Exeter Riddle 37

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Wed 01 Apr 2015
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 37
Original text:

Ic þa wihte geseah;     womb wæs on hindan
þriþum aþrunten.     Þegn folgade,
mægenrofa man,     ond micel hæfde
gefered þæt hit felde,     fleah þurh his eage.
5     Ne swylteð he symle,     þonne syllan sceal
innað þam oþrum,     ac him eft cymeð
bot in bosme,     blæd biþ aræred;
he sunu wyrceð,     bið him sylfa fæder.

Translation:

I saw that being; its belly was in the back
greatly swollen. A servant followed it,
a mighty, strong man, and the great one had
brought forth what filled it; it flew through its eye.
5     He does not die continually, when he has to give
his insides to the other, but there comes again from him
a remedy in the breast, breath is raised up;
he makes sons, he is his own father.

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Bellows, Wagon


Notes:

This riddle appears on folio 109v 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 198-9.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 35: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pages 89-90.



Tags: anglo saxon  exeter book  riddles  old english  solutions  riddle 37 

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