"The Husband's Message" is an anonymous Old English poem, 53 lines long and found only on folio 123 of the Exeter Book. The poem is cast as the private address of an unknown first-person speaker to a wife, challenging the reader to discover the speaker's identity and the nature of the conversation, the mystery of which is enhanced by a burn-hole at the beginning of the poem. Integrity of the poem The poem is preserved only in the Exeter Book, one of the few surviving poetic compilations from the Anglo-Saxon period. The Exeter Book came into existence some time in the 10th century, with some estimates placing the origin of the book as early as 970. The book contains over 90 riddles as well as many other poetic works. The manuscript suffered burn damage to the first passage of the poem. The burn spots prevent anyone from knowing the actual meaning of lines 2 to 8 because some of the words are missing. From the random words of those lines, it can be determined that the poem is told in first person, that the speaker refers to his origin as a tree, that there is a frequent journey by ship, that another country is involved, and a lord sent the speaker to seek his true love. There is damage to other lines of the poem as well, though not as drastic as the damage to lines 2-8. Summary The Husband's Message tells the story of a man who was forced to leave his homeland and his wife due to a feud. The poem takes place after the feud has ended. The supposedly wealthy and established husband carves a message onto a plank or staff of wood and sends it to his wife or his betrothed, the exact relationship between the man and woman is never specified, recounting the past years without her, reflecting on his past misfortunes, professing his love for her and imploring her to reunite with him in his new home. Thus, the "message" becomes the physical plank of wood itself, as well as the poem's written lyrics. Issues of interpretation While the overall text of the poem is fairly straightforward, there is some scholarly debate concerning several matters of interpretation: Genre For example, many Anglo-Saxonists contend that the poem is a "love lyric" to be celebrated for "its ingenious form and its emotive power." Conversely, other scholars