Arts & Sciences
Riddle IX. A Cuckoo
Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Everyman’s Library, 1926) · From Exeter Book Riddles (selection)
Father and mother gave me up dead in these days, nor was life or stir yet within me. Then one, a kinswoman very gracious, began to cover me with garments, held and guarded me, covered me as honourably with a protecting robe as her own child, till beneath her bosom, as my destiny was, I became mighty in spirit among those who were no kin of mine. The beautiful kinswoman afterwards fed me, till I grew up, could set out more widely on journeys; she had the fewer of her own dear sons and daughters by what she did thus.
This translation is printed as prose in its source edition.
Codex Note
One of roughly ninety riddles preserved in the Exeter Book; this is one of a further selection translated by R. K. Gordon. The manuscript gives no solutions — the title here follows the translator's own guess (numbering follows Tupper's edition, converted to this archive's Wyatt-based numbering).
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle IX. A Cuckoo.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/36/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle IX. A Cuckoo.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/36/.
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