"wulf and eadwacer" is an old english poem of famously difficult interpretation. it has been variously characterised, (modernly) as an elegy, (historically) as a riddle, and (in speculation on the poem's pre-history) as a song or ballad with refrain. the poem's complexities are, however, often asserted simply to defy genre classification, especially with regard to its narrative content. the poem's only extant text is found within the tenth-century exeter book, along with certain other texts to which it possesses qualitative similarities.