Riddle - Knowledge

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guide to living life. Riddles play a crucial role in the series, the main protagonist, Morgon of Hed, beginning his journey by winning the crown of the kings of Aum in a Riddle Game with the ancient ghost of Peven of Aum; Peven had a standing wager going that no one could win a riddle-game with him, and those who lost against him forfeited their lives. "Beware the unanswered riddle."

619: 1383:, are in origin translations of riddles by Aldhelm (and Riddle 35 the only Old English riddle to be attested in another manuscript besides the Exeter Book). Unlike the pithy three-line riddles of Symphosius, the Old English riddles tend to be discursive, often musing on complex processes of manufacture when describing artefacts such as mead ( 1002:. Taylor cited the following example: '"Who moves in the air? Who makes a noise on seeing a thief? Who is the enemy of lotuses? Who is the climax of fury?" The answers to the first three questions, when combined in the manner of a charade, yield the answer to the fourth question. The first answer is bird ( 954:

school texts which show no literary polish". The answers to the riddles are not preserved; the riddles include "my knees hasten, my feet do not rest, a shepherd without pity drives me to pasture" (a river? A rowboat?); "you went and took the enemy's property; the enemy came and took your property" (a

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in the post-War period encouraged more researchers to study the social role of riddles and riddling, highlighting their role of re-orienting reality in the face of fear and anxiety. However, wide-ranging studies of riddles have tended to be limited to Western countries, with Asian and African riddles

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trilogy, the ancient art of riddlery is taught at the College of Caithnard – the study based on books recovered from the ruins of the School of Wizards. The riddles in the series are composed of three parts – the question, the answer, and the stricture – and are both a way of recording history and a

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Anthropological research in Africa has produced extensive collections of riddles over the last century or so. Riddles have been characterised as "one of the most important forms of oral art in Africa"; Hamnett analyzes African riddling from an anthropological viewpoint; Yoruba riddles have enjoyed a

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composed at least eight verse riddles on themes such as a pen, gold, and the privy, this was seen as a lapse in taste by many of his contemporaries. However, although riddles are seldom used today as a literary form in their own right, they have arguably influenced the approach to poetry of a number

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Finnic riddles are noteworthy in relation to the rest of the world's oral riddle canon for its original imagery, their abundance of sexual riddles, and the interesting collision of influences from east and west; along with the attestation in some regions of an elaborate riddle-game. Riddles provide

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It took place without teams, but was a kind of a contest: a member of the group would be sent out of the room, the others agreed on the riddle to be posed; for three failures to divine the answer, the riddlee would have to drop out of the game, to step aside, and to "buy" with a token the right to

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serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and crossing them for the intellectual pleasure of showing that things are not quite as stable as they seem" — though the point of doing so may still ultimately be to "play with boundaries, but

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While medieval records of Germanic-language riddles are patchy, with the advent of print in the West, collections of riddles and similar kinds of questions began to be published. A large number of riddle collections were printed in the German-speaking world and, partly under German influence, in

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Someone will say, "What I desire and what I am seeking is that which bears a lake within itself;" and by this is intended a pumpkin or calabash. Another will say, "What I ask for is seen in my eyes—it will be marked with various colors"; and because the same Huron word that signifies "eye" also

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musical genre in which guitar players compete in a symbolic duel. Two guitar players challenge each other in song by asking a riddle-like question and/or answering the opponent's questions. This is performed through several successive rounds of witty exchanges which may include banter and even

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says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread.

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In many cultures or contexts, people are not actually expected to guess the answers to riddles: they may be told by the riddler, or learn riddles and their answers together as they grow up. Thus riddle-contests are not the only or even necessarily the main forum for the expression of riddles.

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The riddle was at times a prominent literary form in the ancient and medieval world, and so riddles are extensively, if patchily, attested in our written records from these periods. More recently, riddles have been collected from oral tradition by scholars in many parts of the world.

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in 1963. Georges and Dundes suggested that "a riddle is a traditional verbal expression which contains one or more descriptive elements, a pair of which may be in opposition; the referent of the elements is to be guessed". There are many possible sub-sets of the riddle, including

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who is personally compelled to supply clues about his upcoming crimes to his enemies in the form of riddles and puzzles. Stereotypically, they are these kinds of simple children's riddles, but modern treatments generally prefer to have the character use more sophisticated

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In both Arabic and Persian, riddles seem to have become increasingly scholarly in style over time, increasingly emphasising riddles and puzzles in which the interpreter has to resolve clues to letters and numbers to put together the word which is the riddle's solution.

1391:). They are noted for providing perspectives on the world which give voice to actors which tend not to appear in Old English poetry, ranging from female slaves to animals and plants, and they often subvert the conventions of Old English heroic and religious poetry. 2075:

whereby riddles have been preserved for posterity. Such contests are a subset of wisdom contests more generally. They tend to fall into two groups: testing the wisdom of a king or other aristocrat; and testing the suitability of a suitor. Correspondingly, the

1634:(including the modern Finland, Estonia, and parts of Western Russia) is fairly unitary, though eastern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence of Russian Orthodox Christianity and Slavonic riddle culture. The Finnish for "riddle" is 1582:

Few riddles are attested in medieval Celtic languages, though this depends on how narrowly a riddle is defined; some early medieval Welsh and Irish juridical texts have been read as being riddles. One undisputed riddle is attested in medieval

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Riddles in the Americas are of particular interest to scholarship because it was long thought that native American cultures had no autochthonous riddle traditions (as opposed to riddles inspired by European culture, as with the twenty-two

2169:, the ka-tet must riddle against Blaine the Mono in order to save their lives. At first Blaine can answer all riddles posed to him by the ka-tet easily, but then Eddie Dean, one of the ka-tet, gains the upper hand when he starts to ask 1271:

is a key witness to the linguistic transition from Latin to Romance, but riddles are otherwise rare in medieval romance languages. However, in the early modern period, printed riddle collections were published in French, including the

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Many riddles appear in similar form across many countries, and often continents. Borrowing of riddles happens both on a local scale, and across great distances. Kofi Dorvlo gives an example of a riddle that has been borrowed from the

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In the medieval period, however, verse riddles, alongside other puzzles and conundra, became a significant literary form in the Arabic-speaking world, and accordingly in Islamic Persian culture and in Hebrew — particularly in

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As of the 1970s, folklorists had not undertaken extensive collecting of riddles in India, but riddling was known to be thriving as a form of folk-literature, sometimes in verse. Riddles have also been collected in Tamil.

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The earliest riddles attested in Irish are generally held to be found in a short collection from the fifteenth-century Book of Fermoy. However, other forms of wisdom contest do occur in Irish literature, such as

1905:. He argues for recognition of the importance of the riddling act, not merely gathering and studying lists of riddles. Grivas Muchineripi Kayange has seen African riddles as a window into African philosophy. 1137:, there is a natural overlap in style and approach between poetry generally and riddles specifically; literary riddles are therefore often a subset of the descriptive poetic form known in both traditions as 1254:, a collection of Latin riddles clearly modelled on Symphosius, were composed in the early seventh century by an unknown author, perhaps in northern Italy. Symphosius's collection also inspired a number of 933: 1498:

Riddles continued to flourish until recently as an oral form of entertainment, however; the seminal collection of Anglophone riddles from the early modern period through to the twentieth century is

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The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns on Chinese characters. One example is the riddle "千里会千金"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet thousand gold'.

1367:. Aldhelm was followed by a number of other Anglo-Saxons writing riddles in Latin. This prestigious literary heritage contextualises the survival of nearly one hundred riddles in the tenth-century 734:, from around 1500–1000 BCE, describes a 'twelve-spoked wheel, upon which stand 720 sons of one birth' (i.e. the twelve months of the year, which together supposedly have 360 days and 360 nights). 575:. For example, the Russian phrase "Nothing hurts it, but it groans all the time" can be deployed as a proverb (when its referent is a hypochondriac) or as a riddle (when its referent is a pig). 955:

weaving shuttle?); "who becomes pregnant without conceiving, who becomes fat without eating?" (a raincloud?). These may be riddles from oral tradition that a teacher has put into a schoolbook.

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Scandinavia. Riddles were evidently hugely popular in Germany: a recent research project uncovered more than 100,000 early modern German riddles, with the most important collection being that

2119:, although Bilbo asked more of a simple question than a riddle, by attempting to answer it rather than challenging it Gollum accepted it as a riddle; by accepting it, his loss was binding. 1223:, the philosopher stated that "good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors: for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor." 1209:. Oracles were also represented as speaking in often riddlic language. However, the first significant corpus of Greek riddles survives in an anthology of earlier material known as the 1763:

In the twentieth century, thousands of riddles and similar enigmas have been collected, capitalising on the large number of homophones in Chinese. Examples of folk-riddles include:

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Here, the oxen are the scribe's finger(s) and thumb, and the plough is the pen. Among literary riddles, riddles on the pen and other writing equipment are particularly widespread.

4726: 3990:, ed. by Leea Virtanen, Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj and Aarre Nyman, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Toimituksia, 329 (: Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1977), pp. 77–89 (at 80–82). 1159:(920–990), credited with transposing Arabic metres into Hebrew, composed a number of riddles, mostly apparently inspired by folk-riddles. Other Hebrew-writing exponents included 1311: 539:

Defining riddles precisely is hard and has attracted a fair amount of scholarly debate. The first major modern attempt to define the riddle in modern Western scholarship was by

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Much academic research on riddles has focused on collecting, cataloguing, defining, and typologising riddles. Key work on cataloguing and typologising riddles was published by

4002:, ed. and trans. by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia, 329 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977), pp. 33–34. 1931:). If so, this would have suggested that riddles are not a universal art form. However, Hieronymus Lalemant gave a fairly detailed account of a riddle-contest among the 1442:

That is, "the snow (featherless bird) lies on a bare tree in winter (leafless tree), and the sun (speechless maiden) causes the snow to melt (ate the featherless bird)".

3974:, ed. by Leea Virtanen, Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj and Aarre Nyman, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Toimituksia, 329 (: Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1977), pp. 51–57. 1234:, into the fifteenth century, along with a neo-Byzantine revival in around the early eighteenth century. There was a particular peak around the long twelfth century. 1205:

Riddles are known to have been popular in Greece in Hellenistic times, and possibly before; they were prominent among the entertainments and challenges presented at

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Isbell, Billie Jean; Roncalla Fernandez, Fredy Amilcar, "The Ontogenesis of Metaphor: Riddle Games among Quechua Speakers Seen as Cognitive Discovery Procedures",

1756:(618–907). In this tradition, the answer to the riddle is to be established through years of meditation, informed by Zen thought, as part of a process of seeking 3289:

The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day

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Helen Price, ‘Human and NonHuman in Anglo-Saxon and British Postwar Poetry: Reshaping Literary Ecology’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2013).

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Attic red-figure pelike, Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx and frees Thebes, by the Achilleus painter, 450–440 BC, Altes Museum Berlin (13718779634)

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The second stage of solving the riddle is visual: combining the radical "马" (horse) with the radical "女" (daughter) produces the character "妈" (mother).

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who wrote in Latin. They remained influential in medieval Castilian tradition, being the basis for the second set of riddles in the thirteenth-century

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Meanwhile, because "a daughter is very important in the family", in Chinese culture it is possible to resolve "千金" (thousand gold) as "女" (daughter).

2995:, Vishveshvaranand Indological Series, 67/Vishveshvaranand Institute Publications, 632 (Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, 1975). 1702:

In Chinese culture, "it is said that a good horse can run thousands of kilometers per day", so "千里" (thousand kilometer) is resolved as "马" (horse).

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contains a long section of proverbial wisdom that in some versions also contains riddles. Otherwise, riddles are sparse in ancient Semitic writing.

2605: 3842:, ed. by Josoph Falaky Nagy and Leslie Ellen Jones (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 336-43; Robin Chapman Stacey, 'Speaking in Riddles', in 1960:

in South America. Thus, while data remains rather thin, it seems clear that riddling did exist in the Americas independently of European culture.

3945:, University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 26 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1942); Vernam Hull and Archer Taylor, 1574:

and five are pronounced similarly to the English words "Cat" and "Sank", hence the pun being the cat sank while also counting to five in French.

2001:, a contest of wit and skill in which players take turns asking riddles. The player that cannot answer loses. Riddle games occur frequently in 1944:

Accordingly, during the twentieth century, progressively more substantial collections of Native American riddles were made, including from the

643:: "This woman has not been to the riverside for water, but there is water in her tank". The answer is "a coconut". On a much wider scale, the 2947: 591:. In the case of ancient riddles recorded without solutions, considerable scholarly energy also goes into proposing and debating solutions. 1542:, as in "Why is six afraid of seven?" "Because seven eight nine (eight can be replaced with ate)." These riddles are now mostly children's 3564:, ed. by Alan D. Deyermond (Támesis, 1976), pp. 31–43, cited by Harriet Goldberg, "Riddles and Enigmas in Medieval Castilian Literature", 4688: 4626:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 184–95 (p. 184). 3006:

Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-philologischen und historischen Classe der Köngl. bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu München

1219:, working in the tenth century CE. Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse. In the second chapter of Book III of Aristotle's 1940:

signifies "glass bead", this is a clue to divine what he desires—namely, some kind of beads of this material, and of different colors.

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Rebcca R. Benefiel, "Magic Squares, Alphabet Jumbles, Riddles and More: The Culture of Word-Games among the Graffiti of Pompeii", in

2077: 3846:, ed. by Próinséas Ní Chatháin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), pp. 243-48; Fergus Kelly, 'An Old-Irish Text on Court Procedure', 2368:; cf. Hannah Burrows, "Wit and Wisdom: The Worldview of the Old Norse-Icelandic Riddles and their Relationship to Eddic Poetry", in 990:

can be understood to comprise a series of riddles or enigmas which are now obscure but may have been an enigmatic exposition of the

3607:, ed. by Brian Murdoch, Camden House History of German Literature, 2 (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004), pp. 157–200 (pp. 181–82). 828:

The conceit here is that Two-legs is a person, Three-legs is a three-legged stool, Four-legs is a dog, and One-leg is a ham hock.

606:; meanwhile, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of extensive work on medieval European riddles from the point of view of 3475: 1591:

probably inspired by Latin riddles on the same theme. However, this record is supplemented by Latin material, apparently from a

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Burrows, Hannah, "Wit and Wisdom: The Worldview of the Old Norse-Icelandic Riddles and their Relationship to Eddic Poetry", in

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is 'White field, black seeds', where the field is a page and the seeds are letters. An example is the eighth- or ninth-century

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to a riddle competition for his life. Bilbo breaks "the ancient rules" of the game but is able to escape with Gollum's magic

4330: 4297: 2673: 3949:, University of California Publications: Folklore Studies, 6 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955; Thomas Parry, 3356:(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 33–35, citing Nehemya Aluny, "Ten Dunash Ben Labrat's Riddles", 2963:(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 12–13, citing M. Jaeger, "Assyrische Räthsel und Sprichwörter", 4071:

Proceedings of the 2016 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Austin, Texas, November 1–5, 2016

3547:, ed. by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow, 2 vols (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), II 824–32 (pp. 826–27). 2891:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 24–59 (p. 24). 2165: 2159: 2066: 2878:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 3–23 (p. 12). 5084: 4778: 2914: 979: 3829:, ed. by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow, 2 vols (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), II 824-32 (p. 829). 3581:, ed. by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow, 2 vols (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), II 824-32 (p. 830). 1523: 399: 2904:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 60–172. 1375:

verse. The riddles in this book vary in subject matter from ribald innuendo to theological sophistication. Three,

2931:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), III 3–48. 2844:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), I 74–178. 3658:, "Changing Style and Changing Meaning: Icelandic Historiography and the Medieval Redactions of Heiðreks saga", 2784:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), I 35–73. 594:

Whereas previously researchers had tended to take riddles out of their social performance contexts, the rise of

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Chuanqi Tan, Furu Wei, Li Dong, Weifeng Lv, and Ming Zhou, "Solving and Generating Chinese Character Riddles",

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There were two cats, 1 2 3 cat and un deux trois cat, they had a swimming race from England to France. Who won?

3682:, ed. by Martin Chase (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 114–35; Hannah Burrows, "Enigma Variations: 2215: 1983:

insults—typically with a humorous intent. The most famous literary example of counterpoint payada comes from

1399:, first published around 1500 and many times reprinted. This is one of the most famous riddles of that time: 1143:. Riddles are attested in anthologies of poetry and in prosimetrical portrayals of riddle-contests in Arabic 610:, exploring how riddles can inform us about people's conceptualisation and exploration of their environment. 3534:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 65–79 (pp. 72–75). 2016:

The unsolvable riddle with which literary characters often win a riddle-contest is sometimes referred to as

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propounds around 37 riddles (depending on the manuscript). These riddles do, however, provide insights into

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Key examples of internationally widespread riddles follow, based on the classic (European-focused) study by

837: 3452:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 148–67 (p. 148). 3409:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 121–47 (p. 140). 1692:

Literary riddles in China first begin to be attested in significant numbers around the second century CE.

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http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/IcelOnline/IcelOnline-idx?type=HTML&rgn=DIV2&byte=187436

1326:, but, while certainly cryptic, they are not necessarily riddles in a strict sense. About 150 survive in 3465:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 83–99 (p. 84). 3004:

Martin Haug, "Vedische Räthselfragen und Räthselsprüche (Uebersetzung und Erklärung von Rigv. 1, 164)",

1463:

After the early Middle Ages, the riddle was seldom used as a literary form in English. Tellingly, while

5079: 3076:(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1948), pp. 16–17, citing A. Führer, "Sanskrit-Räthsel", 3017:

Jan E. M. Houben, "The Ritual Pragmatics of a Vedic Hymn: The 'Riddle Hymn' and the Pravargya Ritual",

2525:, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20). 366: 351: 1616:

Even research on the post-medieval Celtic-speaking world has yielded a "comparatively meagre corpus".

1757: 1246:. The pre-eminent collection of ancient Latin riddles is a collection of 100 hexametrical riddles by 497: 4992: 3720:

Die skandinavischen Rätselbücher auf der Grundlage der deutschen Rätselbuch-Traditionen (1540–1805)

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Elaborate and unusual riddle-games took place in the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century

1519: 1511: 459: 356: 256: 3732:

Strassburger Räthselbuch: Die erste zu Strassburg ums Jahr 1505 gedruckte deutsche Räthselsammlung

1924: 169: 4060:, ed. by Galit Hasan-Rokem and David Shulman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 225–36. 3646:, Sammlung Metzler, 53. Realienbücher für Germanisten. Abt. E: Poetik (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1966). 3426:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 121–47. 2942: 1062: 904: 840:, to which the pre-eminent solution is 'cow' is given here in thirteenth-century Icelandic form: 781:

The riddle describes a crawling baby, a standing person, and an old person with a walking stick.

504: 493: 448:, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. 20: 3706: 3439:, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 83–99. 2138:, Will and Bran must win a riddle game in order for Bran to claim his heritage as the Pendragon. 2080:

catalogue two main folktale-types including riddle-contests: AT 927, Outriddling the Judge, and

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Likewise, early modern English-speakers published printed riddle collections, such as the 1598

1323: 1305: 151: 118: 5106: 4443:, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), pp. 35–36; 4167: 3133:, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), pp. 11–12; 2225: 2205: 1609: 1388: 1384: 1376: 392: 371: 281: 123: 3594:, Hermaea germanistische Forschungen, neue Folge, 69 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994), pp. 158–74. 1061:

The first riddle collection in a medieval Indic language is traditionally thought to be the

5111: 2142: 1587:, an elaborate text entitled 'Canu y Gwynt' ('song of the wind') in the fourteenth-century 1216: 1133:. Since early Arabic and Persian poetry often features rich, metaphorical description, and 964: 743: 644: 4731: 3618:

The Reception of Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century

511:, literally meaning 'thing to be guessed, thing to be interpreted'. From this comes Dutch 8: 4817: 3461:

Christine Luz, "What has it got in its Pocketses? Or, What Makes a Riddle a Riddle?", in

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Christine Luz, "What has it got in its Pocketses? Or, What Makes a Riddle a Riddle?", in

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When you use it you throw it away, and when you do not use it you bring it back. (Anchor)

1767:

There is a small vessel filled with sauce, one vessel holding two different kinds. (Egg)

1592: 1527: 1492: 1301: 1255: 1066: 224: 146: 4179:

SEALSXII: papers from the 13th meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (2003)

3317:, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (London: Routledge, 1998), II 479. 2828:

Human and NonHuman in Anglo-Saxon and British Postwar Poetry: Reshaping Literary Ecology

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Riddles have also attracted linguists, often studying riddles from the point of view of

4954: 4944: 4839: 4682: 4606: 4528: 4507: 4486: 4465: 4422: 4376: 4355: 4265: 4236: 4207: 4136: 4087: 4040: 3907: 3702: 3663: 3369: 3260: 3181: 3107: 3030: 2991: 2858: 2809: 2648: 2573: 2463: 2430: 2361: 2134: 1485: 1363:(c. 639–709), written in Latin and inspired by the fourth- or fifth-century Latin poet 1356: 1327: 1172: 1100: 618: 361: 141: 35: 4743: 2372:, ed. by Martin Chase (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), pp. 114–35 (p. 116). 1599:: in a twelfth-century text, Lailoken poses three riddles to his captor King Meldred. 5116: 4764: 4414: 4326: 4293: 3840:

Heroic Poets and Poetic Heroes in Celtic Tradition: A Festschrift for Patrick K. Ford

3698: 3479: 2669: 2331: 2255: 2235: 1809: 1664: 1489: 1260: 1186:

Riddles have been collected by modern scholars throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

1156: 1090: 247: 132: 113: 108: 3941:(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 115. Cf. Vernam Hull and Archer Taylor, 2582: 994:. These riddles overlap in significant part with a collection of forty-seven in the 5144: 5074: 4598: 4549: 4444: 4406: 4334: 4285: 4257: 4228: 4199: 4115: 4019: 3899: 3752: 3694: 3513: 3361: 3252: 3173: 3134: 3099: 3022: 2801: 2706:, Medieval European Studies, 17 (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2015). 2704:

Isidorean Perceptions of Order: The Exeter Book Riddles and Medieval Latin Enigmata

2677: 2640: 2587: 2565: 2455: 2422: 2417:

Georges, Robert A.; Dundes, Alan. "Towards a Structural Definition of the Riddle",

2353: 2323: 2250: 2240: 2230: 2210: 2094: 2044: 1949: 1928: 1828: 1728: 1718: 1631: 1625: 1588: 1515: 1094: 1086: 648: 385: 310: 305: 90: 26: 3808: 3756: 2586:, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), 2048: 1984: 1613:, first attested in the fifteenth century, at least one riddle is arguably posed. 1495:

once wrote "All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle".

1070: 5002: 4939: 4867: 4721: 3827:

Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs

3579:

Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs

3545:

Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs

2606:"Into the Darkness First: Neoplatonism And Neurosis In Old English Wisdom Poetry" 2245: 2220: 1882: 1717:

The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese

1535: 1473: 1345: 1319: 1283: 1268: 1211: 1200: 1164: 1121: 671: 320: 4696: 3633:, Hermea: Germanistische Forschungen, Neue Folge, 69 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994). 3620:, Münchner Nordistische Studien, 14 (München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2013), p. 198. 1968:

Riddles are found extensively in the settler-colonial cultures of the Americas.

1314:

The Exeter Book: the principal manuscript of medieval Germanic-language riddles.

1099:

While riddles are not numerous in the Bible, they are present, most famously in

969:

It is thought that the world's earliest surviving poetic riddles survive in the

5017: 4862: 4854: 4323:

Meaning and Truth in African Philosophy: Doing African Philosophy with Language

4252:

Hamnett, Ian, "Ambiguity, Classification and Change: the Function of Riddles",

4023: 2029: 1957: 1932: 1584: 1477: 1464: 1231: 1215:, which contains about 50 verse riddles, probably put into its present form by 1160: 1104: 1045: 1026: 667: 640: 195: 4371:

Cf. Wolfgang Mieder, "Proverbs of the Native Americans; A Prize Competition",

4338: 3517: 2681: 1721:. China also contributed a distinctive kind of riddle known in English as the 1681:(底, "base", the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include 1553:

Some riddles are composed of foreign words and play on similar sounds, as in:

417: 57: 5138: 4964: 4922: 4879: 4716: 4677: 4418: 3217: 2398: 2335: 2275: 2124: 2108: 1998: 1953: 1894:

recent monograph study. Wambi Cornelius Gulere wrote his doctoral project at

1714:

Thus the answer to "thousand kilometres meet thousand gold" is "妈" (mother).

1607:, first attested in twelfth-century manuscripts, and in one such contest, in 1507: 1499: 1469: 1251: 1025:

Accordingly, riddles are treated in early studies of Sanskrit poetry such as

623: 607: 588: 544: 540: 451: 444:

language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and

200: 179: 76: 4756: 3387:

Persian and Arabic Riddles: A Language-Centered Approach to Genre Definition

3154:, A History of Indian Literature, 8 (Harrassowitz: Wiesbaden, 1975), p. 129. 2853:

Frederick Tupper, Jr, "Originals and Analogues of the Exeter Book Riddles",

1770:

Washing makes it more and more dirty; it is cleaner without washing. (Water)

1038:

Early narrative literature also sometimes includes riddles, prominently the

5096: 5038: 4969: 4844: 4622:

Erin Sebo, "In scirpo nodum: Symphosius' Reworking of the Riddle Form", in

4177:. In Iwasaki, Soichi; Simpaon, Andrew; Adams, Karen; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). 2154: 2129: 1869: 1791: 1753: 1352: 1168: 1145: 1055: 1022:'s first teacher and counselor and a man noted for his outbursts of rage'. 895:

The cow has four teats, four legs, two horns, two back legs, and one tail.

636: 595: 290: 174: 99: 4638:, ed. by Marjorie Dundas (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002). 4441:

Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre

4289: 3397: 3395: 3131:

Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre

2583:

Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre

1330:, mostly quoted in other literary contexts. Likewise, riddles are rare in 466:

riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas

5053: 4909: 4802: 3680:

Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond: Poetic Variety in Medieval Iceland and Norway

3655: 2992:

Indian Riddles: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Sanskrit Literature

2796:

Luke Powers, "Tests for True Wit: Jonathan Swift's Pen and Ink Riddles",

2370:

Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond: Poetic Variety in Medieval Iceland and Norway

2270: 2260: 2186: 2170: 2072: 2017: 1979: 1783: 1380: 1372: 1368: 1040: 1031: 1015: 995: 722: 655: 627: 584: 565: 552: 520: 300: 190: 156: 4490: 3911: 3667: 3291:, ed. by Isidore Singer (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901–1907), s.v. 3240: 2382: 1348:, medieval Scandinavian social norms, and rarely attested poetic forms. 651:, possibly carried there by Western contacts in the last two centuries. 5123: 5048: 5007: 4997: 4927: 4917: 4829: 4812: 4380: 4325:, Philosophical Studies Series, 135 (Cham: Springer, 2018), pp. 73–88; 4269: 4140: 4091: 4044: 3722:(Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2010) (PhD thesis, Münster University, 2004). 3392: 3373: 3264: 2862: 2827: 2813: 2182: 2099: 2032:, riddle-competitions were popular as an intellectual entertainment at 1364: 1341: 1247: 1130: 325: 265: 210: 4610: 4426: 4394: 4240: 4211: 4104: 3689:

s Wave-Riddles and Supernatural Women in Old Norse Poetic Tradition",

3199: 3185: 3164:

Prakash Vatuk, Ved (1969). "Amir Khusro and Indian Riddle Tradition".

3111: 3090:

Prakash Vatuk, Ved (1969). "Amir Khusro and Indian Riddle Tradition".

3034: 2652: 2577: 2492:

Umoh, S. J. 2007. "The Ibibio Proverb—Riddles and Language Pedagogy".

2467: 2434: 2365: 2311: 1819:

before saying the riddle; usually it is common to create riddles that

1650:

some of the first surviving evidence for Finnish-language literature.

5101: 5058: 5012: 4979: 4934: 4899: 4554: 4532: 4511: 4469: 4359: 4014:

Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 'A New Reading of an Early Medieval Riddle',

3903: 3783:

Puzzling the Reader: Riddles in Nineteenth-century British Literature

2831:(unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Leeds, 2013), pp. 92–128. 2037: 2033: 2002: 1331: 1322:: three, very short, possible examples exist in manuscripts from the 1227: 1206: 1151: 1134: 1119:

also mentions riddles as a popular dinner pastime, while the Aramaic

991: 983: 603: 330: 233: 220: 4580:

Ghiano, Juan Carlos (1974). "El Contrapunto de Fierro y el Moreno".

4448: 4261: 3970:

Leea Virtanen, "The Collecting and Study of Riddles in Finland", in

3887: 3422:'Gods Cannot Tell Lies': Riddling and Ancient Greek Divination", in 3405:'Gods Cannot Tell Lies': Riddling and Ancient Greek Divination", in 3365: 3256: 3138: 2805: 2591: 1563:

1 2 3 Cat because Un deux trois quatre cinq (un deux trois cat sank)

925:

Here, a snowflake falls from the sky, and is blown off by the wind.

5043: 5022: 4987: 4787: 4651:, Garland Folklore Library, 7 (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 10–11. 4602: 4410: 4232: 4203: 4119: 3928:, Garland Folklore Library, 7 (New York: Garland, 1993), pp. 36–37. 3844:

Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Transmission

3177: 3103: 3061:

Homo Ludens: Proeve eener bepaling van het spel-element der cultuur

3026: 2668:(Stuttgart: M und P, Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1991): 2644: 2569: 2459: 2426: 2357: 2327: 2265: 2200: 2112: 2006: 1878: 1796: 1749: 1596: 970: 789:

This type includes riddles along the lines of this German example:

730: 726: 561: 557: 441: 437: 421: 4702: 2051:

observed customary riddle-contests in nineteenth-century Finland:

1530:" (Child 47). Contemporary English-language riddles typically use 4884: 4834: 4571:. Ed. Centro de Documentación Musical de Andalucía, 1992, pág. 27 4056:

Andrew H. Plaks, 'Riddle and Enigma in Chinese Civilization', in

3328:

Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry

2978:

Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry

2767:

p. 266. Davenport, William. 1952. Fourteen Marshallese Riddles.

2624:

Courtly Riddles: Enigmatic Embellishments in Early Persian Poetry

2551:(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011). 1808:

as a form of past time or as an activity. One peculiarity of the

1360: 1243: 1108: 974: 951: 572: 463: 315: 295: 161: 4624: