Solutions to Fourteen Exeter Book Riddles

The publication in 2024 of Jennifer Neville’s Truth is Trickiest: The Case for Ambiguity in the Exeter Book Riddles allows for a reassessment of those conundrums, especially for fourteen of them. These are (in The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records numbering) 4, 13, 19, 22, 30, 36, 39, 43, 48, 59, 64, 74, 90 (the only one in Latin), 95. All fourteen items have been given solutions by the writer of this article (some of them published, some forthcoming) different from those prioritized in Truth is Trickiest. The present writer’s suggested answers are: 4, door of a city gate; 13, a Fallow Deer’s antlers; 19, the Egyptian sun-god Horus on his steed; 22, the History of Salvation; 30, glass in a furnace and then as glassware; 36, the sea-monster Scylla; 39, Hope; 43, Everyman and his Guardian Angel; 48, a ciborium; 59, a ciborium (again); 64, Horus (again); 74, Alcyone, legendary queen; 90, a Cornish-Latin political prophecy (not a riddle) on Athelstan; 95, Instruction in Sacred Wisdom. If these solutions are correct, they will deepen our understanding of Old English poets, informing us on their education, piety, humor, powers of observation, and artistry. Riddle 90 represents another kind of poet, a Cornish-Latin one who loathed Athelstan (d. 939) and longed for his humiliation.