Exeter Book Riddle 45
Exeter Book Riddle 45 is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its solution is accepted to be 'dough'. However, the description evokes a penis becoming erect; as such, Riddle 45 is noted as one of a small group of Old English riddles that engage in sexual double entendre, and thus provides rare evidence for Anglo-Saxon attitudes to sexuality, and specifically for women taking the initiative in heterosexual sex.Text and translation
As edited by Krapp and Dobbie, the riddle reads:Editions
- Krapp, George Philip and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, The Exeter Book, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 3, p. 205, https://web.archive.org/web/20181206091232/http://ota.ox.ac.uk/desc/3009.
- Williamson, Craig, The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book, pp. 96-97 .
- Muir, Bernard J., The Exeter Anthology of Old English Poetry: An Edition of Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501, 2nd edn, 2 vols.
Recordings
- Michael D. C. Drout, '', performed from the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records edition.
