40 (K-D 51)
I saw four things in beautiful fashion
journeying together. Dark were their tracks,
the path very black. Swift was its moving,
faster than birds it flew through the air,
dove under the wave. Labored unresting
the fighting warrior who showed them the way,
all of the four, over plated gold.
Quill-pen. The four things are two fingers, thumb, and quill (or as in parallel riddles three fingers and pen). “Its” (l. 3) shows that the “four things” were a unit. The quill qua pen does not move faster than birds, but the expression is allowable hyperbole, or even an example of synthetic imagery, with possibly a humorous glance at the deliberation of some scribes. Similarly, the warrior is the guiding arm of the scribe. The “plated gold” has been explained as “the gold mount of the ink-horn.”
41 (K-D 60)
I was along the sand, near the sea-wall,
at the water’s edge, and firmly fixed
in the place of my birth. Few men there were
who looked upon my home of solitude.
But at every dawn the dark waves held me
in their watery embrace. Little did I think
that ever I should sooner or later
speak without mouth over the mead-bench,
exchange words. This is a kind of wonder,
curious for the minds of such as understand not
how the point of a knife and a right hand
and a prince’s thought and the point itself
