The ancient custom of riddling was a popular entertainment among Anglo-Saxons. The four below are a sampling of the ninety-five riddles found in the Exeter Book. Pretend you are an Anglo-Saxon and guess the answers.
26
I am the scalp of myself, skinned by my foeman:
robbed of my strength, he stepped and soaked me,
dipped me in a water, whipped me out again
set me in the sun. I soon lost there
hairs I had had.
The hard edge
of a keen-ground knife cuts me now,
fingers fold me, and a fowl's pride
drives its treasure trail across me,
bounds again over the brown rim,
sucks the wood-dye, steps again on me,
makes his black marks.
A man then hides me
between stout shield-boards stretched with hide,
fits me with gold. There glows on me
the jewel smith's handiwork held with wires
Let these royal enrichments and this red dye
and splendid settings spread the glory
of the Protector of peoples-- and not plague the
fool.
If the sons of men will make use of me
they shall....
68
The wave, over the wave, a weird thing I saw,
through-wrought, and wonderfully ornate:
a wonder on the wave--water became bone.
35
The womb of the world, wet and cold,
bore me at first, brought me forth.
I know in my mind my making was not
through skill with fells or fleeces of wool;
there was no winding of wefts, there is now woof
in me,
no thread thrumming under the thrash of strokes,
no whirring shuttle steered through me.
no weaver's reed rapped my sides.
The warms that braid the broidered silk
with Weird running did not weave me:
yet anywhere over the earth's breadth
men will arrest me a trustworthy garment
Say truly , supple-minded man,
wise in words, what my name is.
47
I heard of a wonder, of words moth-eaten;
that is a strange thing, I thought, weird
that a man's song be swallowed by worm,
his binded sentences, his bedside stand-by
rustled in the night --- and the robber-guest
not one whit the wiser for the words he had
mumbled.
