The Exeter Book Riddles

The ninety-six Anglo-Saxon riddles in the eleventh-century Exeter Book are poems of great charm, zest, and subtlety. Ranging from natural phenomena (such as icebergs and storms at sea) to animal and bird life, from the Christian concept of the creation to prosaic domestic objects (such as a rake and a pair of bellows), and from weaponry to the peaceful pursuits of music and writing, they are full of sharp observation, earthy humor and, above all, a sense of wonder. The main text of this volume contains Kevin Crossley-Holland's newly-revised translations of the seventy-five of these fascinating and discursive riddles that are fully extant, while a further sixteen are translated in the notes.