony plains’ (12) the stag in the riddle is said to dig into when the ground is ‘hard with rime’ (13)” (page 158).

While the stag is separated from the herd throughout the frosty winter, the antler remains with his lord, secure upon his head – his gleawstol (seat of wisdom) in line 15a. But as the seasons move on, line 15b’s gingra broþor‏ (younger brother) forces the antler into exile. The stag has shed his antlers, which are replaced by new growth, something that is also described as a kin relationship in Riddle 88 (lines 15-17a).

A fantastic red deer (by Luc Viatour) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 3.0).

Siþþan (Afterwards) at line 17 signals a change in the antler’s fortunes and a turn in the narrative. In exile, the shed antler is found and put to new purpose. An iron implement is used to gouge it out, creating a wound that does not bleed because the object is antler rather than flesh, as lines 17-20a remind us. The imagery in this section is full of references to warfare and violence – lots of biting and sharp edges, which we might expect to apply to swords rather than a craftsman’s tool. In fact, Patrick Murphy reads Riddle 93 alongside Riddle 5’s bord (shield or chopping board), noting the play with heroic imagery that describes a fairly mundane task in both poems (pages 69-70).

While the task of making the ink-well may be mundane, as Mercedes Salvador-Bello notes, Riddle 93 takes the elegiac theme it shares with Riddle 88 down a darker path, focusing especially on “the dire consequences of the creature’s change of status by giving free rein to the notion of feud” (page 428). Here, the antler laments that it can’t take revenge for its miseries (because it’s an inanimate object) by lashing out at the wiga (warrior, line 23a) who abuses it.

When we reach lines 24b-5a, the antler’s new purpose has become very clear: Nu ic blace swelge / wuda ond wætre (Now I swallow black wood and water). The antler has been used to create an ink-well that has to hold black ink made from a mixture of various types of wood, wine and chemicals (Bitterli, pages 160-1). Into the ink-well dips the hiþende feond (pillaging enemy) of line 28b – a quill pen.

A quill pen, ink and parchment (by Mushki Brichta) from Wikimedia Commons (licence: CC BY-SA 4.0)

The description that follows includes a kenning, a mini riddle-within-a-riddle, as it were. The wulfes gehleþan (companion of the wolf) of line 29b refers to the “beasts of battle” motif that crops up in a variety of Old English poems (Bitterli, page 162). Wherever we find wolves, ravens and eagles feasting upon people who have been killed in battle, we have the (equal parts unpleasant and fascinating) beasts of battle motif! Here in Riddle 93, the wolf’s companion is one of these birds – likely the raven, whose feathers were used as quills for fine and detailed work by medieval scribes (Bitterli, page 162). The raven-feather quill is here dipped into the unwilling ink-well, creating a strange mishmash of animal body parts, conflict and agency.

Ultimately, this scene of violence is clearly the work of human scribes, which is presumably how the riddle ends. In among the damaged lines, we can catch glimpses of the sense. Lines 32b-33a include references to the light of the dægcondel (day-candle) and sunne (sun), and line 34 suggests that someone who eagum wliteð (gazes with eyes) was imagined as looking upon the work of the scribe.

If we want to get really meta (and of course we do – don’t we?), we might think of the poem that we’re reading as the work of this scribe. We might think that the quill, ink and ink-well used to pen the Exeter Book found a life of their own in this antler’s lament. How profound.