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The Leiden Riddle is an Old English riddle. It is noteworthy for being:
The West Saxon aristocrat, monk, scholar, and poet Aldhelm (c. 639–709) composed, among many other works, a set of one hundred hexametrical 'enigmata' or 'enigmas', inspired by the so-called Riddles of Symphosius. The thirty-third was Lorica ('corselet'). This was translated into Old English, and first witnessed in the Northumbrian dialect of Old English as the Leiden Riddle; the language is of the seventh or eighth century.[1] Unusually, the riddle is also attested, in West Saxon, among the Old English riddles of the later tenth-century Exeter Book, where it is number 33 or 35 (depending on the edition consulted). Apart from differences in language caused by dialect and date, and damage to the Leiden manuscript, the texts are the identical on all but a couple of points.[2]
The translation has been praised for its complexity and wit. In the assessment of Thomas Klein,
The Leiden Riddle is attested in MS Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, Voccius Lat. 4o 106, where it accompanies the Latin text on which it is based. The manuscript was described by Herbert Dean Merritt thus:
The manuscript was probably copied in western France, perhaps at
The damp earth produced me from her cold womb; I am not made from the rasping fleece of wool, no leashes pull [me] nor garrulous threads reverberate, nor do Oriental worms weave [me] with yellow down, nor am I plucked by shuttles nor beaten by the hard reed; and yet I will be called a coat in the common speech. I do not fear arrows pulled out from long quivers.[9]
[5]
Latin, Bede, Devon, Bishop of Sherborne (historic), Wessex
Beowulf, Latin, Ꝥ, Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon runes
Latin, Lactantius, Saturnalia, Aldhelm, Tatwine, LacusCurtius
Ancient Roman military clothing, Body armour, Lorica hamata, Lorica musculata, Lorica plumata
Beowulf, Scop, Cynewulf, Exeter Book, Alliterative verse
Beowulf, Book of Job, Scop, Exeter Book, Rhyme