Who lingers and longs for the loved one’s return!
THE HUSBAND’S MESSAGE
[Text used: Kluge, Angelsächsisches Lesebuch.
The piece of wood on which the message is written speaks throughout the poem. It is impossible to tell whether the sender of the message is husband or lover of the woman addressed.
Some scholars consider the [riddle on “The Reed,” number LX], as the true beginning of this poem. It precedes the “Message” in the manuscript. Hicketeir (Anglia, xi, 363) thinks that it does not belong with that riddle, but that it is itself a riddle. He cites the Runes, in lines 51-2, especially as evidence. Trautmann (Anglia xvi, 207) thinks that it is part of a longer poem, in which the puzzling relation would be straightened out.]
[First] I shall freely confide to you
[The] tale of this tablet of wood. As a tree I grew up
[On] the coast of Mecealde, close by the sea.
[Frequently] thence to foreign lands
5 [I] set forth in travel, the salt streams tried