Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/68

 for he who held me of yore in thrall denies me that bliss. I must therefore enjoy single, alone, the wealth of heroes. Often foolish in my finery I enrage a woman, diminish her desire; her tongue abuses me; she hits me with her hands, reviles me with words, intones a curse. I like not this contest.&hellip;

The solution is certainly, at first, a Sword, as is doubtless intentionally obvious. Then about midway the sword seems to be personified and obscurities set in. The piece is thus one half a transparent riddle and then a kind of heroic lay in the best tradition, in which the sword speaks as a follower who has somehow killed a friend of his master (or so I understand it) and is banished. He cannot marry, but he involves himself with a scolding woman. There is some disorder in the manuscript, the gatherings indicating the loss of a whole folio, which contained the conclusion of this riddle and perhaps other riddles. Compare 41 (K-D 60).


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