Exeter Riddle 51
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Thu 31 Mar 2016Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 51
Riddle 51’s translation is once again by Britt Mize (who translated and provided commentary for Riddle 33). Britt is Associate Professor and Interim Associate Head of English at Texas A&M University where he works on Old and Middle English language and literature, with special interests in linguistics, poetics and drama.
Ic seah wrætlice wuhte feower
samed siþian; swearte wæran lastas,
swaþu swiþe blacu. Swift wæs on fore,
fuglum framra fleag on lyfte;
5 deaf under yþe. Dreag unstille
winnende wiga, se him wegas tæcneþ
ofer fæted gold feower eallum.
I saw four wondrous creatures
travel together. Dark were the tracks,
very black the footprints. It was swift in its going:
faster than birds it flew through the sky;
5 it dove under wave. Vigorously he labored,
that striving warrior who showed it—all four—
the paths across ornamental gold.
Notes:
This riddle appears on folios 113r-113v 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 206.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 49: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 99.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 51
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