Here’s an old English riddle, translated from the Anglo-Saxon Exeter Book by Thor Ewing. I’ll answer them in the comments later today.
The air carries little creatures
over the hill-sides, who are utterly black,
swarthy, sable-hued, strident in song,
they go round in gangs calling loudly;
they tread wooded headlands, sometimes the houses
of the children of men. They name themselves.
Here’s a second one, translated by Craig Williamson.
Sometimes busy, bound by rings,
I must eagerly obey my servant,
Break my bed, clamor brightly
That my lord has given me a neck-ring.
Sleep-weary I wait for the grim-hearted
Greeting of a man or woman; I answer
Winter-cold. Sometimes a warm limb
Bursts the bound ring, pleasing my dull
Witted servant and myself. I sing round
The truth if I may in a ringing riddle.
I should be able to figure these out. I can’t.
By the way, this literary form is where the riddles in Tolkien come from.
I always think the same way, that I should be able to figure them out. I did guess the first one, but not the second, and let me tell everyone that the second one is difficult, IMO.
1. Crows
2. Keys?
Here are the answers:
1. Crows.
2. This one is marked uncertain in my source, which is linked above. It could be Bell, Millstone, Flail, or Quill Pen. Perhaps whatever answer key there was, if there was one at all, was damaged at this point, so an official or intended answer can’t be passed on to us.
No fair!
How is it unfair? Instead of one answer, you get four. I had been thinking a candle, but bell makes sense.
My favorite riddle has the answer, posited by straight faced scholars, of “One-Eyed Onion Seller.”
Andy Orchard, one of the world’s foremost Old English scholars, points out that the riddles get increasingly obscure (and crude) as the book proceeds, and blames this on the effects of alcohol.