I’ve been chatting to Oxford College’s Dr Eleanor Parker, the celebrated specialist within the literature of medieval England and Scandinavia, concerning the surprise inside Anglo-Saxon riddles, and the way they will help us to be a bit extra aware of what’s round us.
In the event you’re lower than velocity with Anglo-Saxon riddles, right here’s one to whet your urge for food:
There was a surprise on a wave: water turned to bone.
That’s it. One line. Most of them are a bit longer than that. You’re little question sagacious types and have instantly clocked what the surprise being gnomically described right here is, however for these on the again, it’s ice (most likely – teachers nonetheless debate this). Water turned to bone is ice.
Ice, as Parker informed me, will not be inherently a factor of surprise, however the riddle calls for that you simply consider its wondrous capability. It asks you to contemplate the sudden transformation of liquid into stable, and never simply any stable, however one thing skeletal. It’s a easy however highly effective imaginative and prescient, and it forces the reader to assume reasonably extra deeply than they may in any other case do about what on the face of it’s a pretty peculiar topic. That’s the sample of those riddles.
“The Outdated English riddles are principally contained inside only one manuscript, the Exeter E book, one of the valuable collections of Outdated English poetry, which is from the tenth century. It has a group of just about 100 riddles, so fairly a considerable quantity,” says Parker. “These are actually fascinating brief poems. They take some facet of peculiar life – it is likely to be an animal, it is likely to be a fowl, or it is likely to be some objects that individuals would encounter in Anglo-Saxon society – and so they current it in some type of cryptic means. So you need to decode the clues that you simply’re being given to work out what’s being described.”
If this all sounds a bit acquainted, however you’re not a scholar of Outdated English, you might need come throughout one thing suspiciously related within the works of JRR Tolkien. The creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was additionally an Anglo-Saxonist, who drew on his tutorial data for his fantasy tales. The riddle battle between Gollum and Bilbo Baggins in a deep darkish gap within the floor clearly echoes this canon (you may learn extra about his life and the making of Middle Earth here).
Again to the supply
That is the poetry of the Anglo-Saxon interval. The Exeter E book dates to the late tenth century, although the riddling custom goes again a number of centuries earlier than that, with riddles in Latin in addition to Outdated English. The Exeter E book accommodates many of the riddles we all know from the interval. In actual fact, nearly all surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry is present in simply 4 priceless manuscripts, and it’s one in every of them. So if we need to know find out how to riddle like an Anglo-Saxon, the Exeter E book is the place to go. We’re fortunate to nonetheless have it – although it’s been in Exeter Cathedral for a thousand years and extra, it hasn’t all the time been dealt with with the utmost care, because the burn and cup marks on it attest.
To learn these riddles is to see how the Anglo-Saxons noticed their world. Extra exactly, it’s to see how discovered monks noticed the world. As Parker explains, although there’s numerous scholarly debate about this, “what we learn about riddles is that they are usually a discovered style, for educated audiences within the early medieval interval. So more than likely the meant viewers of those poems are monks inside the monastery of someplace like the place the Exeter E book was made.”
If the riddles on this e-book had been for an elevated viewers, and even perhaps for educational functions for college students studying find out how to learn and write poetry themselves, that doesn’t imply the riddling psyche wasn’t widespread in society. All through Outdated English poetry, there’s a lot use made from metaphors, or mini-riddles contained in only a phrase or two – calling the ocean the ‘Whale Street’ as an illustration. So it appears cheap to conclude that the Anglo-Saxons preferred to view and characterise their world by means of this riddling prism.
An exquisite world
So what are we to make from this? How does this assist us right this moment? For Parker, it’s helpful in reminding us to cease and take discover of what’s round us, to not take issues with no consideration, and notably to search out the surprise within the on a regular basis. The riddles speak of rakes and buckets, flutes and cups, however they make investments them with much more life than you may assume potential.
”Surprise is a phrase that comes up on a regular basis within the riddles. It is principally the identical phrase as ours [in Old English, it’s wundor]. Every kind of issues within the riddles are described as a surprise, even issues that you simply wouldn’t assume could be particularly fantastic, so that they’re making an attempt to get you to consider the way you may connect it to fairly peculiar issues that aren’t inherently wondrous. We’re not speaking about miracles or magic or dragons or any of the thrilling stuff you may discover elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon literature. Right here surprise could be very a lot being connected to pure issues or on a regular basis objects. ‘What’s surprise?’ is likely one of the questions that the poems are possibly asking us to consider.”
In different phrases, in the event you put your self within the riddling mindset, you’re required to look extra deeply on the objects that you simply encompass your self with, and the pure world that surrounds you. In the event you’re considering riddlingly (that will not be a phrase, I do know), you’re taking a a lot nearer curiosity within the stuff of life. If we need to sluggish the tempo, be a bit extra aware, clear the background noise of the twenty first century, that’s fairly a useful method.
“For me personally, I discover it actually useful in being extra aware, extra attentive to my use of expertise and the methods wherein it is likely to be distracting me from the world round me and from this type of consideration that we have been speaking about,” observes Parker. “If we now have just a few empty minutes, the very first thing all of us do – I completely embody myself on this – is attain for our telephones. We let the telephone swallow our consideration. Clearly there could possibly be numerous benefits in that – I’m not saying we need to do with out that type of expertise – nevertheless it isn’t essentially all the time a great factor to your peace of thoughts, to your psychological well being, for the flexibility to focus on issues which can be vital. I positively really feel that in myself. I attempt to do not forget that I’ve a selection in that scenario, possibly not to have a look at the telephone, however to have a look at what’s in entrance of me and to see it like an Anglo-Saxon would have seen it.”
WATCH | Dr Eleanor Parker on discovering the surprise within the on a regular basis
Shedding your telephone
Anglo-Saxons, in fact, didn’t have the jealously addictive attract of the smartphone to cope with (although the dear pulling energy that Tolkien invested within the magic rings in his fantasy tales maybe predicted the place we’re at right this moment), so possibly it requires a bit extra work for us to look merely at what’s in entrance of us when there are such a lot of distractions.
Whereas I used to be strolling my canine the opposite day, I made the trouble. I put the telephone away and composed a riddle a few park bench. I had by no means paused to contemplate this bench earlier than, and it was a calming expertise, although the canine was irritated at my meditative dawdling. Sadly, it’s an terrible riddle, drafted with the pulling strain of a vigorous labrador – it’s dog-driven doggerel if you’ll – although that’s no excuse for its lack of high quality.
I’m rooted to the spot
However I’ll by no means develop tall
I’ll take your weight
However I can’t carry you far
I’m a good friend to the homeless
And a house to strangers and lovers
It’s honest to say that I received’t be successful any riddling awards, and I very a lot doubt the monks of the monastery the place the Exeter E book was composed could be remotely impressed with the conceptual simplicity of my effort. However, I did discover it therapeutic. I wasn’t scroll-walking on my telephone or listening to a podcast as I trundled alongside behind the canine. I used to be making an attempt to look at that very mundane bench in a means I’d by no means achieved earlier than. Momentarily, I obtained a little bit bit nearer to the Anglo-Saxon artwork of surprise and shut statement.
“The riddles recommend the Anglo-Saxons had been very attentive to the world round them, that they actually seen issues. They noticed that lots of issues that we’d take with no consideration had been truly vital and will produce that means, from a non secular perspective, or by way of fascinated by society,” says Parker.
“One factor that actually comes throughout within the riddles is their curiosity in craft and craftsmanship, and the way vital it was to know the place issues have come from. In the event you’re utilizing objects within the early medieval interval, they’ve usually been constituted of natural supplies – of wooden or feathers or leather-based. The craft that human beings exert to show these supplies into instruments or devices or adornments for on a regular basis life – that’s one thing that you simply discover an curiosity in throughout Anglo-Saxon tradition.
“That sense that every particular person might need their craft, they may excellent it, they may be taught from it, they may turn out to be smart by means of the train of it, I feel that’s one thing that’s actually attention-grabbing within the riddles.”
Clearly there’s a comparability with that admiration of craft within the Outdated English poetry versus the throwaway method that may be a characteristic of day by day life right this moment, and I concern it’s not in our favour. I typically have little concept of the provenance of the issues that I enable into my residence, or the processes or people who went into making them. I purchase and discard with out a lot deliberation, and I do know I’m not alone on this. Possibly if I riddled a bit extra concerning the issues that I personal, I’d have a much less informal method to what I simply collect and simply as simply jettison. Higher for my pockets, higher for my sense of surprise on the planet, and higher for the world besides. I’m pleased to purchase into that.
It’s not simply objects and craft that the Anglo-Saxons had a eager eye for. They had been fascinated by the pure phenomena, fauna and flora that they got here into contact with too. There are riddles about storm and sea, barnacle geese, cuckoos, badgers and foxes. The way in which they deal with these matters within the riddles reveals a sympathy with, and deep understanding of, their pure world. This was clearly a supply of each surprise and knowledge for them.
The Riddle Ages
It’s price a couple of minutes of anybody’s time to learn a few of these Outdated English riddles. There’s an incredible web site referred to as The Riddle Ages, the place you may learn the originals and translations, plus get the reply and a commentary on what it’s all about.
Parker is a specific fanatic for the riddle of the inkhorn, which follows the journey of a stag’s antler from wandering the forests, to being shed by its authentic proprietor, being gathered by human arms, and being made into an inkhorn (a author’s pot for ink). She enjoys the way in which the inkhorn is made to recollect its previous life within the riddle, and the highly effective emotional attachment that the article is imbued with.
I like that one too, however for me, I’m taken with an altogether racier instance. I’ll quote the primary few traces, from The Riddle Ages’ translation:
A wondrous factor hangs by a person’s thigh,
below its lord’s clothes. In entrance there’s a gap.
It stands stiff and laborious. It has a great residence.
It goes on in related vein, and I think about a few of you is likely to be considering it’s a fairly apparent depiction of a phallus. If that’s the case, maybe you’re being misled by your baser instincts. Students who’ve seemed laborious at this riddle have concluded that it may additionally be describing a key and lock, or the scabbard of a dagger. Provided that I’ve not too long ago ignited a minor media storm over the identification of an odd dangling appendage below the tunic of a determine within the Bayeux Tapestry, which too has been argued to be both a penis or a scabbard, I really feel an odd affinity with the nameless monastic riddler from the tenth century.
Anyway, what’s the sensible software of the lesson right here? I suppose it’s to try these riddles, benefit from the ability and artistry inside them, and take inspiration from them to have a go your self. In the event you’re trying to put your self in a extra aware place, discover a deeper appreciation of what’s going on round you, and maybe get a little bit respite from the deluge of distraction that fashionable expertise supplies, then a little bit little bit of Outdated English riddling is likely to be simply the trick.
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