Güdic

Frae Wikipedia

A Güdic (kent forbye as Guddick, Godek, an Goadi(c)k) is a furm o wird puzzle designed tae test a body's ingenuity in arriving tae its solution.

Güdics haes a lang historie gaun back tae Anglo-Saxon poetry an e'en Norse times. The Exeter Book, a manuscript in Anglo-Saxon, preserrs naur-haund saxtie versifee'd güdics fae Anglo-Saxon leiteratur. 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 moth 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.