Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/14

14 (K-D 30)

I am an active flame;    I sport with the wind,
enwound with wonder,    enwrapped by the storm,
eager on my way,    troubled by fire,
a blooming grove,    a burning flame.
Friends often pass me    from hand to hand
so that men and women    proudly kiss me.
When I rise up    they bow down to me,
many joyfully,    where I shall add
to the oncoming    of blessedness to men.

The first four lines give a free and fanciful picture of a tree; then by a conventional association the tree becomes the Cross. (See also the preceding riddle.) This solution was first proposed by F. A. Blackburn in JEGP iii (1900), 4–7, and has been generally accepted with reservations about cup and harp. His translation is as follows:

I am agile of body, I sport with the breeze; [tree]
I am clothed with beauty, a comrade of the storm; [tree]
I am bound on a journey, consumed by fire; [ship, tree]
A blooming grove, a burning gleed, [tree, log]
Full often comrades pass me from hand to hand, [harp]
Where stately men and women kiss me. [cup?]
When I rise up, before me bow
The proud with reverence. Thus it is my part
To increase for many the growth of happiness. [the cross]

In the first line “agile of body” is from the other text of this riddle in Exeter Book (f. 122b), where the variants add to the difficulties of translation but do little or nothing for the solution.