“Horn.” (Drinking horn)
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“Oxhide.” This riddle depicts the oxhide being used used to bind the “Dark-haired Welsh slave.”
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“Jay.” (J.R.R. Tolkien and other scholars have proposed other birds). Podcast: Play in new window | Download “Jay.” (J.R.R. Tolkien and other scholars have proposed other birds). Podcast: Play in new window | Download Solved as “Shield.” Podcast: Play in new window | Download Usually solved as “bell.” Podcast: Play in new window | Download This much longer riddle is solved as “Wind.” Podcast: Play in new window | Download This riddle is also usually solved “storm.” Podcast: Play in new window | Download [N.B.: The riddles are all short enough to be recorded as individual poems (i.e., not broken up into smaller units) so I will not be using line numbers or [all] in the titles. ] This riddle is almost always interpreted as “Storm.” Some scholars think that Riddles 1, 2 and 3 are all one long riddle or thematic collection of three that can be solved as “wind storm.” All three riddles end with the “say what I am” or “say what I am called” conclusion so popular in the Old English riddles. Podcast: Play in new window | Download He is like a gift to my people, they will tear him if he comes with a troop. Unlike it is to us Wulf is on an island, I on another. Fast is that island, wrapped by fens. There are slaughter-greedy men on that island, they will tear him if he comes with a troop. Unlike it is to us. I have long endured the footsteps of Wulf being far away. When it was rainy weather, and I sat, weeping, then that warrior laid his arms about me. It was a joy to me, but to me also hateful. Wulf, my Wulf, my hopes of you have made me sickened, your seldom coming, my sorrowing mind, not at all a lack of food. Do you hear, Eadwacer? Wulf will bear our miserable hwelp to the woods. A man may easily slit apart that which was never truly together: Our song together. Podcast: Play in new window | Download In this poem short vignettes of hardship taken from Germanic tradition are separated from each other with the refrain of “that passed away, so may this.” It concludes with the lament of the poet, a scop named Deor, who has been displaced in the esteem of his lord by Heorrenda, apparently a better poet. [J.R.R. Tolkien on occasion would call the “Beowulf Poet” “Heorrenda, rather than X” ] Podcast: Play in new window | Download |
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