Exeter Book Riddle 83 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records)[1] is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its interpretation has occasioned a range of scholarly investigations, but it is taken to mean 'Ore/Gold/Metal', with most commentators preferring 'precious metal' or 'gold',[2] and John D. Niles arguing specifically for the Old English solution ōra, meaning both 'ore' and 'a kind of silver coin'.[3]

Text and translation

As edited by Williamson, the riddle reads:[4]

Interpretation

Interpretation has focused on whether the riddle alludes to biblical figures, prominently Tubal-cain,[5] though allusions to fallen angels have also been envisaged.[6]

Analogues

The principal analogue noted in past work is Riddle 91 in the collection by Symphosius on 'money':

Editions

  • Krapp, George Philip and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds), The Exeter Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), p. 236, https://web.archive.org/web/20181206091232/http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/3009.
  • Williamson, Craig (ed.), The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), p. 112 [no. 79].
  • Muir, Bernard J. (ed.), The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2nd edn, 2 vols (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2000).

Recordings

  • Michael D. C. Drout, 'Riddle 83', Anglo-Saxon Aloud (19 November 2007) (performed from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition).

References

  1. ↑ George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds), The Exeter Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/3009 Archived 2018-12-06 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Thomas Klein, 'The Metaphorical Cloak of Exeter Riddle 83, "Ore/Gold/Metal" ', ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 28:1 (2015), 11-14 (p. 12), DOI: 10.1080/0895769X.2015.1035366.
  3. ↑ John D. Niles, Old English Enigmatic Poems and the Play of the Texts, Studies in the early Middle Ages, 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), p. 134.
  4. ↑ The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, ed. by Craig Williamson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), p. 112 [no. 79].
  5. ↑ Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exeter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), pp. 139-51.
  6. ↑ Thomas Klein, 'The Metaphorical Cloak of Exeter Riddle 83, "Ore/Gold/Metal" ', ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 28:1 (2015), 11-14, DOI: 10.1080/0895769X.2015.1035366.
  7. ↑ Quoted by The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, ed. by Craig Williamson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), p. 366.
  8. ↑ A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs, trans. by Craig Williamson (London: Scolar Press, 1983, repr. from University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), p. 211.
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