Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/58

 ## s38 ##

I know a something that stands firm on the ground, deaf and dumb, that by day often swallows from the servant&rsquo;s hand useful gifts. Sometimes in the towns the dark thane, swarthy and dun-faced, sends more of these into its mouth, dearer than gold, which men of rank often desire, kings and queens. I will not now yet name his nature who for use and profit of doughty men makes what the dumb thing (that dun-faced nitwit) first swallows up.

Probably Bake-oven; but Bookcase has been proposed. Perhaps both, for the sake of promoting argument.


 * 1) s39 ##

I was alive but said nothing; even so I die. Back I came before I was. Everyone plunders me, keeps me confined, and shears my head, bites my bare body, breaks my sprouts. No man I bite unless he bites me; many there are who do bite me.

Onion. Cf. 74 (K-D 25), which is also Onion with salacious overtones.