Four Hang; Two Point the Way is the name given by the folklorist
Archer Taylor
Archer Taylor (August 1, 1890September 30, 1973) was one of America's "foremost specialists in American and European folklore","Archer Taylor, UC professor", ''The San Francisco Examiner'', 2 October 1973, p. 49. with a special interest in cultur ...
to a traditional
riddle
A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requi ...
-type noted for its wide international distribution. The most common solution is 'cow', and in Taylor's view 'we can probably infer that a cow was the original answer'.
[Archer Taylor, ]
English Riddles from Oral Tradition
' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951).
Research
The seminal study of this riddle type, published in 1918–20, was by
Antti Aarne
Antti Amatus Aarne (December 5, 1867 in Pori – February 2, 1925 in Helsinki) was a Finnish folklorist.
Background
Antti was a student of Kaarle Krohn, the son of the folklorist Julius Krohn.
He further developed their historic-geographic ...
.
[Cf. Antti Aarne, ''Vergleichende Rätselforschungen'', 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 60–172.] Archer Taylor surveyed subsequent work and offered new contributions in 1951.
Form
In Taylor's view,
an essential element in the conception seems to be the contrast of pointing up and pointing down ..The characteristic features of this pattern are the naming of the members of an animal and the referring to their numbers. The members are described in terms of their functions, and the functions may be identified—and often are identified—by periphrases that are intentionally confusing ..the wit of the pattern turns on the inventing of strange, yet not wholly incomprehensible, terms for the ears, horns, eyes, feet, or other members of the creature that the riddler is describing.
As well as the cow, attested solutions include numerous other animals, the sun and the moon, and various man-made objects.
Examples
What appears to be the earliest vernacular attestation of the riddle
[Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks''', ed. by Hannah Burrows, in ''Poetry in 'Fornaldarsögur': Part 1'', ed. by Margaret Clunies Ross, Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, 8 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), pp. 367-487.] appears in the ''
Riddles of Gestumblindi'', a
riddle-contest included in the probably thirteenth-century
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
''
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
''Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks'' (The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek) is a legendary saga from the 13th century combining matter from several older sagas in Germanic heroic legend. It tells of wars between the Goths and the Huns during the 4th century ...
'':
The cow has four udders, four legs, two horns, two back legs, and one tail.
One Mongolian instance runs 'four high and slow, high and slow; five younger sisters; two wobbling right and left; you poor one alone', the answer to which is 'a camel's four legs, head and legs, humps, and tail'.
References
{{reflist
Riddles