[Critical editions: Wyatt, Tupper, and Trautmann. Wyatt (Boston, 1912,
Belles Lettres edition) used as a basis for these translations. His
numbering is always one lower than the other editions, since he rejects
one riddle.
Date: Probably eighth century for most of them.
For translations of other riddles than those here given see Brooke,
_English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest_, Pancoast
and Spaeth, _Early English Poems_, and Cook and Tinker, _Selections from
Old English Poetry_.
There is no proof as to the authorship. There were probably one hundred
of them in the original collection though only about ninety are left.
Many of them are translations from the Latin. Some are true folk-riddles
and some are learned.
In the riddles we find particulars of Anglo-Saxon life that we cannot
find elsewhere. The _Cambridge History of English Literature_ sums their
effect up in the following sentence: "Furthermore, the author or authors
of the Old English riddles borrow themes from native folk-songs and saga;
in their hands inanimate objects become endowed with life and
personality; the powers of nature become objects of worship such as they
were in olden times; they describe the scenery of their own country, the
fen, the river, and the sea, the horror of the untrodden forest, sun and
moon engaged in perpetual pursuit of each other, the nightingale and the
swan, the plow guided by the 'gray-haired enemy of the wood,' the bull
breaking up clods left unturned by the plow, the falcon, the
arm-companion of aethelings--scenes, events, characters familiar in the
England of that day."]