Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/21

 bind the living&rsquo; [i.e., if the suckling lives to grow up it will draw the plow; if it dies its hide will make thongs.]&rdquo;

Number 22 ( 8), one of the best, is a more difficult example. First, a literal, line-by-line version:

I through my mouth speak in many tongues with skills I sing change enough [often] in head-tone [or mourning tone] loud chirm [cry out] hold my tunes [or customs] voice restrain not. Old evening-scop to earls [princes] bring bliss in burgs [towns]. Then I bending [varying] with voice storm [cry out] still in dwellings [they] sit bowing. Say what I am called who so clearly call players&rsquo; songs loudly imitate to heroes bode many welcomes with my voice.

There are several uncertainties here which must be canvassed at the outset. First, the textual. In l. 3 heafodwo&thorn;(e) means &lsquo;mournful sound,&rsquo; and this would support the solution Wood-dove, Anglo-Saxon cuscote, which fits the text in other ways and was strongly urged by Dietrich. In the manuscript the rune for C stands above the text. In l. 4 wisan may mean &lsquo;tunes&rsquo; (as in German Volksweise) or &lsquo;manner,&rsquo; i.e., &lsquo;I hold (prolong) my song and do not sing out of tune,&rsquo; or &lsquo;I sing according to my nature.&rsquo; In l. 4 hleo&thorn;re, &lsquo;sound,&rsquo; may be for hleahtor, &lsquo;laughter,&rsquo; an emendation which receives some support from l. 9.  In l. 5 Eald may mean &lsquo;old in years,&rsquo; or &lsquo;of old,&rsquo; in the sense of long familiar. In l. 8 the manuscript has site&eth; nigende, &lsquo;sits bending forward&rsquo;; site&thorn;, third person singular, is difficult and is changed to sitte&eth;, plural, by the editors: &lsquo;they [the earls of l. 5] sit.&rsquo; For nigende (which Wyatt translated &lsquo;listening&rsquo; in a footnote, but &lsquo;bending forward&rsquo; in his Glossary) most editors read hnigende, &lsquo;bowing,&rsquo; to avoid the repetition, nige, in the next line. In l. 9 the manuscript has &thorn;a swa scire nige. If scire nige are two words the meaning must be &lsquo;I listen brightly&rsquo;; but most editors make it one word, scirenige (for sciernicge), &lsquo;