The Old English Riddles survive through a manuscript of about the year 1000 left to Exeter Cathedral by Leofric, its first bishop. Unlike most of the poetry preserved in the Exeter Book , the Riddles are secular poems, robustly celebrating the familiar objects and natural world of eighth-century England. In this newly revised edition of his popular collection, Michael Alexander presents a selection of these ingenious and enigmatic poems in versions which capture their peculiar concision, humour and vigour of language.