Exeter Book Riddle 44
Exeter Book Riddle 44 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its solution is accepted to be 'key'. However, the description evokes a penis; as such, Riddle 44 is noted as one of a small group of Old English riddles that engage in sexual "double entendre", and thus provides rare evidence for Anglo-Saxon attitudes to sexuality. Text and translation. As edited by Krapp and Dobbie, the riddle reads: