Given that the texts conventionally known as Riddle 68 and Riddle 69 … | Verbal SAT Question

The Exeter Book (ca. 960-990 CE) is the sole manuscript source for the entire corpus of Old English riddles. The precise number of riddles is a matter of debate. Identification of consecutive riddles’ boundaries based on content is difficult, given their purposely enigmatic nature, the challenges modern readers face in interpreting the archaic language of Old English, and damage to the manuscript. Moreover, the manuscript lacks any paratextual apparatus—titles, commentary, lists of solutions—the appearance of a distinctive mark to signal the ends of some riddles may be an unreliable clue. For instance, some scholars claim that the use of this mark at the end of the single manuscript line containing the text conventionally known as Riddle 68 may be a scribal error.

Given that the texts conventionally known as Riddle 68 and Riddle 69 appear consecutively in the manuscript, which evidence, if true, would most directly support the claim about Riddle 68 presented in the text?

Circumstantial evidence, including the fact that most of Riddles 63–72, which appear consecutively in the manuscript, repeat solutions from riddles scattered throughout earlier pages of the manuscript, suggests that Riddles 68 and 69 may have originated from a single source whose author was influenced by those earlier riddles.

Although Riddle 68 opens with a phrase in Old English meaning “I saw” that likewise appears at the beginning of a large number of the Exeter Book riddles, neither it nor Riddle 69 concludes with any phrases that directly invite the audience to solve the riddle, which nearly half of the Exeter Book riddles do.

Although Riddle 69 appears to be solvable when read on its own or in conjunction with Riddle 68, with “iceberg” or “icicle” having been presented as likely solutions, Riddle 68, whose imagery and sonic patterns are consistent with those of Riddle 69, has been deemed unsolvable given its overly generic clues, unless read in conjunction with Riddle 69.

Many of the Exeter Book riddles employ the rhetorical device of prosopopoeia, a form of personification in which a nonhuman entity, usually the solution to a riddle, is represented as speaking, but neither Riddle 68 nor Riddle 69 uses this device.