Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/Annotated/67

67 (k-d 95)

This, the last riddle in the Exeter book, is unhappily the most difficult. The text is complete but almost certainly corrupt, and any attempt to translate it is only a desperate hope, even after the experts have done their best with emendations.

I am a lordly, thing     known to nobles, and often I rest,     famous among peoples, the mighty and the lowly;     I travel widely and to me first a stranger     remains to my friends the delight of plunderers,     if I am to have success in the cities     or bright reward. Now wise men     exceedingly love my presence.     To many I shall declare wisdom.     There they speak not, none the world over.     Though now the sons of men who live on the earth     eagerly seek the tracks that I make.     I sometimes conceal those paths of mine     from all mankind.

10

Ic eom Indryhten     ⁊ eorlum cuð ⁊ reste oft     ricum ⁊ heanū folcū gefræge     fereð wide ⁊ me fremdes ær     freondum stonde&eth hiþendra hyht     gif ic habban sceal blæd in burgum     oþþe beorhtne god nu snottre men     swiþast lufiaþ midwist mine     Ic monigum sceal wisdom cyþan     no þær word sprecað ænig ofer eorðan     þeah nu ælda bearn londbuendra     lastas mine swiþe secað     ic swaþe hwilum mine bemiþe     monna gehwylcum

Perhaps Moon, perhaps Wandering Minstrel, perhaps Riddle. If the last, this is “a kind of monkish colophon to the collection” (Wyatt). Mrs. von Earhardt-Siebold (MLN lxii [1947], 558–59), taking “the delight of plunders” as a kenning for Quill-pen, would make that a clue to the solution.