![Rembrandt Harmensz](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_146.jpg)
A riddle is a
statement,
question
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammar, grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are inte ...
or
phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a
puzzle
A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at th ...
to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
ical or
allegorical
As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory th ...
language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer.
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 ...
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.
In the assessment of
Elli Köngäs-Maranda
Elli-Kaija Köngäs-Maranda (11 January 1932, Tervola, Finland – 1 November 1982, Québec City, Canada) was an internationally renowned anthropologist and feminist folklorist. She studied Finnish language and folklore at the University of Helsink ...
(originally writing about
Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas
myth
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...
s 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 ultimately to affirm them".
Definitions and research
Etymology
The modern English word ''riddle'' shares its origin with the word ''read'', both stemming from the
Common Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
verb
*''rēdaną'', which meant 'to interpret, guess'. From this verb came the
West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into t ...
noun *''rādislī'', literally meaning 'thing to be guessed, thing to be interpreted'. From this comes Dutch ''raadsel'', German ''Rätsel'', and
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
*''rǣdels'', the latter of which became modern English ''riddle''.
Definitions
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
Robert Petsch August Ferdinand Robert Petsch (born Berlin 4 June 1875, died Hamburg 10 September 1945) was a German researcher of Germanic culture and folklore.
Life and work
Petsch studied in Berlin with Erich Schmidt and at the University of Würzburg, wher ...
in 1899, with another seminal contribution, inspired by
structuralism
In sociology, anthropology, archaeology, history, philosophy, and linguistics, structuralism is a general theory of culture and methodology that implies that elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a broader ...
, by
Robert A. Georges
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
and
Alan Dundes
Alan Dundes (September 8, 1934 – March 30, 2005) was an American folklorist. He spent much of his career as a professional academic at the University of California, Berkeley and published his ideas in a wide range of books and articles.
H ...
in 1963.
[Georges, Robert A.; Dundes, Alan. "Towards a Structural Definition of the Riddle", ''Journal of American Folklore'', 76(300) (1963), 111–18 , . Reprinted in Alan Dundes, ''Analytic Essays in Folklore'' (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), pp. 95–102.] 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
charades
Charades (, ). is a parlor game, parlor or party game, party word game, word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the w ...
,
droodles
''Droodles'' was a syndicated cartoon feature created by Roger Price and collected in his 1953 book ''Droodles'', though the term is now used more generally of similar visual riddles.
Form
The general form is minimal: a square box containing a ...
, and some
jokes
A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, ...
.
In some traditions and contexts, riddles may overlap with
proverb
A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic speech, formulaic language. A proverbial phra ...
s. 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).
Research
Much academic research on riddles has focused on collecting, cataloguing, defining, and typologising riddles. Key work on cataloguing and typologising riddles was published 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 m ...
in 1918–20,
[Antti Aarne, ''Vergleichende Rätselforschungen'', 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20).] and by
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 ...
. In the case of ancient riddles recorded without solutions, considerable scholarly energy also goes into proposing and debating solutions.
Whereas previously researchers had tended to take riddles out of their social performance contexts, the rise of
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
in the post-War period encouraged more researchers to study the social role of riddles and riddling. However, wide-ranging studies of riddles have tended to be limited to Western countries, with Asian and African riddles being relatively neglected.
Riddles have also attracted linguists, often studying riddles from the point of view of
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
; meanwhile, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of extensive work on medieval European riddles from the point of view of
eco-criticism
Ecocriticism is the study of literature and ecology from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature. It w ...
, exploring how riddles can inform us about people's conceptualisation and exploration of their environment.
International riddles
![Faroe stamp 389 the tree of the year](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Faroe_stamp_389_the_tree_of_the_year.jpg)
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
Ewe language
Ewe (''Eʋe'' or ''Eʋegbe'' ) is a language spoken by approximately 20 million people in West Africa, mainly in Ghana, Togo and Benin, and also in some other countries like Liberia and southwestern Nigeria. Ewe is part of a cluster of related ...
by speakers of the neighboring
Logba language
Logba is a Kwa language spoken in the south-eastern Ghana by approximately 7,500 people. The Logba people call themselves and their language ''Ikpana'', which means ‘defenders of truth’. Logba is different from Lukpa of Togo and Benin, whic ...
: "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
Riddle of the Sphinx
A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon.
In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...
has also been documented in the
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Internati ...
, possibly carried there by Western contacts in the last two centuries.
Key examples of internationally widespread riddles follow, based on the classic (European-focused) study 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 m ...
.
Writing-riddle
The basic form of the
writing-riddle is 'White field, black seeds', where the field is a page and the seeds are letters. An example is the eighth- or ninth-century
Veronese Riddle
The Veronese Riddle ( it, Indovinello veronese) is a riddle written in late Vulgar Latin, or early Romance languages, Romance, on the Verona Orational, probably in the 8th or early 9th century, by a Nicene Christianity, Christian monastery, monk ...
:
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.
[Luke Powers, "Tests for True Wit: Jonathan Swift's Pen and Ink Riddles", ''South Central Review'', 7.4 (Winter 1990), 40–52; . .]
Year-riddle
The
year-riddle
The year-riddle is one of the most widespread, and apparently most ancient, international riddle-types in Eurasia. This type of riddle is first attested in Rigveda, Vedic tradition thought to originate in the second millennium BCE.
Research
Stu ...
is found across Eurasia. For example, a riddle in the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
''
Rig Veda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
'' describes a 'twelve-spoked wheel, upon which stand 720 sons of one birth' (i.e. the twelve months of the year, which together have 360 days and 360 nights).
Person-riddle
The most famous example of this type is the
riddle of the Sphinx
A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon.
In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...
. This Estonian example shows the pattern:
The riddle describes a crawling baby, a standing person, and an old person with a walking stick.
Two-legs, three-legs, and four-legs
This type includes riddles along the lines of this German example:
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.
Cow-riddle
An example of the cow-riddle is given here in thirteenth-century Icelandic form:
The cow has four teats, four legs, two horns, two back legs, and one tail.
Featherless bird-riddle
The
featherless bird-riddle is best known in Central Europe. An English version is:
White bird featherless
Flew from Paradise,
Perched upon the castle wall;
Up came Lord John landless,
Took it up handless,
And rode away horseless to the King's white hall.
Here, a snowflake falls from the sky, and is blown off by the wind.
Riddle-traditions by region
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.
Babylon
According to Archer Taylor, "the oldest recorded riddles are
Babylon
''Bābili(m)''
* sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠
* arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel''
* syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel''
* grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn''
* he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel''
* peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru''
* elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...
ian 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 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.
South Asia
It is thought that the world's earliest surviving poetic riddles survive in the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
''
Rigveda
The ''Rigveda'' or ''Rig Veda'' ( ', from ' "praise" and ' "knowledge") is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (''sūktas''). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (''śruti'') known as the Vedas. Only one Sh ...
''.
Hymn 164 of the
first book
First Book is a national, nonprofit social enterprise focusing on educational equity as a path out of poverty. The organization addresses barriers to education faced by children in low-income and historically excluded communities by providing brand ...
of the ''Rigveda'' can be understood to comprise a series of riddles or enigmas which are now obscure but may have been an enigmatic exposition of the
pravargya ritual. These riddles overlap in significant part with a collection of forty-seven in the
Atharvaveda
The Atharva Veda (, ' from ' and ''veda'', meaning "knowledge") is the "knowledge storehouse of ''atharvāṇas'', the procedures for everyday life".Laurie Patton (2004), Veda and Upanishad, in ''The Hindu World'' (Editors: Sushil Mittal and G ...
; riddles also appear elsewhere in
Vedic texts
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
. 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 (''vi''), the second dog (''śvā''), the third sun (''mitra''), and the whole is
Vishvamitra
Vishvamitra ( sa, विश्वामित्र, ) is one of the most venerated rishis or sages of ancient India. According to Hindu tradition, he is stated to have written most of the Mandala 3 of the Rigveda, including the Gayatri Mant ...
,
Rama
Rama (; ), Ram, Raman or Ramar, also known as Ramachandra (; , ), is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular '' avatars'' of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Bein ...
's first teacher and counselor and a man noted for his outbursts of rage'.
Accordingly, riddles are treated in early studies of Sanskrit poetry such as
Daṇḍin's seventh- or eighth-century ''
Kāvyādarśa The Kavyadarsha ( sa, काव्यादर्श, ) by Dandin is the earliest surviving systematic treatment of poetics in Sanskrit.
Contents
This work is divided into 3 ''pariccheda''s (chapters) in most of the printed editions, except one, ...
''.
Early narrative literature also sometimes includes riddles, prominently the ''
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...
'', which for example contains the
Yaksha Prashna
The Yaksha Prashna, also known as the Dharma Baka Upakhyana or the Akshardhama, is the story of a question-and-answer dialogue between Yudhishthira and a yaksha in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. It appears in the Vana Parva, and the story is set ...
, a series of riddles posed by a nature-spirit (''
yaksha
The yakshas ( sa, यक्ष ; pi, yakkha, i=yes) are a broad class of nature-spirits, usually benevolent, but sometimes mischievous or capricious, connected with water, fertility, trees, the forest, treasure and wilderness. They appear in ...
'') to
Yudhishthira
''Yudhishthira'' (Sanskrit: युधिष्ठिर, IAST: ''Yudhiṣṭhira'') is the eldest among the five Pandava brothers. He is mentioned in the ancient epic Mahabharata. He was sired by King Pandu of the Kuru Dynasty and his first w ...
.
[Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj, ''Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre'', Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), pp. 11–12; .]
The first riddle collection in a medieval Indic language is traditionally thought to be the
riddles of Amir Khusrow
The Riddles of Amir Khusrow were developed during the royal courts of more than seven rulers of the Delhi Sultanate. During this time, Khusrow wrote not only many playful riddles, but songs and legends which have been a part of popular culture in ...
(1253–1325), which are written in
Hindawi Hindawi or Hindavi can refer to:
* Hindawi affair
*Hindustani language (Hindi-Urdu), Central Indo-Aryan languages, or any language of the Hindi Belt
*Something of, from, or related to Hind or Hindustan (another name of India)
*Hindawi Programming S ...
, in verse, in the
mātrika metre ''Mātrika'' metre is a quantitative system of poetic metre in Indo-Aryan languages.
The unit of measurement is the '' mātrā'' or 'beat', from which it takes its name. A short vowel or a pause is counted as one ''mātrā'', and long vowels, dipht ...
.
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.
Hebrew, Arabic and Persian
While riddles are not numerous in the Bible, they are present, most famously in
Samson's riddle
250px, '' The Wedding Feast of Samson'', Rembrandt, 1638
Samson's riddle is found in the biblical Book of Judges, where it is incorporated into a larger narrative about Samson, the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites. The riddle, with wh ...
in Judges xiv.14, but also in I Kings 10:1–13 (where the
Queen of Sheba
The Queen of Sheba ( he, מַלְכַּת שְׁבָא, Malkaṯ Šəḇāʾ; ar, ملكة سبأ, Malikat Sabaʾ; gez, ንግሥተ ሳባ, Nəgśətä Saba) is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In the original story, she bring ...
tests
Solomon
Solomon (; , ),, ; ar, سُلَيْمَان, ', , ; el, Σολομών, ; la, Salomon also called Jedidiah (Hebrew language, Hebrew: , Modern Hebrew, Modern: , Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yăḏīḏăyāh'', "beloved of Yahweh, Yah"), ...
's wisdom), and in the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
.
[Joseph Jacobs, "Riddle", in ''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'', ed. by Isidore Singer (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901–1907), s.v.] Sirach
The Book of Sirach () or Ecclesiasticus (; abbreviated Ecclus.) is a Jewish work, originally in Hebrew, of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BC, written by the Judahite scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his fa ...
also mentions riddles as a popular dinner pastime, while the Aramaic ''
Story of Ahikar'' contains a long section of proverbial wisdom that in some versions also contains riddles. Otherwise, riddles are sparse in ancient Semitic writing.
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
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...
. Since early Arabic and Persian poetry often features rich, metaphorical description, and
ekphrasis
The word ekphrasis, or ecphrasis, comes from the Greek for the written description of a work of art produced as a rhetorical or literary exercise, often used in the adjectival form ekphrastic. It is a vivid, often dramatic, verbal descrip ...
, 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 ''
wasf''. Riddles are attested in anthologies of poetry and in prosimetrical portrayals of riddle-contests in Arabic ''
maqāmāt
''Maqāmah'' (مقامة, pl. ''maqāmāt'', مقامات, literally "assemblies") are an (originally) Arabic Prosimetrum, prosimetric literary genre which alternates the Arabic rhymed prose known as ''Saj', Saj‘'' with intervals of poetry in ...
'' and in Persian epics such as the ''
Shahnameh
The ''Shahnameh'' or ''Shahnama'' ( fa, شاهنامه, Šāhnāme, lit=The Book of Kings, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,00 ...
''. Meanwhile, in Hebrew,
Dunash ben Labrat
Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (920/925 – after 985) ( he, ר׳ דוֹנָש הַלֵּוִי בֵּן לָבְּרָט; ar, دناش بن لبراط) was a medieval Jewish commentator, poet, and grammarian of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Sp ...
(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
Moses ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה ב ...
,
Yehuda Alharizi
Yehuda Alharizi, also Judah ben Solomon Harizi or al-Harizi ( he, יהודה בן שלמה אלחריזי, ''Yehudah ben Shelomo al-Harizi'', ar, يحيا بن سليمان بن شاؤل أبو زكريا الحريزي اليهودي من أه ...
,
Judah Halevi
Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; he, יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi ; ar, يهوذا اللاوي ''Yahuḏa al-Lāwī''; 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, ...
,
Immanuel the Roman
Immanuel ben Solomon ben Jekuthiel of Rome (Immanuel of Rome, Immanuel Romano, Manoello Giudeo) (1261 in Rome – ca. 1335 in Fermo, Italy) was a Jewish poet and author who lived in present-day Italy and composed works in Hebrew and Italian. Imman ...
and
Israel Onceneyra
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
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.
Riddles have been collected by modern scholars throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
Europe
Greek
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
symposia
''Symposia'' is a genus of South American araneomorph spiders in the family Cybaeidae, and was first described by Eugène Simon in 1898.
Species
it contains six species in Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic o ...
.
[Frederick G. Naerebout and Kim Beerden, Gods Cannot Tell Lies': Riddling and Ancient Greek Divination", in ''The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry'', ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain, and Mikolaj Szymanski (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), pp. 121–47 (p. 140).] 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 ''
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Pa ...
'', which contains about 50 verse riddles, probably put into its present form by
Constantine Cephalas
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
* Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given na ...
, working in the tenth century CE. Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse. In the second chapter of Book III of Aristotle's ''Rhetoric'', 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."
Literary riddles were also composed in
Byzantium
Byzantium () or Byzantion ( grc, Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' cont ...
, from perhaps the tenth century with the work of
John Geometres John Geometres or Kyriotes ( el, Ιωάννης Γεωμέτρης/Κυριώτης, ), was a Byzantine poet, soldier, and monk. He is one of the main literary figures of the Macedonian Renaissance.
Biography and work
John was probably of noble d ...
, 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.
Latin and romance
Two Latin riddles are preserved as graffiti in the Basilica at
Pompeii
Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was buried ...
. The pre-eminent collection of ancient Latin riddles is a collection of 100 hexametrical riddles by
Symphosius
Symphosius (sometimes, in older scholarship and less properly, Symposius) was the author of the ''Aenigmata'', an influential collection of 100 Latin riddles, probably from the late antique period. They have been transmitted along with their soluti ...
which were influential on later medieval Latin writers. The
Bern Riddles
The Bern Riddles, also known as ''Aenigmata Bernensia'', ''Aenigmata Hexasticha'' or ''Riddles of Tullius'', are a collection of 63 metrical Latin riddles, named after the location of their earliest surviving manuscript, which today is held in Be ...
, 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
Anglo-Saxon riddlers who wrote in Latin. They remained influential in medieval Castilian tradition, being the basis for the second set of riddles in the thirteenth-century ''
Libro de Apolonio
The ''Libro de Apolonio'' (Book of Apollonius) is an anonymous work of medieval Spanish literature written in Alexandrine quatrains around the middle of the thirteenth century in the learned genre of the ''Mester de clerecía
Mester de Clerecí ...
'', posed by Apolonio's daughter Tarsiana to her father.
The perhaps eighth- or ninth-century
Veronese Riddle
The Veronese Riddle ( it, Indovinello veronese) is a riddle written in late Vulgar Latin, or early Romance languages, Romance, on the Verona Orational, probably in the 8th or early 9th century, by a Nicene Christianity, Christian monastery, monk ...
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 ''
Adevineaux amoureux'' (printed in Bruges by Colard Mansion around 1479); and ''Demandes joyeuses en maniere de quolibets'', the basis for
Wynkyn de Worde
Wynkyn de Worde (died 1534) was a printer and publisher in London known for his work with William Caxton, and is recognised as the first to popularise the products of the printing press in England.
Name
Wynkyn de Worde was a German immigra ...
's 1511 ''
Demaundes Joyous''.
The Germanic-speaking world
![Exeter Book](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Exeter_Book.jpg)
Riddles survive only fragmentarily in
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050.
There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...
: three, very short, possible examples exist in manuscripts from the
Monastery of St Gallen, but, while certainly cryptic, they are not necessarily riddles in a strict sense. About 150 survive in
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
, mostly quoted in other literary contexts. Likewise, riddles are rare in
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 ...
: almost all occur in one section of ''
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 ...
'', in which the god
Óðinn
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, ...
propounds around 37 riddles (depending on the manuscript). These riddles do, however, provide insights into
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ...
, medieval Scandinavian social norms, and rarely attested poetic forms.
By contrast, verse riddles were prominent in
early medieval England
Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of ...
, following the seminal composition of
one hundred and one riddles by
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...
(c. 639–709), written in Latin and inspired by the fourth- or fifth-century Latin poet
Symphosius
Symphosius (sometimes, in older scholarship and less properly, Symposius) was the author of the ''Aenigmata'', an influential collection of 100 Latin riddles, probably from the late antique period. They have been transmitted along with their soluti ...
. 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
Exeter Book
The Exeter Book, also known as the Codex Exoniensis or Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501, is a large codex of Old English poetry, believed to have been produced in the late tenth century AD. It is one of the four major manuscripts of Old Engli ...
, one of the main surviving collections of
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
verse. The riddles in this book vary in subject matter from ribald innuendo to theological sophistication. Three,
Exeter Book Riddle 35 The "Leiden Riddle" is an Old English riddle (which also survives in a similar form in the Exeter Book known as Exeter Book Riddle 33 or 35). It is noteworthy for being one of the earliest attested pieces of English poetry; one of only a small numbe ...
and
Riddles 40/66, 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 (
Exeter Book Riddle 27) or a reed-pen or -pipe (
Exeter Book Riddle 60 Exeter Book Riddle 60 (according to the numbering of the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records) is one of the Old English riddles found in the later tenth-century Exeter Book. The riddle is usually solved as 'reed pen', although such pens were not in use in A ...
). 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.
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 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 ''Strassburger Rätselbuch'', first published around 1500 and many times reprinted. This is one of the most famous riddles of that time:
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)".
Likewise, early modern English-speakers published printed riddle collections, such as the 1598 ''Riddles of Heraclitus and Democritus'', which includes for example the following riddle:
First I was small, and round like a pearl;
Then long and slender, as brave as an earl;
Since, like an hermit, I lived in a cell,
And now, like a rogue, in the wide world I dwell.
After the early Middle Ages, the riddle was seldom used as a literary form in English. Tellingly, while
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
composed at least eight verse riddles on these 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 of twentieth-century poets, such as
Francis Ponge
Francis Jean Gaston Alfred Ponge (; 27 March 1899 – 6 August 1988) was a French essayist and poet. Influenced by surrealism, he developed a form of prose poem, minutely examining everyday objects. He was the third recipient of the Neustadt Inter ...
,
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
,
Richard Wilbur
Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets of his generation, Wilbur's work, composed primarily in traditional forms, was marked by its wit, charm, and gentle ...
,
Rainer M. Rilke
Rainer may refer to:
People
* Rainer (surname)
* Rainer (given name)
Other
* Rainer Island, an island in Franz Josef Land, Russia
* 16802 Rainer, an asteroid
* Rainer Foundation, British charitable organisation
See also
* Rainier (disambigua ...
, and
Henrikas Radauskas Henrikas Radauskas (born in 1910 in Kraków, Poland, died in 1970 in Washington, D.C.) was a Lithuanian poet and writer.
Radauskas spent his childhood in Panevėžys; subsequently his family relocated to Novonikolayevsk, currently Novosibirsk, wh ...
. The famed
Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
once wrote "All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle".
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
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 ...
's. Riddles are, for example, prominent in some early-modern
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
s collected from oral tradition. Some of those included in the
Child Ballads
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ''T ...
are "
Riddles Wisely Expounded
"Riddles Wisely Expounded" is a traditional English song, dating at least to 1450. It is Child Ballad 1 and Roud 161, and exists in several variants. The first known tune was attached to it in 1719. The title "Riddles Wisely Expounded" was give ...
" (Child 1), "
The Elfin Knight
"The Elfin Knight" () is a traditional Scottish folk ballad of which there are many versions, all dealing with supernatural occurrences, and the commission to perform impossible tasks. The ballad has been collected in different parts of England, ...
" (Child 2), "
King John and the Bishop
"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
It tells how King John, covetous of the bishop of Canterbury's wealth, comp ...
" (Child 45), "
Captain Wedderburn's Courtship
"Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" is an old Scottish ballad dating from 1785 or earlier. It is Child Ballad #46, Roud 36. It is known by a number of titles, including "Lord Roslin's Daughter" and "The Laird of Rosslyn's Daughter".
The song was coll ...
" (Child 46), and "
Proud Lady Margaret
"Proud Lady Margaret" is Child ballad 47, existing in several variants.
Synopsis
A man arrives at the heroine's castle to woo her. She is frequently critical of him, on the grounds that his clothing shows him to be no gentleman. In most variant ...
" (Child 47). Contemporary English-language riddles typically use
pun
A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophonic ...
s and
double entendre
A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...
s for humorous effect, rather than to puzzle the butt of the
joke
A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...
, 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
humour
Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...
and
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
s rather than literary compositions.
Some riddles are composed of foreign words and play on similar sounds, as in:
:''There were two cats, 1 2 3 cat and un deux trois cat, they had a swimming race from England to France. Who won?''
::''1 2 3 Cat because Un deux trois quatre cinq (un deux trois cat sank)''
This plays on the fact that the French words for ''four'' 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.
The Celtic-speaking world
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
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
, an elaborate text entitled 'Canu y Gwynt' ('song of the wind') in the fourteenth-century
Book of Taliesin
The Book of Taliesin ( cy, Llyfr Taliesin) is one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before ...
probably inspired by Latin riddles on the same theme. However, this record is supplemented by Latin material, apparently from a
Brittonic
Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to:
*Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain
*Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic
*Britons (Celtic people)
The Br ...
cultural background in North Britain, about
Lailoken
Lailoken (aka Merlyn Sylvester) was a semi-legendary madman and prophet who lived in the Caledonian Forest in the late 6th century. The ''Life of Saint Kentigern'' mentions "a certain foolish man, who was called ''Laleocen''" living at or near the ...
: in a twelfth-century text, Lailoken poses three riddles to his captor King Meldred.
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 ''The Colloquy of the Two Sages'', first attested in twelfth-century manuscripts, and in one such contest, in ''
Imthecht na Tromdaime'', first attested in the fifteenth century, at least one riddle is arguably posed.
Even research on the post-medieval Celtic-speaking world has yielded a "comparatively meagre corpus".
The Finnic-speaking world
The corpus of traditional riddles from the
Finnic-speaking world (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 ''arvoitus'' (pl. ''arvoitukset''), related to the verb ''arvata'' ("guess").
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.
[Leea Virtanen, "On the Function of Riddles", in ''Arvoitukset: Finnish Riddles'', ed. by Leea Virtanen, Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj and Aarre Nyman, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, Toimituksia, 329 ( elsinki Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1977), pp. 77–89 (at 80–82).] Riddles provide some of the first surviving evidence for Finnish-language literature.
East Asia
China
In modern Chinese, the standard word for 'riddle' is ''mi'' (謎, literally "to bewilder"). Riddles are spoken of as having a ''mian'' (面, "surface", the question component of the riddle), and a ''di'' (底, "base", the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include ''yin'' (讔) and ''sou'' (廋), which both mean "hidden".
[Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 'A New Reading of an Early Medieval Riddle', ''T’oung Pao'', 99 (2013), 53–87 .]
Literary riddles in China first begin to be attested in significant numbers around the second century CE.
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'.
#The first stage of solving the riddle is verbal:
##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).
##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).
#The second stage of solving the riddle is visual: combining the radical "马" (horse) with the radical "女" (daughter) produces the character "妈" (mother).
Thus the answer to "thousand kilometres meet thousand gold" is "妈" (mother).
The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese
Lantern Festival
The Lantern Festival ( zh, t=元宵節, s=元宵节, first=t, hp=Yuánxiāo jié), also called Shangyuan Festival ( zh, t=上元節, s=上元节, first=t, hp=Shàngyuán jié), is a Chinese traditional festival celebrated on the fifteenth d ...
. China also contributed a distinctive kind of riddle known in English as the ''
kōan
A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen.
Etymology
The Japanese term is the Sino-Jap ...
'' (), developed as a teaching technique in
Zen
Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
in the
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
(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
enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
.
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:
* There is a small vessel filled with sauce, one vessel holding two different kinds. (Egg)
* Washing makes it more and more dirty; it is cleaner without washing. (Water)
* When you use it you throw it away, and when you do not use it you bring it back. (Anchor)
The Philippines
Quite similar to its English counterpart, the riddle in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
is called ''Bugtong''. It is traditionally used during a
funeral wake
A wake is a social gathering associated with death, held before or after a funeral. Traditionally, a wake involves family and friends keeping watch over the body of the dead person, usually in the home of the deceased. Some wakes are held at a ...
together with other games such as ''
tong-its'' or the more popular ''sakla'', later generations use ''Bugtong'' as a form of past time or as an activity. One peculiarity of the
Filipino
Filipino may refer to:
* Something from or related to the Philippines
** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines.
** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...
version is the way they start with the
phrase
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consi ...
''Bugtong-bugtong'' before saying the riddle, usually it is common to create riddles that
rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...
.
This is an example of a ''
Tagalog'' ''Bugtong'':
Further south, in
Sulawesi
Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Ar ...
, Indonesia, among the
Pendau, riddles are also used at funeral gatherings.
Africa
Anthropological research in Africa has produced extensive collections of riddles over the last century or so.
[Elli Köngäs Maranda, "Riddles and Riddling: An Introduction", ''The Journal of American Folklore'', 89 (1976), 127–37 (p. 128); ; .] 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 recent monograph study. Wambi Cornelius Gulere wrote his doctoral project at
Makerere University
Makerere University, Kampala (; Mak) is Uganda's largest and oldest institution of higher learning, first established as a technical school in 1922. It became an independent national university in 1970. Today, Makerere University is composed of ni ...
, titled ''Riddle Performance and Societal Discourses: Lessons from
Busoga
Busoga ( Lusoga: Obwakyabazinga bwa Busoga) is a kingdom and one of four constitutional monarchies in present-day Uganda. The kingdom is a cultural institution which promotes popular participation and unity among the people of the region throu ...
''. 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.
The Americas
Native American traditions
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
Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...
riddles collected by
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún, OFM (; – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he ...
in the sixteenth century, in the famous
Florentine codex
The ''Florentine Codex'' is a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Sahagún originally titled it: ''La Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España'' (in English: ''The ...
). 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
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
around 1639 as part of a healing ritual.
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 signifies "glass bead", this is a clue to divine what he desires—namely, some kind of beads of this material, and of different colors.
Accordingly, during the twentieth century, progressively more substantial collections of Native American riddles were made, including from the
Alaskan Athabaskans
The Alaskan Athabascans, Alaskan Athabascans, Alaskan AthapascansWilliam Simeone, ''A History of Alaskan Athapaskans'', 1982, Alaska Historical Commission or Dena (russian: атабаски Аляски, атапаски Аляски) are Alaska ...
(Ten'a) people in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
;
Amuzgo people
The Amuzgos are an indigenous people of Mexico. They primarily live in a region along the Guerrero/Oaxaca border, chiefly in and around four municipalities: Xochistlahuaca, Tlacoachistlahuaca and Ometepec in Guerrero, and San Pedro Amuzgos in Oaxa ...
in Central America; and
Quechua people
Quechua people (, ; ) or Quichua people, may refer to any of the aboriginal people of South America who speak the Quechua languages, which originated among the Indigenous people of Peru. Although most Quechua speakers are native to Peru, there ...
in South America. Thus, while data remains rather thin, it seems clear that riddling did exist in the Americas independently of European culture.
Colonial traditions
Riddles are found extensively in the settler-colonial cultures of the Americas.
One form of riddle features in ''
payada
The ''payada'' is a folk music tradition native to Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brasil, and south Paraguay as part of the ''Gaucho'' culture and literature. In Chile it is called ''paya'' and performed by ''huasos''. It is a performance of impr ...
de contrapunto'' ("counterpoint payada"), a
Rioplatense
Rioplatense Spanish (), also known as Rioplatense Castilian, is a variety of Spanish spoken mainly in and around the Río de la Plata Basin of Argentina and Uruguay. It is also referred to as River Plate Spanish or Argentine Spanish. It is the ...
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 insults—typically with a humorous intent. The most famous literary example of counterpoint payada comes from
Martín Fierro
''Martín Fierro'', also known as ''El Gaucho Martín Fierro'', is a 2,316-line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, ''El Gaucho Martín Fierro'' (1872) and ''La Vuelta de Martín F ...
, Part 2, Song 30, verses 6233–6838.
Riddle-contests
The Riddle Game is a formalized
guessing game
A guess (or an act of guessing) is a swift conclusion drawn from data directly at hand, and held as probable or tentative, while the person making the guess (the guesser) admittedly lacks material for a greater degree of certainty. A guess is als ...
, a contest of wit and skill in which players take turns asking riddles. The player that cannot answer loses. Riddle games occur frequently in
mythology
Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
and
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
as well as in popular literature.
It is important to understand that 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.
The unsolvable riddle with which literary characters often win a riddle-contest is sometimes referred to as
neck-riddle.
In real life
It seems that in
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
, riddle-competitions were popular as an intellectual entertainment at
symposia
''Symposia'' is a genus of South American araneomorph spiders in the family Cybaeidae, and was first described by Eugène Simon in 1898.
Species
it contains six species in Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic o ...
.
A key source for this culture is
Athenaeus
Athenaeus of Naucratis (; grc, Ἀθήναιος ὁ Nαυκρατίτης or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; la, Athenaeus Naucratita) was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, flourishing about the end of th ...
.
Elaborate and unusual riddle-games took place in the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
Finnish-language riddles.
For example,
Elias Lönnrot
Elias Lönnrot (; 9 April 1802 – 19 March 1884) was a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for creating the Finnish national epic, ''Kalevala'',
(1835, enlarged 1849), from short b ...
observed customary riddle-contests in nineteenth-century Finland:
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 participate again.
In ancient, medieval, and folk literature
In older texts, riddle-contests frequently provide the
frame stories
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent.
Frame and FRAME may also refer to:
Physical objects
In building construction
*Framing (con ...
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
Aarne–Thompson classification systems catalogue two main folktale-types including riddle-contests: AT 927, Outriddling the Judge, and
AT 851
"The Riddle" (german: Das Rätsel) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' in 1819 (KHM 22). It is of Aarne-Thompson type 851 ("Winning the Princess with a Riddle").
It is sometimes known as "A Riddli ...
, The Princess Who Can Not Solve the Riddle.
In modern literature
* In
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
's novel ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'',
Gollum
Gollum is a fictional Tolkien's monsters, character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He was introduced in the 1937 Fantasy (genre), fantasy novel ''The Hobbit'', and became important in its sequel, ''The Lord of the Rings''. Gol ...
challenges
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel ''The Hobbit'', a supporting character in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the fictional narrator (along with Frodo Baggins) of many of Tolkien's Middle-eart ...
to a riddle competition for his life. Bilbo breaks "the ancient rules" of the game but is able to escape with Gollum's magic
ring
Ring may refer to:
* Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry
* To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell
:(hence) to initiate a telephone connection
Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...
. Rather like in the Old Norse ''Heiðreks saga'', 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.
[Adam Roberts, ''The Riddles of the Hobbit'' (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).]
* In ''
The Grey King
''The Grey King'' is a contemporary fantasy novel by Susan Cooper, published almost simultaneously by Chatto & Windus and Atheneum in 1975. It is the fourth of five books in her Arthurian fantasy series '' The Dark is Rising''.
''The Grey King ...
'', the third book of
Susan Cooper
Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May 1935) is an English author of children's books. She is best known for '' The Dark Is Rising'', a contemporary fantasy series set in England and Wales, which incorporates British mythology such as the Arthurian le ...
's fantasy sequence ''
The Dark is Rising'', Will and Bran must win a riddle game in order for Bran to claim his heritage as the Pendragon.
* In
Patricia A. McKillip
Patricia Anne McKillip (February 29, 1948 – May 6, 2022) was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. She has been called "one of the most accomplished prose stylists in the fantasy genre", and wrote predominantly standalone fantasy n ...
's ''The Riddle-Master'' 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 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."
* In
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
's ''
The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands'' and ''
The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass'', 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
joke riddle A riddle joke, joke riddle, pseudo-joke or conundrum is a riddle that does not expect the asked person to know the answer, but rather constitutes a set-up to the humorous punch line of the joke.Mac E. Barrick, "Racial Riddles & the Pollack Joke", ' ...
s, effectively frustrating Blaine's highly logical mind.
* In the ''
Batman
Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in Detective Comics 27, the 27th issue of the comic book ''Detective Comics'' on ...
''
comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
s, one of the hero's best known enemies is
The Riddler
The Riddler (Edward Nigma, later Edward Nygma or Edward Nashton) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang, and debuted in ''Detective Comics'' #140 in O ...
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 puzzles.
See also
*
Droodles
''Droodles'' was a syndicated cartoon feature created by Roger Price and collected in his 1953 book ''Droodles'', though the term is now used more generally of similar visual riddles.
Form
The general form is minimal: a square box containing a ...
*
Missing dollar riddle
The missing dollar riddle is a famous riddle that involves an informal fallacy. It dates to at least the 1930s, although similar puzzles are much older.
Statement
Although the wording and specifics can vary, the puzzle runs along these lines:
...
*
Newspaper riddle
The newspaper riddle is a riddle joke or conundrum in English that begins with the question:
:Q: What is black and white and red all over?
The traditional answer, which relies upon the identical pronunciation of the words "red" and "read", is:
:A ...
*
Oedipus and the Sphinx
''Oedipus and the Sphinx'' is an 1864 oil on canvas painting by Gustave Moreau that was first exhibited at the French Salon of 1864 where it was an immediate success. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work was a fresh treatment ...
*
Rumpelstiltskin
"Rumpelstiltskin" ( ; german: Rumpelstilzchen) is a German fairy tale. It was collected by the Brothers Grimm in the 1812 edition of ''Children's and Household Tales''. The story is about a little imp who spins straw into gold in exchange for a g ...
*
Riddles (Anglo-Saxon)
Anglo-Saxon riddles are a significant genre of Anglo-Saxon literature. The Riddles, riddle was a major, prestigious literary form in early medieval England, and riddles were written both in Latin and Old English verse. The pre-eminent composer of ...
*
Riddles (Arabic)
Riddles are historically a significant genre of Arabic literature. The Qur’an does not contain riddles as such, though it does contain conundra. But riddles are attested in early Arabic literary culture, 'scattered in old stories attributed to ...
*
Riddles (Chinese)
*
Riddles (Finnic)
The corpus of traditional riddles from the Finnic-speaking world (including the modern Finland, Estonia, and parts of Western Russia) is fairly unitary, though eastern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence of Russian Orthodox Christ ...
*
Riddles (Greek)
The main Ancient Greek terms for ''riddle'' are αἴνιγμα (''ainigma'', plural αἰνίγματα ''ainigmata'', deriving from αἰνίσσεσθαι 'to speak allusively or obscurely', itself from αἶνος 'apologue, fable') and γρῖ ...
*
Riddles (Hebrew)
Riddles in Hebrew are referred to as חידות ''ḥidot'' (singular חִידָה ''ḥidah''). They have at times been a major and distinctive part of literature in Hebrew and closely related languages. At times they have a complex relationship ...
*
Riddles (Persian)
*
Riddle joke A riddle joke, joke riddle, pseudo-joke or conundrum is a riddle that does not expect the asked person to know the answer, but rather constitutes a set-up to the humorous punch line of the joke.Mac E. Barrick, "Racial Riddles & the Pollack Joke", ' ...
*
Charades
Charades (, ). is a parlor game, parlor or party game, party word game, word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the w ...
*
Neck riddle
*
Dilemma story A dilemma story (also dilemma tale) is an African story-form intended to provoke discussion. They are used as a form of both entertainment and instruction. Unlike many other story forms, which culminate in a firm conclusion, dilemma stories are open ...
References
External links
Puzzles And Riddles– A mix of both original and classic riddles.
Funny Riddles with Answers– Collection of funny riddles online.
RiddlesDB– Riddles With Answers.
Riddles.net– A collection of riddles with answers for all ages.
* – An active listing of riddle links.
Best Riddles
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