Exeter Riddle 57

MEGANCAVELL

Date: Thu 12 Jan 2017
Matching Commentaries: Commentary for Exeter Riddle 57

Today’s translation post is by Michael J. Warren. He has just completed his PhD on birds in medieval English poetry at Royal Holloway, where he is now a visiting lecturer. His new projects continue to focus on animal studies and ecocritical approaches to the natural world. Check out Michael’s blog, The Compleat Birder, here.



Original text:

Ðeos lyft byreð      lytle wihte
ofer beorghleoþa.      Þa sind blace swiþe,
swearte salopade.      Sanges rope
heapum ferað,      hlude cirmað,
tredað bearonæssas,      hwilum burgsalo
niþþa bearna.      Nemnað hy sylfe.

Translation:

The air bears little creatures
over the hillsides. They are very black,
swarthy, dark-coated. Bountiful of song
they journey in groups, cry loudly,
tread the woody headlands, sometimes the town-dwellings
of the sons of men. They name themselves.

Click to show riddle solution?
Swifts, Swallows, Crows, Jackdaws, Starlings, House martins, Letters, Musical notes, Gnats, Stormclouds, Hailstones, Raindrops, Bees, Midges, Damned souls, or Demons


Notes:

There is an interactive Riddle 57 activity available here.

This riddle appears on folios 114r-114v 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 209.

Note that this edition numbers the text Riddle 55: Craig Williamson, ed., The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), page 101.



Tags: anglo saxon  exeter book  riddles  old english  solutions  riddle 57 

Related Posts:
Response to Exeter Riddle 39
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 55
Commentary for Exeter Riddle 57