ale and the
swan, the plow guided by the 'gray-haired enemy of the wood,' the bull
breaking up clods left unturned by the plow, the falcon, the
arm-companion of aethelings--scenes, events, characters familiar in the
England of that day."]

I. A Storm

What man is so clever, so crafty of mind,
As to say for a truth who sends me a-traveling?
When I rise in my wrath, raging at times,
Savage is my sound. Sometimes I travel,
5 Go forth among the folk, set fire to their homes
And ravage and rob them; then rolls the smoke
Gray over the gables; great is the noise,
The death-struggle of the stricken. Then I stir up the woods
And the fruitful forests; I fell the trees,
10 I, roofed over with rain, on my reckless journey,
Wandering widely at the will of heaven.
I bear on my back the bodily raiment,
The fortunes of folk, their flesh and their spirits,
Together to sea. Say who may cover me,
15 Or what I am called, who carry this burden?

1. Some scholars feel that the first three riddles, all of which describe
storms, are in reality one, with three divisions. There is little to
indicate whether the scribe thought of them as separate or not.

II. A Storm

At times I travel in tracks undreamed of,
In vasty wave-depths to visit the earth,
The floor of the ocean. Fierce is the sea
. . . . . . . the foam rolls high;
5 The whale-pool roars and rages loudly;
The streams beat the shores, and they sling at times
Great stones and sand on the steep cliffs,
With weeds and waves, while wildly striving
Under the burden of billows on the bottom of ocean
10 The sea-ground I shake. My shield of waters
I leave not ere he lets me who leads me always
In all my travels. Tell me, wise man,
Who was it that drew me from the depth of the ocean
When the streams again became still and quiet,
15 Who before had forced me in fury to rage?

III. A Storm

At times I am fast confined by my Master,
Who sendeth forth under the fertile plain
My broad bosom, but bridles me in.
He drives in the dark a dangerous power
5 To a nar