A riddle

I am valued by men, fetched from afar, 

Gleaned on the hill-slopes, gathered in groves, in dale and on down. 

All day through the air, 

Wings bore me aloft, and brought me with cunning safe under roof. 

Men steeped me in vats. 

Now I have power to pummel and bind, 

To cast to the earth, old man and young. 

Soon he shall find who reaches to seize me, 

Pits force against force, that he's flat on the ground, 

Stripped of his strength if he cease not his folly, 

Loud in his speech, but of power despoiled 

To manage his mind, his hands or his feet. 

Now ask me my name, who can bind men on earth, 

And lay fools low in the light of day.

Kennedy, Charles W. Riddles from the Exeter Book. An Anthology of Old English Poetry. Oxford University Press: New York.1960.