Just a bit more work done on revising the Riddles, so I’ve gotten up to #38. That means the next two are the big Nature-Creation-World riddles which are so interesting but not often put forward as the best examples of the Riddles, though they are both definitely written as riddles (unlike say, #1-3 (Storm) or, as Marijane Osborn recently suggested to me, #15 (Vixen or Badger)). #40 is one of two Riddles with a clear source, coming, like #35, from Aldhelm’s earlier collection of Amnglo-Latin Ænigmata. 

I am very excited about the revision process, as I know through the experience of my own poetry, that very exciting things happen when you reconsider language that previously only holding a place. Not going through each poem with a colleague makes the recognition of mistakes that much harder, but some reworking is definitely in order as I go.

You out there, you Old English specialists, can help me with this process. Send me your corrections and suggestions and questions in a comment or in an email to me, and we can discuss what to do about. I’m happy to consider what you are saying, though some alterations in the expected translations are quite deliberate, though currently impossible to note (and now largely buried in the word-heap). There is always room for discussion, and that’s really what peer-review is: talking over innovations to see if they are defensible and if they really move the state of scholarship forwards. I am sincere in my invitation for this — I see that the best way to augment the usefulness of my work is to solicit peer-review, just as if it were to be published in a book. if you have found this website useful to you, please consider contributing some of your time to go over just one poem or one page and letting me know how it could be better.