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Four Hang; Two Point The Way
Four Hang; Two Point the Way is the name given by the folklorist Archer Taylor to a traditional riddle-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.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 o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 cultural history, literature, proverbs, riddles and bibliography. Early life and education Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 1, 1890. He enrolled at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, graduating with a B.A. and M.A. in German. He then taught German at Pennsylvania State College. He went on to Harvard University, receiving his Ph.D. degree in German in 1915 with a dissertation on the fairy tale motifs in the Wolfdietrich epics. At Harvard, he studied under such famous scholars as Kuno Francke, George Lyman Kittredge, John Albrecht Walz, Hans Carl Gunther von Jagemann, William Henry Schofield, Charles Hall Grandgent, and F.N. Robinson. From them he developed interest in such fields as German literature, Germanic philol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 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 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 (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 method of comparative folkloristics, and developed the initial version of what became the Aarne–Thompson classification system of classifying folktales, first published in 1910 and extended by Stith Thompson first in 1927 and again in 1961. Early in 1925, Aarne died in Helsinki (Finland) where he had been a lecturer at the University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ... since 1911 and where he had held a position as Professor extraordinarius since 1922. References * External links * Academic personnel of the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles Of Gestumblindi
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 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 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 (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual boundaries and cross ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddle-contest
Riddle-tales are traditional stories featuring riddle-contests. They frequently provide the context for the preservation of ancient riddles for posterity, and as such have both been studied as a narrative form in their own right, and for the riddles they contain. Such contests are a subset of wisdom contests more generally. The two major groups of these stories are: 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 Princess Who Can Not Solve the Riddle. Such stories invariably include answers to the riddles posed: 'the audience cannot be left dangling'. Background The earliest example of a wisdom contest between kings is the Sumerian epic ''Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta'', from the first half of the second millennium BC, closely followed by the Egyptian ''The Quarrel of A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 their Viking expansion, overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age, the Christianization of Scandinavia and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 7th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in the mid-to-late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects: Old West Norse, ''Old West Norse'' or ''Old West Nordic'' (often referred to as ''Old Norse''), Old East Norse, ''Old East Norse'' or ''Old East Nordic'', and ''Ol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 final part of the saga, which was likely composed separately from and later than the rest, is a source for Swedish medieval history. The saga may be most appreciated for its memorable imagery, as seen in a quotation from one of its translators, Nora Kershaw Chadwick, on the invasion of the Horde: The text contains several poetic sections: the '' Hervararkviða'', on Hervor's visit to her father's grave and her retrieval of the sword Tyrfing; another, the '' Hlöðskviða'', on the battle between Goths and Huns; and a third, containing the riddles of Gestumblindi. It has inspired later writers and derivative works, such as J. R. R. Tolkien when shaping his legends of Middle-earth. His son, Christopher Tolkien translated the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
