The Facsimile Edition
Read the Exeter Book
Selected poems from MS 3501, set in the EBH facsimile font. Click any word for its Old English definition, grammatical form, and corpus frequency — drawn from the Dictionary of Old English wordforms.
An exiled warrior meditates on loss, memory, and the transience of earthly life. One of the great elegies of Old English literature.
A meditation on the hardship and spiritual longing of a life at sea, counterpoised against the comfort and corruption of life on land.
A scop names legendary figures who endured suffering and overcame it, repeating the refrain: þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg — "that passed, so may this".
A woman speaks from exile in an earth-cave, lamenting separation from her lord. One of the few Old English poems with an unambiguously female speaker.
A carved staff delivers a message across the sea from an exiled lord to his lady, urging her to sail south and reunite. The closing runes encode his vow.
The most celebrated of the Exeter Book riddles: a slaughtered animal becomes a sacred object. The answer — a Gospel Book — weaves violence and sanctity together.
A distinguished guest lodges in a hall, immune to hunger, thirst, and age. The answer involves the relationship between soul and body.
A brief, ribald riddle whose double meaning is characteristic of the Exeter Book's wit. The earnest answer is a key.
Another of the Exeter Book's playfully ambiguous riddles — the obvious reading is overturned by the actual answer.