Exeter Book Riddle 45 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records)[1] is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. Its solution is accepted to be 'dough'. However, the description evokes a penis becoming erect; as such, Riddle 45 is noted as one of a small group of Old English riddles that engage in sexual double entendre, and thus provides rare evidence for Anglo-Saxon attitudes to sexuality, and specifically for women taking the initiative in heterosexual sex.[2]
As edited by Krapp and Dobbie, the riddle reads:[3]
Ic on wincle gefrægn weaxan nathwæt, |
I have heard of something that grows in a corner, |