Marie Nelson

Four social functions of the exeter book riddles

Difficult as it is to determine with certainty what some of them are about, the Old English riddles of the Exeter Book seem, without much doubt, to have served at least three important social purposes: the riddle game provided a structure for the competitive exercise of verbal skills;’ and within that structure some riddles permitted performers to play aggressive roles sanctioned by the culture of which the game itself was a part,2 while others presented well thought out responses to destructive forces of the natural world. In addition, some riddles, as my discussion of two riddles that have been solved as “Fire” and “Ice” will show, also expressed insights concerning the human power to destroy. Exeter Book riddles often end with the formulaic challenges Frige hwat ic hatte (I ask what I am called) and Saga hwat ic hatte (Say what I am called). The two formulas, since they require riddle-solvers to name what has been described, function as requests for the display of verbal skill. There is, to be sure, no Exeter Book riddle closing that equals the challenging quality of the closing of Aldhelm’s Latin “Creatura,” in which a schoolteacherish speaker demands attention; claims a degree of intellectual challenge, along with some importance, for his question; then, insinuating his own intention to deflate the puffed-up philosophers he addresses, orders them to tell him what his name is;3 but some riddle closings, in addition to their demand that their subjects be named, also make more pointed reference to the skill being challenged. Riddle 30(32), “Ship,” specifically directs its challenge to those who are wise with words with these words:

T. H. WHITE: MASTER OF TRANSFORMATION

This essay gives attention to three novels that can be read as exercises in fictional transformation: T. H. Whites The Master, an ironic version of Shakespeares Tempest; Mistress Mashams Repose, a retelling turned Bildungsroman of Jonathan Swifts Lilliput story; and The Elephant and the Kangaroo, a new, Irish version of the Old Testament story of the Flood. Though Mistress Mashams Repose was chosen by the Book of the Month Club in 1946, not one of the three approached the immense popular success of Whites Arthurian tetralogy. All three novels can, nevertheless, be read as demonstrations of narrative skills White learned to use as he lived and wrote and came to terms, at least to some degree, with life in the mid-twentieth century.