many joyfully, where I shall add
to the oncoming of blessedness to men.
The first four lines give a free and fanciful picture of a tree; then by a conventional association the tree becomes the Cross. (See also the preceding riddle.) This solution was first proposed by F. A. Blackburn in JEGP iii (1900), 4–7, and has been generally accepted with reservations about cup and harp. His translation is as follows:
I am agile of body, I sport with the breeze; [tree]
I am clothed with beauty, a comrade of the storm; [tree]
I am bound on a journey, consumed by fire; [ship, tree]
A blooming grove, a burning gleed, [tree, log]
Full often comrades pass me from hand to hand, [harp]
Where stately men and women kiss me. [cup?]
When I rise up, before me bow
The proud with reverence. Thus it is my part
To increase for many the growth of happiness. [the cross]
In the first line “agile of body” is from the other text of this riddle in Exeter Book (f. 122b), where the variants add to the difficulties of translation but do little or nothing for the solution.
15 (K-D 48)
I have heard of a ring bright without tongue
intercede for heroes. Well it spoke
with strong words though not loud.
This treasure for men silently said:
“Heal me helper of souls.”
May men understand the magic meaning
of the speech of the red gold. May the wise entrust
their salvation to God, as the ring said.
The solution of this pious little piece is Chalice. The word “ring” (hring) may signify any circular object, as in the following riddle.
16 (K-D 59)
I saw in the hall a golden ring
which men beheld with happy hearts,
