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OLD ENGLISH ENIGMATIC POEMS
AND THE PLAY OF THE TEXTS
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STUDIES IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
Editorial Board under the auspices of the
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York
Elizabeth M. Tyler (University of York)
Julian D. Richards (University of York)
Ross Balzaretti (University of Nottingham)
VOLUME 13
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OLD ENGLISH ENIGMATIC POEMS
AND THE PLAY OF THE TEXTS
by
John D. Niles
H
F
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Niles, John D.
Old English enigmatic poems and the play of the texts. – (Studies in the early
Middle Ages ; 13)
1. Exeter book 2. English poetry – Old English, ca. 450-1100 – History and
criticism 3. Riddles, English (Old) – History and criticism
I. Title
829.1'009
ISBN-10: 2503515304
© 2006, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2006/0095/6
ISBN: 2-503-51530-4
Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper
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Saturn said:
What is that speechless thing
at rest in a hollow, rapt in thought?
It has seven tongues. Each tongue has twenty tips. Each of those tips
contains the wisdom of an angel. Just one of those tongues will lift you up
until you see the walls of Jerusalem
golden, gleaming. —Guess what I mean.
Solomon said:
Books are far-famed. They often proclaim
good things in store for people who cultivate their mind.
They strengthen your wits and confirm your faith.
They free your head from everyday dumps and distractions
and bliss you out.
—Solomon and Saturn II, lines 229–42 (slightly adapted)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations xi
List of Illustrations xv
Introduction: Old English Poems and Current Readers 1
Chapter 1. Exeter Book Riddle 74 and the Play of the Text 11
Footnote: Getting the Exeter Book Right 57
Chapter 2. Exeter Book Riddle 55: Some Gallows Humour 61
Chapter 3. New Answers to Exeter Book Riddles 36, 58, 70, and 75/76 85
Chapter 4. Answering the Riddles in their Own Tongue 101
Appendix: Exeter Book Riddle Solutions in Old English 141
Chapter 5. The Problem of the Ending of The Wife’s Lament 149
Addendum: More on Curses in the Northern World 209
Chapter 6. The Trick of the Runes in The Husband’s Message 213
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Chapter 7. Runic Hermeneutics in The Rune Poem 251
Addendum: A Bonus Ship 281
Chapter 8. Cynewulf’s Use of Initialisms in his Runic Signatures 285
Conclusion: On the Dance of Wit and Wisdom 307
Index of Old English Words and Phrases Discussed 311
Index of Old English Works and Passages 313
Index of Modern Scholars Cited 319
General Index 325
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
V
ersions of three of the eight chapters included in this volume have ap-
peared in print before. ‘Exeter Book Riddle 74 and the Play of the Text’
appeared in ASE, 27 (1998), 169–207, and ‘The Trick of the Runes in
The Husband’s Message’ in ASE, 32 (2003), 189–223. Those essays are reproduced
by permission of Cambridge University Press. ‘The Problem of the Ending of
The Wife’s Lament’ was published in Speculum, 78 (2003), 1107–50, and is re-
printed by permission of the Medieval Academy of America.
Financial support from the Graduate Division of the University of Wiscon-
sin, Madison, and from the UW-Madison Department of English (in the form
of the Nancy C. Hoefs Professorship) enabled me to develop new work for this
volume, and an appointment as Senior Fellow at the Institute for Research in the
Humanities at UW-Madison allowed me to bring it to completion in the spring
of 2005. Support from the Committee on Research at the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley, facilitated previous research. I am grateful to Clare Hall, Cam-
bridge, for having named me a Visiting Fellow during the 1997–98 academic
year, for that appointment allowed me to pursue my research in a sustained
manner in a collegial setting.
Support from both UC-Berkeley and UW-Madison has allowed me to air
some of my findings before scholarly audiences in the United States and abroad.
Preliminary versions of several of these chapters were presented at conferences
sponsored by the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (Notre Dame, 1999),
the International Congress of Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan (1999
and 2005), the Medieval Association of the Pacific (Victoria, B.C., 2000), the
Medieval Academy of America (Tempe, AZ, 2001), and the Medieval Associa-
tion of the Midwest (in 2001 and 2002). I am grateful to the many persons who
offered constructive comments on those occasions. Several ad hoc events at
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x Acknowledgements
which short versions of certain chapters were aired for discussion are mentioned
in the notes.
It is impossible to offer thanks here to the many persons who have stimulated
my thoughts with their questions, comments, and criticisms over the past years.
Some of those individuals have been anonymous readers of my work; many
others are cited by name at appropriate points in the following pages. I am grate-
ful to them all for their collegial interest and support. Expert editorial assistance
was provided by Clare Orchard for the two articles published in Anglo-Saxon
England, by Jacqueline Brown for the article published in Speculum, and by
Deborah A. Oosterhouse for the present volume. My project assistant at UW-
Madison, Brian O’Camb, has provided invaluable help.
This book could not have been written in its current form were it not for the
existence of the Dictionary of Old English project at the University of Toronto,
including both its main entries and its searchable database, the Corpus of Old
English. I am indebted to the editors of the Dictionary and to everyone who has
laboured on that project over the past several decades for their service to the
profession. Another invaluable aid has been the Thesaurus of Old English recently
completed at Kings College, London.
I have a lasting debt to my wife, Carole Newlands, who has earned my grati-
tude for her loving support as I have worked on this volume despite the demands
of her own professional life. This book is dedicated to her.
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