nineveh_uk: Illustration that looks like Harriet Vane (Default)
nineveh_uk ([personal profile] nineveh_uk) wrote2011-09-26 07:12 pm
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It's a sword, honest

I was reading some Anglo-Saxon poetry the other day, reminded of its existence by a friend complaining about teaching The Dream of the Rood. I rather like The Dream, which is basically HC Andersen’s The Fir Tree, but with added religion.

Anyway, I found myself in the riddles section, reflecting on the noble tradition of knob jokes in English literature, so in the interest of keeping literary tradition alive, I give you a modern version. I can’t compose in Old English, so this one is in the style of Anglo-Saxon translators.

Long and hard I lie by the leg of a man. Sometimes that hairy young man takes me from my hiding place to hold me in his hand. He fiddles me with his fingers. He would not be without me – I give him great joy!



A mobile phone. What else could it be, you filthy fanperson, you!

Question – what the hell is the dark-haired Welsh girl doing in the clean interpretation of Riddle XII? As she’s a slave, I am wondering something like a leather a bucket used in cleaning, but really I’m baffled.

And because once you start, you can't stop...

I tell you of a wondrous thing. A young woman drew me from beneath the covering cloth, took my round length firmly in her hand. That jolly girl inserted me into that hole I was made to fit, plunged and twisted me firmly in my place. I set up a great roaring! She was transported with delight.

A: A car key.
quillori: a remarkably phallic illustration of a mushroom (theme: fanfic (subtext mushroom))

[personal profile] quillori 2011-09-26 09:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Your modern version is a delight.

As to Riddle XXII, I had a vague memory of some sort of leather curing process? A quick google provides this, starting a bit down the page with "instigated an investigation into Anglo-Saxon leather-working technology" and stopping when he starts going on about Freud (unless you like that sort of thing, obviously). But this is very, very much Not My Period, and any vague knowledge I have about it comes only from a fondness for riddles, so I have no idea at all how reliable or accurate either Wilcox or his interpretion is.
ellen_fremedon: overlapping pages from Beowulf manuscript, one with a large rubric, on a maroon ground (Default)

[personal profile] ellen_fremedon 2011-09-26 10:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Wilcox was my OE professor in undergrad! I would say he's extremely reliable, especially on the riddles.
quillori: figure with her hands together in gratitude or prayer (mood: thank you)

[personal profile] quillori 2011-09-26 10:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I'm so pleased to have that confirmed. The problem with wandering around randomly picking up bits of subjects in which one has absolutely no formal training whatsoever is that it's damnably hard to be quite sure where one is being led true and where one has stumbled on something superficially convincing but ultimately worthless, or now superseded.