Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/79

 ## s68 ##

I&rsquo;m a wonderful thing; I vary my voice: I bark like a dog, I bleat like a goat, I quack like a goose, I shriek like a hawk; I imitate the eagle, the gray one, the cry Of the fighting bird; sometimes the kite&rsquo;s voice is familiar to my mouth, or the sea-mew&rsquo;s song, where I happily sit. IFT is my name, O'K and 'IDING and the GD helps, 'AIL and 'CE. Now you have my name, as those six letters clearly betoken.

Here the runes are given their names, which of course are not intended to make sense; but their initial letters (underlined in the translation) are G A R O H I, which transposed spell HIGORA, jay or magpie. This is more like a puzzle than a riddle. If Jay is the solution of 22 (K-D 8), the two writers listened with different ears.


 * 1) s69 ##

I saw there two beautiful creatures openly playing the game of love. If the affair prospered, the fair-haired one proudly arrayed, received her due fulness.