Spirits and Skins: The Sceapheord of Exeter Book Riddle 13 and Holy Labour
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F22%3A3BUHK8TZ" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/22:3BUHK8TZ - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgab086" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgab086</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/res/hgab086" target="_blank" >10.1093/res/hgab086</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Spirits and Skins: The Sceapheord of Exeter Book Riddle 13 and Holy Labour
Original language description
While the unnamed creatures of Exeter Book Riddle 13 have been read as ‘chickens’ since the early twentieth century, this solution has never fully satisfied either the narrative description or the cryptic puzzles of this short verse text. In this article, I propose a new solution, the Old English word SCEAPHEORD (‘flock of sheep’), which fulfils the various clues of the riddle and fits more satisfactorily among the quadruped cluster of neighbouring Riddles 12, 14 and 15. Far from settling the meaning of the text, this new solution opens the riddle to a range of interpretative possibilities. Following previous critical work on the role of medieval riddles in teaching interpretative practice, I will demonstrate that the riddle invites readings of the wandering sceapheord on several discrete levels, in a process analogous to fourfold biblical exegesis: the literal (a flock of sheep), the historical (allusions to biblical Eden, following Patrick Murphy) and the anagogical (images of renewal and salvation). A fourth, moral level of interpretation is revealed through attention to the riddle’s letter-games and etymological puns, which, in the Isidorean tradition, portray human language as reflective of material reality. By emphasizing this relationship between the textual and the real, the poem encourages monks to apply their skills of exegetical analysis to their daily labour (represented by the ubiquity of sheep-rearing in the early medieval English economy). While celebrating the spiritual meaning of individual acts of manual labour, Riddle 13 also reinforces the moral and theological importance of collective monastic work.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
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Others
Publication year
2022
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
The Review of English Studies
ISSN
0034-6551
e-ISSN
1471-6968
Volume of the periodical
73
Issue of the periodical within the volume
310
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
13
Pages from-to
429-441
UT code for WoS article
000785564800001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85133780540