I Saw a Strange Creature . . . Summary

Riddles are a popular form of entertainment for medieval people. These are not usually the kind with a question and a punchline, but instead they are poems which metaphorically represent some object or concept. This section contains thirty-one riddles from the "Exeter Book." Most of the riddles are told from a first-person viewpoint, and several of them sound as though they could describe an object or could be about sex. There are one or two longer riddles, which encompass all of Creation, as well as several describing weather phenomena. Many of the riddles have a religious theme, referring to Bible characters or the Bible itself. Most of the riddles do not have one definite answer, which is a lot of the fun in reading them. Many of the riddles begin with, "I saw a strange...