A Crossing of Old and New: Riddle 55 of the Exeter Book Essay -- Riddl

A Crossing of Old and New: Riddle 55 of the Exeter Book I saw in the hall, where heroes drank, carried onto the floor a wondrous woodtree of four kinds and wound gold, cunningly fastened treasure, and part of silver 5 and the sign of the cross, which He raised the ladder for us to heaven before He stormed the city of the inhabitants of hell. I can easily tell before noblemen the origin of this tree: there was maple and oak and the hard yew 10 and the dark holly: All together [they] were useful to the L(l)ord; All have one name, gallows; that often warded off (received) a weapon for its liege lord, a treasure in the hall, a gold-hilted sword. Now show me the answer 15 of this song, he who presumes to say in words how the wood is called. Most of the riddles contained in the Exeter Book have been answered to the satisfaction of the majority Anglo-Saxon scholars. One that continues to elude a definitive answer, however, is Riddle 55. Several solutions have been suggested, but only three have received critical consideration. Dietrich first offered the solution as scabbard, explaining, "The scabbard is richly decorated and divided into quarters by a cross, probably each quarter was made of a different wood" (qtd. in Taylor 497). Craig Williamson refutes this answer by pointing out that Anglo-Saxon shields were lined with leather or fleece and sometimes covered with cloth. In addition, "the structural weakness of such a hybrid should be obvious" (Williamson 307). Another solution, suggested by Leibermann, is sword rack, to which Williamson remarks, "there is no evidence in Old English or in Anglo-Saxon archaeology for the existence of an early English sword rack. There i... ...old as Christ’s deputy to their thanes. In any case, Riddle 55 deserves all the attention it has received from scholars. Works Cited Chaney, William A. The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity. Berkeley; U of California P, 1970. Chickering, Howell D., Jr., ed., trans. Beowulf. New York: Anchor Books, 1977. Crossley-Holland, Kevin, ed., trans. The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. Mitchell, Bruce, and Fred C Bruce, eds. A Guide to Old English. 5th ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Taylor, Keith P. "Mazers, Mead, and the Wolf’s-head tree: A Reconsideration of Old English Riddle 55." Journal of English and Germanic Philology 94.4 (1995): 497-512. Williamson, Craig, ed. The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1977.