Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/Annotated/74

74 (k-d 25)

I’m a wonderful thing,     a joy to women, to neighbors useful.     I injure no one who lives in a village     save only my slayer. I stand up high     and steep over the bed; underneath I’m shaggy.     Sometimes ventures a young and handsome     peasant’s daughter, a maiden proud,     to lay hold on me. She seizes me, red,     plunders my head, fixes on me fast,     feels straightway what meeting me means     when she thus approaches, a curly-haired woman.     Wet is that eye.

10

Ic eom wunderlicu wiht     wifum on hyhte neahbuendū nyt     nængum sceþþe burgsittendra     nymþe bonan anum staþol min is steapheah     stonde ic on bedde neoþan ruh nathwær     neþeð · hwilum ful cyrtenu ·     ceorles dohtor modwlonc meowle     ꝥ heo on mec gripeð ræseð mec on reodne     reafað min heafod fegeð mec on fæsten     feleþ sona mines gemotes     seþe mec nearwað wif wundēn locc     wæt bið þæt eage.

The pretended answer is Onion. Compare 39 (k-d 65), which is Onion only.