The Exeter Book is a unique manuscript that gathers the largest collection of Old English poetry. It was given by Bishop Leofric to his cathedral in 1070. The book is still held in the Cathedral Library in the County town of Devon in the South West of England. Devon is a Roman city founded in the first century AD, and the cathedral with twin Norman towers was built in 1050 (Encyclopedia Americana.p.761).

The Exeter Book was handwritten but contains no decoration. It is believed that the book is incomplete at the beginning and probably at the end, and that seven folios are missing. The book includes religious poems such as The Christ in three parts or Guthlac in two parts, and also poems describing desolation and loneliness, or the sorrows of exile like in The Wanderer. All those poems are anonymous except for The Ascension and Juliana, which are believed to have been written by the Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf (Dictionary of the Middle Ages.p.398).

The Exeter Book also includes 95 riddles, which are semi-metaphorical with religious allegory and meaning. Riddles were very popular in the Middle Ages as playful and entertaining exercises. The topics of the riddles are very varied, however the riddles seem to describe above all is "the simple everyday life of the working class"(http://www.creighton.edu/~peckham/presentations/exeter).

Moreover, for most of them, the riddles in the Exeter Book have religious connotations. Let us take the example of Riddle number three that illustrates this idea. The translation of the original Anglo-Saxon riddle is from F. A. Blackburn. I am agile of body, I sport with he breeze; I am clothed with beauty, a comrade of the storm; I am bound on a journey, consumed b fire; A blooming grove, a burning gleed, Full often comrades pass me from hand to hand, Where stately men and women kiss me. 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 solution of this riddle is the cross. Indeed, the cross is made of wood that come from a tree. The two first lines of the riddle describe the image of a tree. Furthermore, "poetic convention even before the Anglo-Saxon period has associated the cross with any image of a tree"(http://www.bridgewater.edu/~sgallowa/301/exeterbook). It is particularly true in the poem The Dream of the Rood. Finally, in the last two lines of the riddle, the cross is described as a holly and powerful object of respect, obedience and love.

The reference to religion is obvious in this riddle, but some riddles even refer directly to some passage of The Holly Bible. For example, riddle 46 tells the "story of Lot and his off springs" written in Genesis 19:30-8.

"The Exeter Book." Dictionnary of the Middle Ages. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1989.

"The Exeter Book." Encyclopedia Americana. Connecticut: Grolier, Inc. 1995.

"The Exeter Book." Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton publisher. 1971.

Go on to another of my works:

ATTITUDES TOWARD WOMEN in ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE