it bears water aloft. It boasts not of life
or of gifts from its chief. It obeys nonetheless
its master’s word. In its name there are
three real runes. Rād is the first.
Rād is the name of the rune for R and also means ‘riding’ (note also “rides” in l. 3); in short, a Riding-well, or well with bucket and sweep.
- s35 ##
35 (K-D 4)
Bound with rings I must readily obey
from time to time my servant and master
and break my rest, make noisily known
that he gave me a band to put on my neck.
Often a man or a woman has come to greet me,
when weary with sleep, wintry-cold, I answer him:
(their hearts were angry): “A warm limb
sometimes bursts the bound ring.”
Nonetheless it is pleasant to him, my servant,
a half-witted man, and to me the same,
if one knows aught and can then with words
riddle my riddle successfully.
A Bell speaks, calling the man who rings it servant and master; tells how it rouses the sleepers on a cold wintry morning. The “bound rings,” e.g., is the “bell.” There is something a little wrong in l. 8, perhaps an omission which would make the speech clearer; and “burst” is not normally transitive in Anglo-Saxon. Mrs. von Erhardt-Siebold (PMLA lxi [1946], 620–23) argues for Handmill, and gives a diagram.
- s36 ##
36 (K-D 81)
I have a puffed-out breast and a swollen neck;
I have a head and a tall tail;
I have eyes and ears and a single foot,
a rough hard bill and a long neck
