WHALES, BIRDS, REEDS, AND BOOK-WORMS: WHAT OLD ENGLISH RIDDLES SAY
ABOUT ANGLO-SAXON ATTITUDES TOWARDS WRITING AND READING
A Project Paper Submitted to the
College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts
In the Department of English
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon
By
MEGAN GORSALITZ
ã Copyright Megan Kristine Gorsalitz, August 2023, All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, copyright of the material in this project paper belongs to the author.
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PERMISSION TO USE
In presenting this project paper in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Postgraduate
degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may
make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this
thesis/dissertation in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by
the professor or professors who supervised my project paper work or, in their absence, by the
Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my project paper work was done. It
is understood that any copying or publication or use of this project paper or parts thereof for
financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due
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Requests for permission to copy or to make other uses of materials in this thesis/dissertation in
whole or part should be addressed to:
Head of the Department of English
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OR
Dean
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Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5C9 Canada
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ABSTRACT
Riddling culture existed in multiple forms in early medieval England: Latin enigmata,
visual art inscribed with riddles or riddle-like texts, the Old English Exeter Book Riddles, and,
presumably, oral transmission. Several Old English riddles that have been preserved in writing
self-consciously invite their solvers to think about the nature of the written word as the AngloSaxons crafting these riddles attempted to navigate this newly introduced form of language.
Many of these riddles, such as the Franks Casket Riddle and Exeter Book Riddles 26 and 60,
describe written language by exploring the past lives of the very materials used to create it.
These riddles present the power of written language by borrowing from the life forces of the
material supports for writing. However, they also emphasize the communal nature of reading by
connecting speech with writing. Finally, Riddle 47 calls attention to the limitations of the
written word. The common solution to this riddle is a book-worm; however, I contend this by
comparing Riddle 47 with its Latin counterpart, the Franks Casket Riddle, and Exeter Book
Riddles 26 and 60. I argue that Riddle 47 is actually about the written word, and is meant to call
writing’s power into question by demonstrating its fragility and its ability to be misinterpreted
through carelessness. Ultimately, these four riddles reflect Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards
language and interrogate the possible cultural changes that come along with literacy.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank first and foremost Dr. Yin Liu, my project supervisor, for her patience
and support. Thank you for asking me the tough questions about my ideas and making me think
hard about the decisions I made in writing this project; it would not have been possible without
your help. I have very much enjoyed every course I have taken with you during my studies at the
University of Saskatchewan, and you played a significant hand in my decision to focus my
studies on medieval literature. Thank you also to my second reader, Dr. Richard Harris, for your
contributions to this paper, and for making the study of Old English entertaining and thoughtprovoking.
I would like to also extend a special thank you to the graduate chairs this past year, Dr.
Lindsey Banco and Dr. Anne Martin. Thank you both for your support and continued patience in
helping me navigate this program. Thank you also to the entire Department of English faculty; I
would not have chosen to pursue graduate studies if not for all of the encouragement and support
I received from this department.
Thank you to all of the graduate students who studied alongside me this year for the
fascinating discussions and for making the department a welcoming place. Thank you also to my
friends outside of the academic sphere; you forced me to take a step back and have fun when I
really needed it. Finally, thank you to my family for all of your understanding and support during
my studies. And thanks Mom and Dad for putting up with me living in your house for so long.
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Riddling culture existed in multiple forms in early medieval England: Latin enigmata,
visual art inscribed with riddles or riddle-like texts, the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book,
and, presumably, oral transmission. Although these riddles take various forms, there are several
riddlic conventions that tie them together, possibly the most prominent of which is proposition:
“a set of described qualities that suggests an object, entity, or activity different than a riddle’s
actual solution” (Foys 105). In combination with proposition, riddles often employ paradox. As
the proposition and the paradox work together, riddles mislead by describing the impossible and
by describing the actual object of the riddle in terms that seem to lead the solver to an entirely
different solution. Finally, many riddles make use of prosopopoeia, the convention of the
speaking object. In Old English this device is particularly conspicuous as it is present not only in
riddlic culture but also in the Anglo-Saxon1 culture of inscription. Anglo-Saxon inanimate
objects, through inscriptions, are endowed with voices, and have a propensity for speaking selfreferentially. They describe themselves in terms of what they are made of, who made or owns
them, what they are for, or what they are called. First-person riddles are remarkably like these
kinds of inscriptions. The speaker – whose identity is also the riddle’s solution – propositionally
describes itself in unconventional ways meant to trick the solver.
Anglo-Saxon objects that are inscribed with riddles, such as the Franks Casket, further
illustrate the relationship between prosopopoeia and inscriptions. The eighth-century whalebone
casket consists of a lid and four side panels – all of which are decorated with images and text.
The casket is multilingual, with inscriptions in Latin and English, in runic and in the roman
1
In recent years, some concerns, such as those in David Wilton’s 2020 study, have been
raised about the continued use of this term due to its misappropriation by white supremacist
groups. Here, I use the term as a convenient shorthand for the diverse cultures and peoples of
England during the period of time in which the riddles I discuss were composed and circulated.
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alphabet. It is illustrated with scenes from the Bible, Germanic legend, and world history. The
front panel of the casket is particularly important here; it is inscribed with a runic riddle
concerning the casket’s origins as a piece of whalebone. The casket at once obscures and
enlightens as it self-references the material makeup of its inscription through creative
description.
Several Exeter Book Riddles, in a fashion similar to that of the Franks Casket, refer to
manuscripts or writing tools and materials, such as pens and parchment. I have space to discuss
only a select few of them here. I will be referring to the Exeter Book Riddles in terms of the
numbering system devised by George Phillip Krapp and Elliot Van Kirk Dobbie in volume three
of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ASPR) of 1936. Riddle 26 is a prosopopoeic riddle that
methodically goes through the process of medieval bookmaking, listing the various materials of
which the final product of the book is comprised. It ends with a description of the capability of
the book to improve its readers’ lives. Riddle 60, on the other hand, focuses specifically on a
pen; the pen narrates its transformation from plant to writing utensil and discusses its
relationship with a medieval scribe. Most interesting is Riddle 47, which, unlike Riddle 26 and
Riddle 60, depicts the destruction of a written text as it describes (on the surface level) a bookworm or book-moth devouring a document. As Craig Williamson remarks, “the riddle appears
less interested in worms than it does in words” (285); thus, when Riddle 47 is compared to the
other aforementioned riddles, it becomes apparent that the riddle is concerned with the acts of
reading and writing.
These riddles -- the front panel of the Franks Casket and Exeter Book Riddles 26, 60, and
47 -- invite us, as potential solvers, to contemplate the nature of the written word by forcing the
solver to reflect on the past lives of the materials that make the written word possible. They draw
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attention to the physicality of writing by pointing out that writing requires a material object or
objects in order to come to life. These riddles provoke a contemplation of the written word as the
Anglo-Saxons crafting them attempted to navigate this (to them) enigmatic form of language.
But writing does not stand alone; in asking the solver to consider the act of writing and its
implications, these riddles also ask the solver to think about the complicated sensory experience
of reading. Reading was, of course, a communal act for most Anglo-Saxons; since few could
read, those who were literate were responsible for reading aloud to those who could not.
In discussing the possibility that these riddles highlight Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards
written language, it is important to consider what literacy meant to the Anglo-Saxons. The term
literacy is derived from the Latin word litteratus; thus, at least originally, for the Anglo-Saxons
“litteratus referred to someone who was learned in Latin, not someone able to read”
(McKitterick 3). Since Latin was the original language of literacy, “if it had not been for
instruction in Latin, there would have been no Old English literacy. All the vernacular texts owe
their existence not only to Roman writing but much of it to Roman grammar and RomanChristian culture” (Brown 211). While “the use of the vernacular for documentation and literary
purposes was already common in the ninth century” (McKitterick 3), anyone who was able to
read the vernacular would have also been learned in Latin. Additionally, Latin was still a part of
the oral landscape of Anglo-Saxon England since Church services would have included the oral
recitation of Latin. The riddles I am examining here are all in the vernacular, although Latin
riddling did also have a place in Anglo-Saxon England with the riddles of Boniface, Aldhelm,
and Tatwine. Since it is difficult to separate vernacular and Latin writing in this period, any
comments that these riddles make on reading and writing should be understood as comments on
the nature of reading and writing in both Latin and the vernacular.
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Nicholas Howe points out that the Old English word rædan, the root for read, often
referred to acts of interpretation or giving counsel or advice – none of which require written
texts. However, Bosworth-Toller also lists reading aloud and reading to oneself as possible
definitions for rædan (“rædan” v. sense VI). Indeed, throughout the course of the medieval
period writing in England increasingly gained traction, and “from the sixth century onwards we
find more attention given to the role of silent reading” (Parkes 9). Interestingly, “reading (OE
raedan) and riddling (OE raedels) are etymologically connected in Old English” (Paz 15),
because “in a culture unaccustomed to the written text, the act of reading would have seemed
remarkably like solving a riddle” (Howe 62). The increasing presence of this formerly foreign,
mysterious kind of communications technology would have most likely raised questions of its
potential cultural implications, particularly how it may affect the act of reading. In examining the
Franks Casket riddle, Riddle 26, and Riddle 60, I will lay a foundation for examining Riddle 47
as a riddle about reading and writing, and then propose an alternate solution to this particularly
elusive riddle. Combining analyses of all four of these riddles, which all explore the depths and
complexities of writing as they contemplate where writing comes from and where it may lead,
demonstrates that writing is simultaneously powerful and limited in its power.
The Franks Casket is, on the whole, a notoriously enigmatic piece of Anglo-Saxon art; not
only are the images on its surfaces difficult to interpret, but its runic script puzzles the viewer
with its unconventional layouts, ciphers, and mixing of languages. The text that borders most
panels acts as a caption for the corresponding images. The exception is the front panel, the most
prominent panel where there was once a lock and which is therefore the side from which the
casket must be opened. This panel, rather than a caption, is bordered with an Old English riddle,
carved in runes, that concerns the origins of the object itself, revealing that the casket is
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fashioned from whalebone: “fisc flodu ahof on fergenberig / warþ ga:sric grorn þær he on greut
giswom / hronesban” (Page 174). In such a short riddle, the proposition and paradox are closely
related; the top and right edges of the riddle form the proposition by configuring the whale as
simply a fisc. Fisc establishes the subject of the riddle as an aquatic creature while also leading
the reader away from the size and strength of a whale. Then, paradoxically, the riddle describes
that same fisc as ga:sric. Ga:sric contradicts the small, powerless image of the fisc, prompting
the reader to figure out what kind of fish merits the title of “terror-king.” Then, along the left
edge of the panel, the casket presents its solution: hronesban, or whale’s bone. A hron aptly fits
both requirements of being a fish and being terrifying. Knowing that the casket is made of
whale’s bone, the greot – meaning “sand” or “earth” (Bosworth-Toller n. sense I) -- is evidently
the beach, or shoreline. Thus, the riddle describes a whale being beached, and consequently its
bones were harvested to make the casket. The hronesban solution solves the riddle of the casket
on multiple levels: the viewer learns the solution to the text of the riddle as they come to
understand its proposition and paradox, but they also get a kind of solution to the casket as a
whole as it tells its viewer where it comes from. An element of prosopopoeia in the riddle
emerges as the viewer realizes that, through the riddle, the casket is telling the viewer about
itself. The riddle thus draws some attention away from itself as it redirects the viewer to the rest
of the casket’s body. Throughout the entire experience of examining the casket the viewer
becomes conscious of its materiality; the body of the whale lingers behind each inscribed letter
and picture. As such a complicated piece of art, the casket provides a multimedia, multisensory
riddling experience.
With its idiosyncratic layout, the front panel makes the viewer puzzle out not only the
solution to the riddle, but also how to make sense of the runes that compose the riddle in the first
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place. This is significant in the casket’s temporal context: many people who laid eyes on it
probably would not have been able to read its texts (Karkov 90). Even the people who may have
been literate in the roman alphabet may not have been able to read runes, and even those who
could read runes may have found themselves baffled by the casket’s backwards lettering, mixing
of writing systems, and coded vowels. Additionally, the riddle bleeds from edge to edge with
proper word boundaries largely ignored. For example, the word fergenberig is split between the
top and right edges of the front panel; the top edge cuts the word off at *ferg and the right edge
picks it up again with *enberig. If this were not confusing enough, the lettering on the bottom
edge of the panel is reversed. Considering how enigmatic much of the Franks Casket’s texts are,
it is significant that hronesban is spelled out isolated in full on the left edge of the front panel.
Even if the viewer could not read the runes, reading was a communal activity, so it would have
been possible for someone literate in runes to explain to those who were not that the collection of
symbols running along the left edge of the front panel meant hronesban. Given the variety of
texts and images on the casket, and the painstakingly detailed beauty of its exterior, it was
certainly an object meant for display and thus was intended to be communally viewed, read, and
interpreted. Indeed, with its use of multiple writing systems, languages, and depictions of various
legends and historical events, it is easy to imagine that it would have taken multiple people
conferring at once to interpret each side of the casket. Oral discussion was, for its original
audience, most probably a key part of interpreting the casket.
The multimedia nature of the Franks Casket is essential to discussing how it plays with
written language. The hronesban riddle is not simply a text; it is part of the image on the front
panel of the casket. While the Franks Casket is a collection of written texts, it is also a work of
visual art. This is essential because “visual understanding and communication was paramount in
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a society that was in transition from an essentially oral tradition to one where literacy, though
more widespread, remained in the preserve of ecclesiastical and secular elites” (Webster 13). If
the Franks Casket was meant to be viewed communally, and if rædan meant more to the AngloSaxons than the literal act of deciphering written language, those who were illiterate in both
runic and roman could still have a role in deciphering the Casket. The images on it need to be
read as well. There are two images on the front panel of the casket: one half depicts a scene from
the Germanic legend of Weland the Smith, who is making a cup; the other half depicts the
adoration of the Magi. Reading these images goes beyond figuring out what is depicted in them,
since “[a] feature shared by Anglo-Saxon art and literature, is a delight in paradox of every kind:
verbal and visual riddles abound” (8). The interpreter of the Franks Casket must ask important
questions such as: what is the relationship between these two images? Or, if the text has also
been deciphered: what relationship, if any, is there between the text and the images? Although it
is difficult to say why the carver specifically chose these two images, the images show outside
observers the multicultural, multilingual, and multimedia nature of Anglo-Saxon texts. The
Germanic and Christian images together indicate the interaction of two different kinds of textual
traditions: the story of Weland comes from the Germanic oral tradition, and the adoration of the
Magi, although many Anglo-Saxons would have encountered it in oral performance, comes from
the written Latin tradition. Given low rates of literacy in the early Middle Ages, the front panel,
in more ways than one, draws attention to the act of reading. The Casket points out all the
different manifestations of reading: one can literally read text, in Latin or in runes, one can read
(in the interpretative sense) the Germanic oral tradition, just as one can read an image, and one
can read an interpretative connection between text and image (or between two images). Thus, the
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casket, as a multilingual, complex piece of visual art that combines image and text, also
demonstrates the communal, multifaceted nature of reading in the Anglo-Saxon period.
The unconventional use of text on the front panel of the casket also illustrates Anglo-Saxon
attitudes towards written language. Other panels on the casket, although their texts are not
riddles, conceal themselves. The right-side panel includes encrypted vowels and the back panel
includes the roman alphabet and the Latin language, sometimes even spelling Latin words in
runes or Old English words in roman. Although some, such as R.I. Page, chalk some of the
casket’s idiosyncrasies up to error (176), at least some of them could be intentional play with
written language. The carver was possibly experimenting with what written language was
capable of, and all the ways it could be re-mixed and obscured but still interpreted. On the
bottom edge of front panel the text runs backwards and, as with other extant runic Old English,
the text is sliced up between the edges of the panel. This could be due to the spatial constraints of
the casket, or it could be that the carver is again purposefully concealing in order to play with the
limits of written language’s legibility. However, when the left edge is reached, the entire casket
snaps back into clarity. Considering the continued complications across the texts on the Franks
Casket, the entire work seems to be intentionally experimenting with what writing is capable of
and all the ways it can be distorted, yet still decoded. The written word, as demonstrated by the
Franks Casket, can take multiple forms. It can be remixed and rearranged, yet still understood; it
can conceal, yet it can also explain.
What is more, with the solution to the hronesban riddle, the written word becomes
connected to the physical life of an impressive creature. James Paz has remarked on how the
Franks Casket asks its viewers to consider it as “both whalebone and as a chest, something at
once organic and crafted, natural and manmade” (Paz 123). Karkov similarly remarks that “the
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real riddle, then, is not in the inscriptions but in the materiality of the casket and its
transformation from one type of living creature to another. It was once a whale, and even as a
box it still is” (93-5). However, no one has yet considered that, while the Franks Casket tells the
viewer that it is both a whale and a casket, it is also both a whale and text. The whale becomes
reduced to a series of runic symbols, its name, as its entire lifespan and impressive body become
transformed into writing. The inverse of this reading is that the symbols themselves become
transformed as they label and encompass a living creature so powerful. Paradoxically, the
reduction of the whale into runic symbols reveals the power of those symbols. The written word
is created out of the body of the whale and therefore its power is aligned with that of the socalled terror king. Vitally, the viewer is forced to contemplate the written word as it takes a
physical form that is made of materials that had a previous life of their own.
It may seem a stretch to compare the eighth-century Franks Casket to the tenth-century
Exeter Book. However, it is not unusual when discussing the riddles of the Exeter Book to
remark on the riddles that came before it. Discussions of Old English riddles stretch back to
Aldhelm, Boniface, Tatwine, and Symphosius – all of which were predecessors to, or
contemporaneous with, the Franks Casket. It is not uncommon for critics to remark that
“[riddling’s] conventional motifs are amazingly durable in oral transmission, with numerous
identical riddling conceits found in collected materials spanning centuries and crossing multiple
linguistic boundaries” (Murphy 5), or that “despite the enormous and widespread changes
occurring all around it, Old English verse, marked by its lexical, metrical, narrative, and perhaps
even syntactic homogeneity was an island of stability” (Amodio 34). If the riddles of the Exeter
Book are influenced by other riddle collections like the ones listed above, then he riddle of the
Franks Casket can be said to come from, or be part of, that same tradition. Others, such as Paz,
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have directly linked the Franks Casket to the Exeter Book Riddles: “additionally, the casket has
literary equivalents in the Old English riddles and wisdom poetry, and, like the runic riddles of
the Exeter Book, skillfully employs alternative scripts as a means of wordplay” (15). The same
riddlic devices are employed in the Franks Casket Riddle and the Exeter Book Riddles, and the
casket’s meta-references to the material that composes it share a striking resemblance to several
Exeter Book Riddles about reading, writing, and text.
In order to better understand the Exeter Book Riddles, I will pause and discuss their
situation in the Exeter Book as a whole. After all, the Exeter Book Riddles that describe writing
materials indirectly describe the Exeter Book itself, as a material object. The manuscript is an
eclectic collection of vernacular writings, including several major works of Old English poetry
such as The Wanderer and The Seafarer. The Exeter Book riddle collection comprises just fewer
than one hundred riddles, some of which are religious in nature (seen in with Riddle 26) and
some of which are decidedly earthy. The manuscript is simple, undecorated, and now badly
damaged (a burn mark runs diagonally across many of its pages). It is quite different than
contemporaneous illuminated, Latin, religious manuscripts. Although it can be useful to compare
the Franks Casket to the Exeter Book Riddles, there were, of course, several significant historical
developments in the two hundred years between them. Most significantly for my purposes, the
Exeter Book was created after King Alfred’s advocation of Old English literacy in the ninth
century. His plans to increase literacy in the vernacular “seem likely to have contributed to the
enthusiasm with which English was used for literary documentary purposes in the tenth and
eleventh centuries” (Kelly 54). Thus, the Exeter Book could be regarded as part of a relatively
newly revitalized culture of vernacular writing. While the Exeter Book Riddles about writing do
not necessarily deal exclusively with vernacular texts (the religious book described in Riddle 26
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would have been Latin), they were created in a context of increased vernacular literacy. Some of
them, therefore, deal with the new cultural implications of writing the oral vernacular traditions
of Anglo-Saxon culture.
Riddle 26 in particular shows, like the Franks Casket, a fascination with the previous lives
of writing supports. The solution to Riddle 26 is a religious text, likely Bible or a Gospel book
(Bitterli 171). The first part of this long riddle goes through the entire process of medieval book
making, beginning with the slaughter of the animal whose skin becomes parchment and ending
with binding and ornamentation. This first section is formed as a series of miniature riddles
within the larger riddle, as the speaker of the poem jumps from material to material and
obfuscates each step in the process of book making. First, the speaker is the animal that is
slaughtered and skinned for parchment. The proposition of the riddle’s opening line configures
the animal as a warrior as it describes how “mec feonda sum feore besnyþede” (line 1). The next
line shifts to a paradox as the warrior images are complicated by the slain warrior “wætte” (line
2), “sette on sunan” (line 3), and “snaþ seaxses ecg sundrum begrunden” (line 6). The poem is
apparently not dealing with a human warrior here, as dead human warriors do not tend to get
dipped in fluids, dried in the sun, and scraped with a knife. This, of course, describes the process
of parchment making; the hide is dipped in a chemical solution that makes the hairs fall out, is
dried, and then is scraped clean.
Once the parchment is made, the poem shifts to examining the process of writing in a
series of propositions and paradoxes, the first being “fugles wyn” (line 7). Paralleling how the
parchment is described in terms of the animal that is skinned, the quill pen’s proposition is that it
is described in terms of the bird that contributed its feather to the construction of the pen. The
paradox arrives with “speddropum spyrede” (line 8), “beamtelge swealg” (line 9), and “siþade
15
sweartlast” (line 11). In order to solve this problem, the solver must again solve the riddlewithin-the-riddle and determine what fugles wyn, speddropan and beamtelg are, and what any of
them have to do with the slain warrior image from lines previous. This is further complicated by
the fact that decoding beamtelg is a prerequisite for understanding the meaning of speddropan;
the solver is faced with a riddle-within-a-riddle-within-a-riddle. Beamtelg is a kenning: an
Anglo-Saxon poetic compound word that describes a thing figuratively by combining two of its
characteristics. Kennings are akin to propositions in and of themselves, as they can puzzle the
audience by describing something in terms of something else. In this case, beamtelg literally
means “tree-dye,” which refers to ink; ink in this period was partially composed of compounds
found in tree galls (Rumble 37). Therefore, like the pen and the parchment, ink is encrypted in
terms of the living thing from which it was created. Once the meaning of beamtelg is
determined, the solver can look back at speddropan, or “prosperous drops,” and understand that
this kenning also refers to ink. The word sped, meaning “prosperous,” is an early hint at the
value that this riddle places on written language. Additionally, once beamtelg is solved it is easy
enough to understand that the sweartlast, or “dark track,” in line 11 refers to writing – the “dark
track” is the track the ink leaves behind on the parchment. Understanding these three phrases,
and knowing that pens are often made of feathers, the solver can puzzle out that the riddle is not
dealing with a literal bird at all, but rather with a pen that is made from part of a bird. Finally, the
book is bound as the “hæleþ” wraps the speaker in “hleobordum” (line 12). The bookbinder is
propositioned as a hero, taking the completed manuscript (the slain warrior stretched and
scraped, covered in tracks from a bird), and putting it in protective binding.
In Riddle 26, all stages of the creation of a book are concealed in propositions, paradoxes,
or figurative language; nothing is straightforward. Like the Franks Casket, Riddle 26 is
16
concerned with the past lives of the materials that go into a piece of writing. It shows mammals,
birds, and trees that contribute to the final creation of a book. This riddle illuminates the lifeforces, labour, and transformations that are necessary for the production of the written word,
demonstrating the power and complexity of writing. The vitalities of the unspecified mammal
that is skinned for parchment, of a bird, of a tree, and of a human craftsperson all converge and
subsequently magnify the vibrancy and power of the codex. The compounded, layered riddles
also emphasize, as does the Franks Casket, the power of writing by demonstrating writing’s
ability to conceal; meaning is concealed by proposition and paradox just as meaning is concealed
in writing unless one is literate. The action of solving the multiple layers of the riddle thus
mirrors the act of reading. When one solves a riddle, as when one reads, one gains new a
knowledge, and, because riddles describe things in unexpected ways, a new understanding and
perspective. Thus, the riddle indirectly indicates reading’s educational abilities. This does not
necessarily have to mean the educational abilities of private reading in the modern sense. A
person can solve Riddle 26 by listening to it being read aloud, and thus the riddle conveys the
rewards of reading in the interpretative sense; one does not have to read literally the words on
the page, but one does have to think carefully and read beyond the literal words in order to
understand the riddle. The importance of deep thought and careful interpretation is also implied
through the riddle’s diction. Line 18 uses the word “brucan” meaning “to use” (Bosworth-Toller
“brucan” v. sense I). This implies more than a surface level reading; audiences are encouraged to
engage with the text, think on it, and make use of it by applying it to their lives. Riddle 26, while
illustrating the power of writing by emphasizing all of its components, also illustrates the power
of reading by implicitly demonstrating the kinds of deeper understanding that can be gleaned
from a written text.
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The latter half of the riddle goes on to describe the power of the written text. This codex
has the ability to make people “þy gesundran. . .þy sigefæstran . . .heortum þy hwætran. . .þy
hygebliþran” and “ferþe þy frodran” (lines 19-21). The book described in the first section of the
riddle unites people, as is apparent when the speaker says that those who utilize it “habbaþ
freonda þy ma” (line 21). It should not be ignored that the riddle is explicitly about a religious
text, which of course contributes significantly to the document’s power – religion indeed can
enrich a person’s life and connect them with others. However, out of the riddle’s twenty-eight
lines, more than half (seventeen, to be exact) are dedicated to describing the process of book
making. The fact that the document is physical is emphasized in this poem. The poem, while
being devotional and showing the powers of religion, also shows the powers of the written word
as it ties the physical form of the book to Christianity’s ability to improve peoples’ lives. Not
only the religious content of the text, but its physical nature as well, contribute to its power. In
fact, the way the poem transitions between its two parts points to the significance of the physical
document: “nu þa gereno on se reada telg / on þa wuldorgesteald wide mære / dryhtfolca helm”
(lines 15-17). The demonstratives þa and se draw attention to the physical components of the
book: gereno, telg, and wuldorgesteald. These are the subjects of the clause, who perform the
action and perpetuate the powers of the holy book; the physicality of the book is what enables
people to improve themselves and connect with others. Indeed, more than once the poem makes
reference to longevity of physical texts; wuldorgesteald, meaning literally “wonderful
dwellings,” refers to the binding of the text and recalls hleobordum, the protective boards that
shield the book from damage. It is specifically the physical form of the book that supports the
text’s transcendental powers.
18
Interestingly, the characteristics of riddles -- proposition and paradox -- are largely absent
from the second part of the poem. It may come across as initially paradoxical to describe the
apparently life-changing powers of a book, but these qualities are listed after the speaker tells the
solver that the book widely praises dryhtfolca helm. There is a slight proposition in the term, but
given the excess of similar terms in the body of Anglo-Saxon poetry it is not particularly difficult
to conclude that this term refers to God or Christ and therefore that the book in question is
religious. The following eleven lines, then, are there to add emphasis to the already established
power of the religious book. However, one last riddlic characteristic, prosopopoeia, makes an
appearance at the end of the riddle when the speaker, the book itself, prompts the solver to “frige
hwæt ic hatte” (26). After seeing the poem’s layers, its riddles within the riddle and the physical
yet spiritual duality of the book, simply finding the speaker’s name seems reductive. The
multiple riddles within the riddle complicate the idea of the riddle having a singular answer,
because there are so many objects that need decoding, just as there are so many objects that
contribute to the creation of a book. The riddle is not simply about arriving at a singular answer,
but about coming to understand what goes into creating a book and what can come out of a book
in turn.
Finally, the riddle more than once refers to ties of community and friendship that are
facilitated by religious texts. Again, the communal aspect of reading is emphasized in this poem.
The book described in the first part of the riddle is painstakingly constructed, decorative, and
therefore expensive; in short, it is inaccessible. Apparently, just one copy of it is necessary, as
the first part of the poem depicts specifically the making of one book. Thus, the poem depicts
writing as a support for the dissemination of religion (which is also the dissemination of cultural
knowledge). The book is important in the context of a textual community, as articulated by Brian
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Stock. In a textual community, one text can be “re-performed orally” to non-literate people so
that “interaction by word of mouth could take place as a superstructure of an agreed meaning”
and “members [are] free to discuss, to debate, or to disagree on other matters, to engage in
personal interpretations of the Bible or to some degree in individualized meditation and worship”
(92). The physical book is not the be-all and end-all of preserving and spreading Christianity,
just as it is not the be-all and end-all of spreading knowledge of any kind. The riddle emerges as
not simply religious in nature, but also as an exploration of the written word and its abilities. Its
abilities are at once emphasized and de-emphasized as the latter half of the poem reminds the
solver that community is also an important part of early medieval textual culture.
Riddle 60 deals with writing materials in a similar way to Riddle 26; however, Riddle 60
differs in that it focuses on one specific writing tool. Much like the Franks Casket and Riddle 26,
Riddle 60 opens with the background of the speaker’s past life. In prosopopoeic past tense, the
speaker tells us: “Ic wæs be sonde, sæwalle neah” (line 1). The speaker then continues with the
sea imagery: “merefaroþe” (line 2), and “lagufæþme” (line 7). The references to watery
embraces and surging waves tell the audience that the speaker is submerged in the sea. What is
more, the speaker refers to the water with possessive pronouns like “minne” (line 4). So, not only
is the speaker underwater, but it evidently lives there. The proposition of the riddle emerges in its
second half, when the speaker describes itself in human terms. The speaker describes how it
“sceolde / ofer meodubence muþleas sprecan” (lines 8-9). The meodubenc implies the distinctly
human behaviour of community and speech (and mead-drinking, for that matter). The mead
bench is a communal spot for people to come together, talk, and trade stories. What is more, the
speaker introduces the dual, first-person Old English pronouns: “unc” (line 15) and “uncre” (line
17). The speaker brings the human reader or listener into its world in order to form a partnership,
20
further enforcing its own place in human relationships. Yet again, speech is involved in this
relationship, since the speaker observes that “for unc anum twam ærendspræce / abeodan
beadlice” (lines 15-16). Together, the speaker and the audience will declare a message. The
paradox, of course, is the idea that something that dwells in the sea can be a part of human
communities and use human language. The riddle remains self-conscious of this paradox,
including continuous paradoxes like mouth-less speech and descriptions of the speaker being
carved to a point. The poem consistently demonstrates that this speaker cannot be human. Bitterli
and Williamson have identified the speaker of this riddle as a reed pen; a reed is harvested from
the water, cut to a point, and used as a writing tool. This solution has interesting implications for
Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards reading and writing.
With its speech motifs, Riddle 60 points to the intersection of speech and writing in AngloSaxon England. In a primarily oral culture where, for the most part, literacy meant literacy in
Latin, vernacular writing was more closely connected with speech. For the Anglo-Saxons, “oral
poetry can involve and interact with writing and reading – encompassing everything from live
verbal performance, to texts written for the page but composed in a traditional style” (Paz 18).
The existence and rising prominence of written language did not spell the end of the importance
of orality for Anglo-Saxons. In fact,
medieval English oral poetics survives the steady advancement of literate, textual
culture. . .because the oral and the literary do not occupy discrete and conflicting
cognitive spheres. Orality and literacy are parts of a subtle, complex, lengthy
process of cultural change. (Amodio 22)
For the Anglo-Saxons, the divide between orality and literacy was thin; written vernacular texts
were often composed or recited orally as the poet dictated his work to a scribe (24). Even after a
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text was written down it would continue to be recited orally. The intimate relationship between
orality and written text is depicted in Riddle 60 when the speaker describes the mouth-less reed
pen paradoxically having a conversation with a human. This conversation is metaphorically an
act of writing. Writing is configured as a conversation between people and inanimate materials,
wherein human speech becomes transformed into something physical. The riddle’s final line
directly invokes speech yet again as it refers to the message of uncre, the pen and the audience,
as wordcwidas – or word-sayings. The act of declaration, and the term wordcwidas, further
implicate the oral nature of reading and writing in the period. The ultimate point is that a
message should be sent to other people. In writing out a text the pen enters into a conversation
with the scribe, and together they create something that will enter into conversations with yet
more people through recitation.
While the surface level of Riddle 26 speaks to the connection between speech and writing,
the imagery of the poem leaves the audience with a particularly powerful depiction of written
language. The beginning half of the poem is populated with formless, watery imagery. The
merefaroþ is shifting and chaotic; the speaker takes no shape -- it loses itself to the water as it is
surrounded by the lagufæþm. However, in the second half, when it becomes apparent that the
poem is dealing with a pen, the speaker begins to take a more focused shape. The shapeless
water is contrasted with the “seaxes ord” (line 12), and by association the reed-pen takes shape
as it is carved into a point. The repetition of ord in line 13 emphasizes the new shape of the pen.
The pointed shape is associated with “þingum” (line 14) as the pen is put to proper use rather
than idling in the water. In Old English, þing had more specificity and significance than its
modern English counterpart thing. The word could mean “a cause, sake, account, reason”
(Bosworth-Toller n. sense I.9). In this case, when the reed takes shape into a pen, it becomes
22
used for a specific reason. Writing brings the pen to a higher purpose than it has on its own as a
water plant. The underwater image is also paired with an image of darkness in the provocative
term “uhtna” (line 6). Bosworth-Toller defines uhta as “the last part of the night, the time just
before daybreak” (n. sense I). The word suggests coming light; in the second half of the poem,
when the reed emerges from the water and becomes a pen, the light of dawn metaphorically
breaks through. This symbolizes the intellectual enlightenment that comes with writing.
Finally, the contrasting and sometimes contradictory images of solitude in Riddle 60
further point to the power of written language. When under water, the reed speaks of its solitude:
“fea ænig wæs / monna cynnes þæt minne þær / on anæde eard beholde” (lines 3-5). This then
contrasts with the social images of the second half of the poem. When submerged the reed has no
connection to mankind, but when made into a pen the reed partakes in conversation at the
meadbench with men. However, the dual pronoun contradicts the social images in the poem. The
concept of “you and I” still connotes exclusion, and “suggests that there is an intimate dialogue
going on between two people exchanging secret information” (Bitterli 139). While reading can
be a communal activity, writing is a private undertaking between the scribe and his pen.
Additionally, the poem ends with the striking sentiment “swa hit beorna ma / uncre wordcwidas
widdor ne mænden” (lines 16-17). Exclusion is again signaled here; while communities may
circulate texts orally, no one can match the power of the scribe and the pen when it comes to
circulating texts. The riddle boldly claims that the written text is the most durable form of text in
saying that written texts can reach farther than spoken ones. In Riddle 60, written language is
something that can bring purpose, enlightenment, and longevity. The poem is an exceedingly
optimistic estimate of the potential rewards of written language.
23
Riddle 47 deals with similar ideas to Riddles 26 and 60, but in a much less straightforward
way. This riddle, unlike 26 and 60, does not employ prosopopoeia; it is not alone in this amongst
the Exeter Book Riddles, but the lack of a speaking object does complicate arriving at a solution.
The common solution to Riddle 47 is “book-worm” or “book-moth,” but there are a few
problems with this. First of all, *bocwyrm or *bocmoþþe are not attested words in Old English
(Jacobs 291). Second, if the solution is indeed “book-worm,” then the riddle gives itself away in
its opening line: “moððe word fræt” (line 1). If the riddle really gives its solution away this
easily, then Riddle 47 is arguably not a riddle at all, but is rather a descriptive poem about a
book-worm. To further understand why this riddle is so unusual, it is pertinent to look at its Latin
source, Tinea, from Symphosius’s Enigmata:
Littera me pavit, nec quid sit littera novi.
In libris vixi, nec sum studiosior inde.
Exedi Musas, nec adhuc tamen ipsa profeci. (Williamson 285)
This brief riddle is structured in a simple way: the proposition here is that the worm is described
like an irresponsible student who reads books but does not properly pay attention to them and
absorb their knowledge. This is also the riddle’s paradox; it asks the solver to consider how it
could be possible for someone to live in books and consume words without being any wiser
afterwards. The solver then needs to figure out that book-worms can indeed consume a text in
the most literal sense and thus not learn anything. The Old English version expands upon the
riddle and makes it more complicated by mentioning book-worms outright; there cannot be a
paradox and proposition if the speaker tells the solver explicitly that an insect is doing the
consumption.
24
Other scholars have, of course, written on the non-riddlic characteristics of Riddle 47.
Williamson, in the notes and commentary for his edition of the Exeter Book Riddles, remarks:
“the Old English riddler is less concerned with the cuteness of the paradox of the illiterate worm
than he is with the mutability of songs as they pass from the traditional wordhord of the scop
into the newer and strangely susceptible form of literate memoria” (285). The focus of the riddle
is not necessarily on the book-worm itself, but on the act of consuming a written text and its
potential implications. Both Williamson and Peter Orton point out that the crux of the riddle is its
use of words that refer to spoken language, namely in the use of the word word itself:
“elsewhere in Old English, word invariably denotes spoken utterances” (Orton 168). Williamson
points out that in the Oxford English Dictionary the first attested usage of word referring to
written words is listed as Riddle 47; the next listed usage is not until Chaucer (“word” n. sense
III.d). Martin Foys also suggests that “Old English speech and writing possess a slight enough
semantic overlap to make word an apt element for the riddle’s proposition” (106). In a primarily
oral culture, the Anglo-Saxon solver would have been misdirected because spoken language
would have been more readily at the forefront of their mind. Williamson and Orton point out the
misleading references to spoken language in order to save Riddle 47’s reputation as a riddle,
which has “been misinterpreted as a non-riddle by modern readers because they have assumed
that word is being used in the (modern) sense” (Orton 168). According to them, the trick of the
riddle is that the solver must figure out that the speaker is describing written words in order to
arrive at the conclusion of “book-worm.”
However, Foys and Nicolas Jacobs go a step further and suggest that written language
itself must be the solution. Altogether, there is compelling evidence for examining the claim that
the riddle is about writing. The lack of prosopopoeia makes the riddle more ambiguous. Since
25
the speaker never asks the solver to name it, the solver must determine which element of the
third-party speaker’s observation is the subject of the riddle. As Jacobs argues, the solution is
actually written language because “the point of the riddle is not what form a moth must take in
order to devour a book, but what form words must take in order to be devoured by a moth or a
worm” (291). Since the proposition of the riddle lies in its references to spoken language, then
written language must be the solution. Beyond the word word itself, the poem includes
references to spoken language in the term cwide and the extended reference to a gied. While the
speaker mentions a moþþe and a wyrm outright, the idea of written language remains shrouded in
metaphor. Since the point of a riddle is to mislead the solver, then this use of misleading
terminology surrounding written language suggests, according to Foys and Jacobs, that written
language itself is the riddle’s solution.
However, there are some problems that arise with this solution. First, it is somewhat
problematic to suggest that the answer is “writing” based on the misdirection of the word word;
if an Anglo-Saxon solver were not familiar with word being used in the sense of the written
word, they may not have been able to solve the riddle. Second, the solution to any Exeter Book
Riddle must be an attested word in Old English. The word for writing in its verb sense, writan, in
Old English could refer to drawing, incising, or generally making a marking of any kind (Howe
61). Bosworth-Toller does not list a possible noun-sense for the word writan, and riddle
solutions are typically a noun or short noun-phrase. Additionally, Foys and Jacobs specifically
use the noun-sense of “writing” as the solution to Riddle 47. “Run-stæf” could refer specifically
to written runes (Bosworth-Toller “run-stæf n. sense I), but since, so far as is precisely known,
runic was a rare and specialized writing system in Old English it is unlikely that the devouring of
a general written text would be intended to refer specifically to runic writing. Thus, there is no
26
satisfactory Old English word referring to written language that solves Riddle 47. Although I
contend with Foys and Jacobs on the solution to Riddle 47, its focus on, and attitude towards,
written language are key parts of unlocking its meaning and require an extended discussion here.
If the poem is about written words, then its imagery, contrary to Riddles 26 and 60,
foregrounds the vulnerabilities of the written word. Several different kinds of relationships with
words appear in this riddle. The poem depicts a moth eating words, but also depicts a “wera gied
sumes” (line 3), a “þeof in þystro” (line 4), a “stælgiest” (line 5), and someone (or something)
who consumes words but is not “wihte þy gleawra” (line 6). The words are not only eaten by an
insect, they are sung, stolen, and unsuccessfully studied. The scop’s song is “þrymfæst” (line 4)
and has a “strangan staþol” (line 5). Fred C. Robinson argues that “the entire phrase thaes
strangan stathol. . .refer[s] on one level to the intellectual content of the mighty utterance. At
another level, of course, it refers to the page on which the mighty utterance stands written” (357).
However, since the destruction of the written word is depicted in this poem, it would arguably
make more sense to read the strangan staþol as exclusively referring to the spoken word. The
sturdy imagery of the song and its foundation then contrasts the poem’s other images of written
words being stolen and eaten. This contrast is further heightened through the image of the
irresponsible student that is borrowed from the Latin version of the poem. The strangan staþol of
the gied is memory; in an oral society, a poet must fully memorize their material in order to
perform it aloud in front of an audience. A trained memory was a required professional skill for
an oral poet. This kind of specialized memory also constitutes a kind of study. In order for an
oral text to be completely memorized, it must be deeply ruminated on and mentally processed
(Carruthers 206).
27
The contrast between the strangan staþol of the gied and the other imagery in the poem
could be read as a contrast between written and spoken language. First, the images of the moth
consuming the text show the unique vulnerabilities of written texts. An oral text is an ephemeral
thing that is circulated from person to person using specialized professional skills. On the other
hand, a written text is a physical thing made of materials that can be destroyed by something as
small as an insect. In this way, an oral text can seem more dependable and less susceptible to
physical destruction than a written text. The written text’s power is diminished not only by its
physical body, but also by its liability to be misunderstood. Someone simply reading a written
text may feel that the text will always be available for reference, and therefore that they have no
need to commit it to memory. This also means that the text may not be studied as closely or
meditated upon, since the reader simply may not feel the need. Thus, in the image of the
irresponsible student, contrasted with the strong foundations of the scop’s song, Riddle 47
explores the possible consequences of a complete reliance on writing. Written texts are
vulnerable not only because of their physical limitations but also because of their potential to be
forgotten and misinterpreted due to carelessness and lack of deep reflection. This has serious
cultural implications; if a text is not memorized and the document is destroyed (for example, by
an insect), then the text and its intellectual value will be lost forever.
The image of the irresponsible student acts as an ironic reversal of the images of
consumption. A common device for medieval writers was “the use of alimentary and digestive
metaphors to explain the means by which what one reads was stored in the memory and
transmuted into what one writes” (Scattergood 120). In order for knowledge to be extracted from
a text, “reading is to be digested, to be ruminated, like a cow chewing her cud, or like a bee
making honey from the nectar of flowers” (Carruthers 205). The process of memorization
28
likewise can be configured as an act of consumption and digestion. Similar images can be seen in
extant Old English literature, most famously in Bede’s description of Caedmon chewing on
ideas, like a cow chews her cud, before beginning his poetic composition. Robinson points out
that the riddle can be interpreted as a series of puns on eating: “swealg” (line 6), meaning
“swallow,” was commonly used to refer to taking an idea into consideration, and “cwide” (line
4) could also be a subtle pun on cwidu, which meant “to chew” (357-8). Robinson argues that the
book-worm, via pun, is referred to in terms of “a man seeking wisdom” (359). As shown in the
concluding image of the irresponsible student, in which the book-worm is no wiser from
consuming the text, the consumption has been ineffective. The eating of the text results in its
destruction rather than its internalization.
Boyrslawski, in reaction to Robinson (although Robinson never claims to propose a new
solution to Riddle 47), declares that “it has been proved by Fred C. Robinson, [that Riddle 47 is]
wrongly solved as ‘book-moth.’” (44; emphasis mine). Boyrslawski offers an interesting
perspective on the solution to Riddle 47: “the riddle could and should therefore be solved as
referring to the process of understanding wisdom, or rather the failure within the process”
(Boyrslawski 44). While Foys and Jacobs are correct to argue that writing plays a large role in
the riddle, the riddle also concerns the process of reading. Additionally, Riddle 47 specifically
explores the effects of writing on the process of reading. This leaves one final matter – the
solution must be precise and attested in Old English; Riddle 47 is about unræd,2 meaning “evil
counsel, ill-advised course, bad plan, or folly” (Bosworth-Toller “unræd” n. sense I). Riddle 47
demonstrates un-reading, or reading improperly, and the consequences of doing so. The moth,
Dr. Yin Liu first proposed this solution during the author’s seminar on Riddle 47, as part
of English 803, on February 7, 2023, at the University of Saskatchewan.
2
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the thief, and the irresponsible student un-read the text and therefore destroy, steal, or do not
learn from it.
The image of the thief is curiously disconnected from the rest of the images that explicitly
or implicitly deal with acts of reading and writing. The “þeof in þystro” (line 4) is another name
for the moþþe, but the implications are quite different since “the notion of theft is not very
appropriate to a worm who takes nothing away, simply eating what he finds where he finds it”
(Russom 133). The actions of the thief are intentional, whereas the worm is simply an animal
that needs to eat to survive. Additionally, a book-worm destroys where a thief simply takes; the
image of the thief cannot fully correspond to the book-worm and must therefore demonstrate
something other than the specific physical vulnerabilities of written texts. Scattergood argues
that “if reading remains inert and unchanged it is not one’s own. If it remains unaltered in the
memory it still belongs to someone else, and to use it unaltered is what in the Middle Ages
would have constituted their version of plagiarism” (Scattergood 127). However, for a primarily
oral culture that told, memorized, and retold stories freely, and just as freely recopied manuscript
texts, there was no concept of plagiarism; any real legal conception of intellectual property did
not come about in England until centuries later. Russom argues that, because the thief imagery
morphs into the book-worm imagery and makes the riddle instead depict the general
disappearance of what was once present, “the real answer [is] ‘mutability’” (134). This is a
compelling reading, since the poem does seem to lament the decay or loss of something;
however, it absolves the book-worm or the thief of their agency and influence in the matter.
The image of the thief can explain why the consumption images are reversed from their
medieval norm and instead demonstrate a lack of proper learning. A thief is concerned only with
material things; a thief is greedy and takes only for their own profit. The thief image transforms
30
the eating imagery in the poem from depicting mindful rumination to depicting mindless
consumption. The key is mindlessness; the book-worm devours but it never digests. The bookworm riddle thus goes beyond being a commentary on the physical vulnerabilities of texts and
also comments on a kind of metaphorical damage that unræd can bring to a text. Instead of the
physical page being destroyed, the intellectual contents of the text are destroyed as the bookworm mindlessly swallows them without rumination. The mindlessness of the thief also parallels
the image of the irresponsible student; again, they each do not properly pay attention to the
contents of a text -- the student because he did not read closely enough, and the thief because he
presumably did not read the text at all. These two images, the irresponsible student and the thief,
demonstrate unræd as they depict the potential misinterpretation of texts. The book-worm, thief,
and irresponsible student all layer on top of each other as three separate references to the act of
not properly paying attention to a text. The worm greedily devours the page, just as the thief
greedily takes for himself with no regard for the real intellectual contents of the text, just as the
student does not absorb any information. The focus is the improper reading practices of each of
these three symbols. Where Tinea uses three separate propositions to lead the solver away from
the book-worm, Riddle 47 uses three separate propositions to lead the solver away from the
hidden thread of unræd that connects them all.
The image of the thief highlights Riddle 47’s implicit connections to Riddles 26 and 60.
The reference to the thief could possibly point to a connection with the medieval culture of
illuminated manuscripts. After all, a thief would normally steal gold, not unlike the decoration
that was attached to the covers of the manuscript created in Riddle 26. Perhaps the thief image
urges readers to be aware of the intellectual contents of books and consider their messages
carefully rather than be distracted by their material value and decorative exterior. Additionally,
31
like the reed at the beginning of Riddle 60, the thief is in darkness. However, þystro is more
absolute than uhta – there is no coming sun of intellectual enlightenment signaled here. As
Robinson points out, “the phrase becomes paradoxical because the words cannot be read ‘in the
dark’” (358). The darkness marks the inability to read correctly; the thief operates in ignorance
and the result is unræd. Riddle 47 presents a twist on the powerful depiction of written language
that is presented in the other Exeter Book Riddles concerned with writing.
While some of the imagery of Riddle 47 points directly at written language, the riddle’s
message goes beyond any one form of language. The riddle concerns itself with anxieties about
the loss of, or misunderstanding of, traditions due to unræd. And, since rædan did not
exclusively refer to reading written language, the riddle suggests that unræd can come either
from oral or written language. While the bookworm and the irresponsible student seem to relate
directly to written language, the image of the thief is more flexible. Firstly, the thief image
comes right after the riddle mentions a gied, giving the impression that spoken words specifically
are being stolen. Additionally, “oral habits of mind not only persist within increasingly literate
societies but retain much of their cultural centrality” (Amodio 22). Thus, for an Anglo-Saxon
riddler the idea of literacy replacing orality was not likely to be a concern. Unræd does not
discriminate between written and spoken language – it poses troubling implications for both.
Without proper study and rumination, a person can warp the intended meaning of a text. In an
oral culture, where memorization and recitation were specialized skills, this warping would
affect not only the individual but also the community. As Stock says, “what was essential to a
textual community was not a written version of the text, although that was sometimes present,
but an individual who, having mastered it, then utilized it for reforming a group’s thought and
action.” (90). An individual tasked with public oral performance could potentially damage the
32
entire community by not memorizing a text, and therefore not reciting it correctly. Because the
riddle includes images of worms and moths that destroy written text, there is an undertone of
commentary on the written word. However, literate people, like oral poets or storytellers, were
also tasked with providing ræd, or counsel and interpretation, to the rest of the community.
Again, if a literate person was not properly paying attention to the text they read, they could hurt
the community. Where Riddle 60 enthusiastically advocates for the preservative power of written
language, Riddle 47 reminds its audience that written language is also vulnerable. The riddle
cautions against a reliance on written texts, but not necessarily against written texts themselves.
The real focus of Riddle 47 is on unreliable reading practices. If either the oral storyteller or the
literate person in the community are not properly paying attention to a text, then they spread their
unræd to the community. Texts contain culturally important information; without proper careful
reading and interpretation practices, the entire community could end up poorly educated and
misguided. Where the Franks Casket and Riddle 26 concern themselves with the past lives of
texts, Riddle 47 worries about their future.
While the Franks Casket and Riddles 26 and 60 show that the creation of writing could be
awe-inspiring, Riddle 47 reins in the power of written texts by presenting their possible pitfalls.
The Franks Casket and Riddles 26 and 60 demonstrate the vitality of the written word by
drawing attention to its physicality. The life forces that are necessary for the production of
writing lend writing power. Riddle 26 and 60 also illustrate the possible longevity of written
texts that can circulate, spread important messages, and improve people’s lives. In Riddle 60
specifically, the speaker states that writing can spread messages more widely than oral
circulation. Riddle 47 undercuts the power and potential of writing by emphasizing its physical
weakness and its potential to be forgotten. These four riddles also emphasize that writing and
33
speech are interconnected. At every turn, each riddle demonstrate that spoken and written
language must go together, by either using words that directly refer to spoken language or
implying that communal oral performance is an important part of spreading and interpreting
texts. The oral tradition remains, despite each riddle’s focus on written texts, an essential part of
Anglo-Saxon culture. Riddle 47, then, when it reminds its audience that written language can be
vulnerable, does not forget that spoken language can be just as vulnerable. These four riddles
demonstrate that, while writing can be important, reading is just as important, and that reading
essentially comes with rumination, interpretation, and careful understanding. To read without
these things is unræd, which then leaves people vulnerable to misunderstanding and the
subsequent loss of their cultural identity. The Franks Casket, Riddle 26, and Riddle 47 show
excitement and trepidation in the face of cultural changes that come along with increased
literacy. While writing can be a powerful tool that brings enlightenment and preservation, the
Anglo-Saxon riddle solver must not get carried away with its power and must remember to pay
careful attention to any text, oral or written.
34
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