Aldhelm's Stork Riddle

Enigma 31, Stork (“Ciconia”) riddle in Aldhelm’s De metris et enigmatibus ac pedum regulis, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek Cod. Sang. 1394, p.127-8.

This exercise is based on one of Aldhelm’s riddles, found in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1394, p.127-8. Aldhelm (c. 640-710), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, is often considered the first great English scholar. He was the first Englishman to write classic Latin verse and the earliest native Anglo-Saxon to have left a corpus of Latin writing. He composed one hundred Latin riddles, known as Aldhelm’s "De metris et enigmatibus ac pedum regulis". These riddles must have been popular, as a large number of manuscript copies of his have survived until today, which implies that they circulated extensively during the Middle Ages. The riddles were perhaps written for educational purposes and may have been used in a teaching context. That his contemporaries found many of his texts rather difficult is shown by the large number of Latin and English glosses which we find in many surviving manuscripts containing his riddles. In the following riddle, the animal being described is a stork. There was a popular riddle culture in the Middle Ages, especially in Anglo-Saxon England, as solving riddles was often seen as an entertaining activity to pass the time. Combining the “fun” aspect of solving riddles with the rather tedious activity of learning Latin could be the reason behind the popularity of Aldhelm’s riddles.