riddle¹

 

puzzling question, specifically one that consists of a fanciful description or definition of something to be guessed. A famous riddle was asked by the Sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, on three at night?” Oedipus guessed the answer correctly: “Man—in infancy he crawls, at his prime he walks, in age he leans on a staff.” Samson's riddle is also famous: “Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness” (Judges 14.14). It refers to a lion he had just killed, on which he saw bees and honey; he ate some of the lion and the honey. Punning riddles are common, as: “When is a door not a door?” The answer is, “When it's ajar.” There is comparatively little riddle literature, but riddles do figure prominently in Old English. The Exeter Book contains many English verse riddles of uncertain date; they vary considerably in matter. There are also many riddles in Latin hexameters dating from Anglo-Saxon England.

Bibliography

See A. Taylor, English Riddles from Oral Tradition (1951); H. H. Abbott, ed., The Riddles of the Exeter Book (1968).

A riddle is a statement or question 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.

Ancestry

Riddles have a distinguished literary ancestry, although the contemporary sort of conundrum that passes under the name of "riddle" may not make this obvious. Riddles occur extensively in Old English poetry, and also in the Old Norse literature of the Elder Edda and the skalds. The Exeter Book, a manuscript in Old English, preserves almost sixty versified riddles from the Old English literature. An example:

Moððe word fræt. Me þæt þuhte

wrætlicu wyrd, þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn,

þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes,

þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide

ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs

wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg.

A moth ate words.

I thought that was quite curious,

that a mere worm,

a thief in the dark, ate what a man wrote,

his brilliant language and its strong foundation.

The thief got no wiser for all that he fattened himself on words.

The answer called for by the poem is bookworm. The general technique is to refer obliquely to the subject by kenning and other sorts of figurative language; because kennings formed such an important element of alliterative verse forms in the Germanic languages, the riddles served the dual purpose of puzzling the poet's audience and teaching the lore needed to use or understand the poetic language successfully. Also riddles served as a source of gnomic wisdom in these Germanic oral traditions. In addition to cultivating abstract thought, they also highlighted important cultural values. In this way a riddle can serve both our conventional connotations of the word, and a tradition through knowledge is imparted. The god Odin was a master of riddle lore, and sparred with several of his foes using contests of riddles. In the Vafthruthnismal, Odin defeats his foe by posing a question to which only he could possibly know the answer.

Charades

"Charades" are reported to have originated in France in the 18th century, and later spread across Europe and around the world. The first mention of charades in English was in a letter written in 1776 by Lady Boscawen, a Bluestocking and widow of Admiral Edward Boscawen. Early charades were usually in rhyming form, and contained a clue for each syllable ("my first", "my second",...) of a chosen word or phrase, followed by a clue about the entire word ("my whole"). Charades played a role in Jane Austen's Emma. One famous composer of such charades is Winthrop Mackworth Praed; others are Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Pope Leo XIII. An example of this form of charade, taken from an early American magazine in 1834, goes like this:

When my first is a task to a young girl of spirit,

And my second confines her to finish the piece,

How hard is her fate! but how great is her merit

If by taking my whole she effects her release!

The answer is "hem-lock".

This form of charade appeared in magazines, books, and on the folding fans of the Regency. The answers were sometimes printed on the reverse of the fan, suggesting that they were a flirting device, used by a young woman to tease her beau.

The name "charades" gradually became more popularly used to refer to acted charades. Examples of the acted charades are described in William Thackeray's Vanity Fair and in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Poetic form

The poetic form became very popular in Victorian times, when each line of a classic riddle would describe individual letters or syllables of the solution, with the last line describing the complete answer, for example,

My first is in tea but not in leaf

My second is in teapot and also in teeth

My third is in caddy but not in cosy

My fourth is in cup but not in rosy

My fifth is in herbal and also in health

My sixth is in peppermint and always in wealth

My last is in drink, so what can I be?

I’m there in a classroom, do you listen to me?

The solution here is Teacher.

On the Indian subcontinent, Amir Khusro made the poetic riddles popular. An example:

(In Hindi)

Nar naari kehlaati hai,

aur bin warsha jal jati hai;

Purkh say aaway purkh mein jaai,

na di kisi nay boojh bataai.

English translation

Is known by both masculine and feminine names,

And lightens up (or burns up) without rain;

Originates from a man and goes into a man,

But no one has been able to guess what it is.

Riddle Game

The Riddle Game is a formalized guessing game, a contest of wit and skill in which players take turns asking riddles. The player that cannot answer loses. Riddle games occurs frequently in mythology and folklore, particularly Scandinavian, as well as in popular literature.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins to a riddle competition; Bilbo wins the competition by asking the riddle, "What have I got in my pocket?" (though he notes that it was not exactly a riddle "according to the ancient rules") which Gollum cannot answer. The answer was the One Ring, which Gollum had lost and Bilbo had found. Although this is 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.

A similarly deceptive riddling contest features prominently in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, in which the protagonists win by asking the difference between a truck full of bowling balls and a truck full of woodchucks.

In Norse mythology, the king of the gods, Odin, like Bilbo, won such a contest by the questionable tactic of asking a question to which only he could know the answer. However, as with Gollum, the adversary who accepts such a question is bound to honor the terms of the game.

Richard Wagner placed a riddle game in Act One of his opera Siegfried.

Modern television

In the Batman comic books, one of the hero's best known enemies is The Riddler who is personally compelled to supply clues about his upcoming crimes to his enemies in the form of riddles and puzzles. Stereotypically, they are the kind of simple riddles as described below, but modern treatments generally prefer to have the character use more sophisticated puzzles.

Contemporary riddles

Contemporary riddles typically use puns and double entendres for humorous effect, rather than to puzzle the butt of the joke, as in:

When is a door not a door?

When it's ajar.

What's black and white and red (read) all over?

A newspaper. (or a sunburnt nun/penguin/zebra)

What's brown and sounds like a bell?

Dung.

Why is six afraid of seven?

Because seven eight (ate) nine.

These riddles are now mostly children's humour and games rather than literary compositions.

See also

• Oedipus and the Sphinx
• Rumpelstiltskin
• The Da Vinci Game
• Puzzle
• Newspaper riddle

External links

• Riddles at the Open Directory Project – An active listing of riddle links.
• Isbell, Billy Jean. "Riddle Games among Quechua Speakers." Journal of Latin American Lore 3:1 (1977), 19-49. (pdf)

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