Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book/Annotated/63

63 (k-d 22)

Came sixty riding on horseback to the seashore. Eleven rode on stately steeds; four white horses. However they tried they could not cross the water, for it was too deep and the banks too high and the currents too strong. So they climbed on a wagon, with their horses under the pole. Then a horse bore them all, horses and proud men with spears, across the bay and on to the land, though no ox drew it, nor powerful slaves, nor stout steed—neither swam nor walked on the ground under the strange burden, nor stirred the waters, nor flew in the air, nor turned back. Yet the men crossed the stream and their steeds also, from the high bank. So they strode up on the other side bravely, men and horses, safe and sound from the water.

10 20

Ætsomne cwom     lx monna to wægstæþe     wicgum ridan hæfdon xi     eoredmæcgas fridhengestas     iiii sceamas ne meahton magorincas     ofer mere feolan swa hi fundedon     ac wæs flod to deop atol yþa geþræc     ofras hēa streamas · stronge     ongunnon stigan þa on wægn weras     ⁊ hyra wicg somod hlodan under hrunge     þa þa hors oðbær eh ⁊ eorlas     æscum dealle ofer wætres byht     wægn to lande swa hine oxa ne teah     ne esna mægen ne fæthengest     ne on flode swom · ne be grunde wod     gestum under ne lagu drefde     ne of lyfte fleag neon der bæc cyrde     brohte hwæþre beornas ofer burnan     ⁊ hyra bloncan mid from stæðe heaum     þæt hy stopan up on oþerne     ellenrofe weras of wæge     ⁊ hyra wicg gesund

This is a rather simplified rendering (in a somewhat different meter from the others) of what is known as a world-riddle, found in varying forms in the Orient as in the West. Being interpreted, the sixty men are half-days (days and nights) of a month and the month is December. The four white horses are Sundays and the other seven are the feast days of December (Conception of the Virgin, St. Nicholas, St. Thomas, Christmas, St. Stephen, St. John Evangelist, Holy Innocents). The opposite shore is January, the New Year. There are difficulties in all this, but the main interest is the puzzling situation more or less realistically described. A quite different solution is proposed by L. Blakeley, (R.E.S. n.s. 9 [1958], 241–52), who calls it “The Circling Stars,” i.e., the constellation of Charles’s Wain, eleven of which are visible to the naked eye; sixty is a round number for the surrounding stars.