Exeter Book Riddle 27 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. The riddle is almost universally solved as 'mead'.
Contents
Text
As edited by Krapp and Dobbie in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records series, Riddle 27 runs:
Ic eom weorð werum, wide funden,
brungen of bearwum ond of burghleoþum,
of denum ond of dunum. Dæges mec wægun
feþre on lifte, feredon mid liste
under hrofes hleo. Hæleð mec siþþan
baþedan in dydene. Nu ic eom bindere
ond swingere, sona weorpere;
esne to eorþan hwilum ealdne ceorl.
Sona þæt on findeð, se þe mec fehð ongean
ond wið mægenþisan minre genæsteð,
þæt he hrycge sceal hrusan secan,
gif he unrædes ær ne geswiceð;
strengo bistolen, strong on spræce,
mægene binumen, nah his modes geweald,
fota ne folma. Frige hwæt ic hatte,
ðe on eorðan swa esnas binde
dole æfter dyntum be dæges leohte.
Interpretation
Until recently there has been little work on this riddle. However, in recent years commentary has emphasised how it undermines the association with mead in Old English heroic poetry with martial masculinity. Other work has shown how the riddle not only elucidates Anglo-Saxons' relationships with bees, but has argued that the riddle enables us to chart the complex interrelations between humans and other ecological actors in the medieval past.