Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/Annotated/37

The favored solution is Weaver&rsquo;s Loom. The &ldquo;striving thing&rdquo; is the web still in the loom; it is injured by the needle or shuttle passing through it. The spears or darts &ldquo;must be the teeth of the batten penetrating through the warp.&rdquo; &ldquo;The two feet can only be the weighted ends of the two rows of warp threads.&rdquo; The tree with leaves is a distaff, with flax on it; and the standing warp explains the metaphor of feet. On this see the learned and well-documented article by Erika von Erhardt-Siebold, &ldquo;The Old English Loom Riddles,&rdquo; Philologica, Malone Anniversary Studies, Baltimore, 1949, pp. 9–17. Mrs. von Erhardt-Siebold includes with the Loom Riddles 50 ( 35), Coat of Mail, which is related insofar as chain mail resembles weaving; and 45 ( 70), which is usually solved as Reed Pipe (p. 37 below).