Exeter Book Riddle 51

Exeter Book Riddle 51 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its solution is 'quill pen and three fingers', 'whose figurative "journey" leaves a dark track of letters and words on the page'^[1] and it stands accordingly as an important literary example of the international riddle type, the Writing-riddle, whose most basic form is 'white field, black seeds'. In the reading of Helen Price, the riddle suggests that 'writing is a journey, but it is not one of a human being alone. The riddle is self consciously aware of the connected nature of human, tool, and animal'.^[2]

Text

Ic seah wrætlice wuhte feower samed siþian; swearte wæran lastas, swaþu swiþe blacu. Swift wæs on fore, fuglum framra; fleag on lyfte, deaf under yþe. Dreag unstille winnende wiga se him wegas tæcneþ ofer fæted gold feower eallum.

I saw four wondrous things travelling together; their tracks were swarthy, their footsteps were very black. It was swift on its journey, bolder than the birds; it flew across the air, dove under the water. Busy was the struggling warrior, who showed all four of them the way over plated gold.[3]

Studies

• Lees, Clare A. 2010. ‘Basil Bunting, Briggflatts, Lindisfarne, and Anglo-Saxon Interlace’, in Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination, ed. by David Clark and Nicholas Perkins, Medievalism, 1 (Cambridge: Brewer), pp. 111–28.

Editions

• Foys, Martin et al. (eds.) Old English Poetry in Facsimile Project, (Madison, WI: Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture, 2019-). Online edition annotated and linked to digital facsimile, with a modern translation.

Recordings

• Michael D. C. Drout, 'Riddle 51', performed from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition (29 October 2007).