Guddock

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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.