Arts & Sciences
Riddle XXIV. A Jay
Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Everyman’s Library, 1926) · From Exeter Book Riddles (selection)
I am a wondrous creature, I vary my voice; sometimes I bark like a dog; sometimes I bleat like a goat; sometimes I cry like a goose; sometimes I scream like a hawk; sometimes I mimic the grey eagle, the laugh of the war-bird; sometimes with a kite's voice I speak with my mouth; sometimes the song of the gull where I sit in my gladness. They call me G, also A and R; O gives aid and H and I. Now I am named as these six letters clearly signify.
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 XXIV. A Jay.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/39/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle XXIV. A Jay.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/39/.
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