For more than a thousand years a small book of Old English poems has kept its secrets. The Exeter Book Riddles are nearly one hundred short, sly, startlingly vivid verses in which ordinary things — a swan in flight, a plough, a mead-cup, a bookworm — speak in their own voices and ask us to guess who they are. Each riddle is a door into the Anglo-Saxon world: its storms, its fields, its wars, its faith, and its laughter. This faithful modern-English edition renders the riddles in clear, present-day language while keeping their wit, strangeness, and song-like rhythm, so the reading feels both immediate and ancient. Whether you come for wisdom, for the puzzle, or for the pleasure of a voice from the year one thousand, these verses reward every return. Part of The World Scriptures Library.