Arts & Sciences
Riddle LXXX. A Weathercock
Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Everyman’s Library, 1926) · From Exeter Book Riddles (selection)
I am puff-breasted, swollen-necked, I have a head and lofty tail, eyes and ears and one foot, a back and hard beak, a high neck and two sides, a rod in the middle, a dwelling above men. I endure misery when he who stirs the forest moves me and torrents beat upon me in my station, the hard hail and rime; and frost comes down and snow falls on me, pierced through the stomach, and I . . .
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). ASPR 81.
Cite this poem
MLA
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle LXXX. A Weathercock.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/48/.
Chicago
Anonymous (Old English). “Riddle LXXX. A Weathercock.” Translated by R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/anonymous-old-english/48/.
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