Exeter Riddle 91
MEGANCAVELL
Date: Mon 02 Nov 2020Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 91
Original text:
Min heafod is homere geþuren,
searopila wund, sworfen feole.
Oft ic begine þæt me ongean sticað,
þonne ic hnitan sceal, hringum gyrded,
5 hearde wið heardum, hindan þyrel,
forð ascufan þæt mines frean
mod · ᚹ · freoþað middelnihtum.
Hwilum ic under bæc bregde nebbe,
hyrde þæs hordes, þonne min hlaford wile
10 lafe þicgan þara þe he of life het
wælcræfte awrecan willum sinum.Translation:
My head is beaten by a hammer,
wounded by crafty points, polished by a file.
Often I swallow what sticks against me,
when I must thrust, encircled with rings,
5 hard against a hard thing, a hole from behind,
push forward what preserves my lord’s
mind-JOY in the middle of the night.
Sometimes I pull back with my nose
the hoard’s guardian, when my lord wants
10 to consume the remains of those whom he commanded
be driven from life through slaughter-skill, for his own desire.Key, Keyhole
Notes:
This riddle appears on folios 129v-130r 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 240-1.
Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 87: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 118.
Tags: anglo saxon exeter book riddles old english solutions riddle 91