The Exeter Riddle Book

This is the collection of Old English riddles preserved in the tenth-century Exeter Book, a manuscript miscellany of Anglo-Saxon verse. Each short poem describes an object, creature, or force - a shield, a swan, a plough, a storm, mead, a bookworm - in the first person or through kennings, and asks the listener to name it. Some solutions are agreed; others remain disputed, and a few pieces are sexually double. There is no narrative frame. The book is a set of enigmatic lyrics, not a story cycle and not a later crossword of clues.

Bound in grey vegetable parchment with a design in blue and gold by Jeff Clements. Pale blue endleaves. Brown-red slipcase.