Exeter Book Riddle 45 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its solution is accepted to be ' dough'. However, the description evokes a penis becoming erect; as such, Riddle 45 is noted as one of a small group of Old English riddles that engage in sexual double entendre, and thus provides rare evidence for Anglo-Saxon attitudes to sexuality, and specifically for women taking the initiative in heterosexual sex.

Text and translation

As edited by Krapp and Dobbie, the riddle reads:George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds), ''The Exeter Book'', The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), p. 205; http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/3009 .

Editions

* Krapp, George Philip and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (eds), ''The Exeter Book'', The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), p. 205, https://web.archive.org/web/20181206091232/http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/3009. * Williamson, Craig (ed.), ''The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book'' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pp. 96-97 o. 43 * Muir, Bernard J. (ed.), ''The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501'', 2nd edn, 2 vols (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 2000).

Recordings

* Michael D. C. Drout,
Riddle 45
, performed from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition (29 October 2007).

External links

* Megan Cavell,
Commentary for ''Riddle 45''
, ''The Riddle Ages'' (7 October 2015).

References

Riddles Old English literature Old English poetry {{poetry-stub