Guddock
Appearance
A guddock is a furm o wird puzzle designed tae test a body's ingenuity in arriving tae its solution.
Guddocks haes a lang historie gaun back tae Anglo-Saxon poetry an e'en Norse times. The Exeter Beuk, a manuscript in Anglo-Saxon, preserrs naur-haund saxtie versifee'd guddocks fae Anglo-Saxon leeteratur. A saumple is:
- Moððe word fræt. Me þæt þuhte
- wrætlicu wyrd, þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn,
- þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes,
- þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide
- ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs
- wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg.
- A moac aet wirds.
- A thocht that wis quite cuirious, that a mere wirm, a thief in the daurk, aet whit a man wrate, his brilliant leid an its stieve foonds. The thief gat nae wicer for aw that he fattent hissel on wirds.
The answer wantit bi the poem is beukwirm.
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