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Riddle

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Talk

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<= div role=3D"note" class=3D"hatnote navigation-not-searchable" about=3D"#mwt= 2" id=3D"mwBA">For other uses, see Riddle (disambiguation).

A riddle is a statement, question, or phrase having a double or veil= ed meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. = Riddles are of two types: enigmas, wh= ich are problems generally expressed in metaphor= ical or allegorical language that requir= e ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and conundrums, which are questions relying for their effec= ts on punning in either the question or the answer.

Attic red-figure kylix c. 470 BCE: Oedipus ponders the riddle of the S= phinx, with the fate of Thebes at stake

Archer Taylor says = that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddl= es from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, Americ= an Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch, and Filipino sources amongst many other= s.^{<=
span class=3D"mw-reflink-text" id=3D"mwGw">[1]=}^{:=E2=80=8A3=E2=80=8A} Many riddles and ridd= le-themes are internationally widespread.

In the assessment of Elli K=C3=B6ng=C3=A4s-Maranda (originally= writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an = insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myt= hs serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of= playing with conceptual boundaries^{[2] and crossing them for the intellectual pleasure of showing that things=
are not quite as stable as they seem" =E2=80=94 though the point of doing =
so may still ultimately be to "play with boundaries, but ultimately to affi=
rm them".^[3]}

D= efinitions and research

edit

Etymology

<= span class=3D"mw-editsection"> edit

The modern English word riddle shares its= origin with the word read, both stemming from the Common Germanic ver= b *r=C4=93dan=C4=85, which meant "to interpret" or "guess". From= this verb came the West Germanic noun *r=C4=81disl=C4=AB, literally m= eaning "thing to be guessed" or "thing to be interpreted". From this comes = Dutch raadsel, German R=C3=A4tsel, an= d Old English *r=C7=A3d= els, the latter of which became modern English riddle.^[4]

Definitions

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Defining riddles precisely is hard and has attracted a fair = amount of scholarly debate. The first major modern attempt to define the ri= ddle within Western scholarship was by Robert Petsch in 1899,^[5] wit= h another seminal contribution, inspired by structuralism, by Robert A. Georges and Alan Dundes in 1963.^[6] Georges and Dundes suggested = that "a riddle is a traditional verbal expression which contains one or mor= e descriptive elements, a pair of which may be in opposition; the referent = of the elements is to be guessed".^[6] There are many possible subsets of the riddle, including charades, droodles= , and some jokes.

In some traditions and contexts, riddles may overlap with proverbs.^{<=
a href=3D"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddle#cite_note-7" id=3D"mwVg">[7]}^[8]^[9] 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).^[10]^[11] Some consider riddles to be a subcategory for the literature.^[12] Whereas, one of earliest defini= tions identified the riddle as a form of metapho= r, first likely ascribed by Aristotle,= where he states that "metaphors imply riddles", in this classical traditio= n fall definitions similar to one proposed by Gaston Paris, in which he defines the riddle as "a metaphor o= r a group of metaphors, the employment of which has not passed into common = use, and the explanation of which is not self-evident."^[6]

R= esearch

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Much academic research on riddles has focused on collecting,= cataloguing, defining, and typologising riddles. Key work on cataloguing a= nd typologising riddles was published by A= ntti Aarne in 1918=E2=80=9320,^[13]= and by Archer Taylor.^=
[14] In the case of ancient riddles r= ecorded without solutions, considerable scholarly energy has also gone into= proposing and debating solutions.^[15]

Whereas previously researchers had tended to take riddles ou= t of their social performance contexts, the rise of anthropology in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged more researc= hers to study the social role of riddles and riddling,^[16] highlighting their role in re-orienting reality= in the face of fear and anxiety.^[17]= However, wide-ranging studies of riddles have tended to be limited t= o Western countries, with Asian and African riddles being relatively neglec= ted.^[18]

Riddles have also attracted linguists, often studying riddle= s from the point of view of semiotics;[19]^[20]= meanwhile, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of = extensive work on medieval European riddles from the point of view of eco-criticism, ex= ploring how riddles can inform us about people's conceptualisation and expl= oration of their environment.^[21=
]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]

International riddles

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Tree of the year =E2=80=93 a Faro= ese stamp depicting a traditional Faroese version of the year-riddle.

Many riddles appear in similar form across many countries, a= nd 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 = by speakers of the neighboring Logba= language: "This woman has not been to the riverside for water, but the= re is water in her tank". The answer is "a coconut".^[26] On a much wider scale, the Riddle of the Sphinx has also been documented in the Marshall Islands, possibly carried there by Western contacts in the = last two centuries.^[2=
7]

Key examples of internationally widespread riddles follow, b= ased on the classic (European-focused) study by Antti Aarne.^[13]

Writi= ng-riddle
edit

The basic form of the writing-ridd= le is 'White field, black seeds', where the field is a page and the see= ds are letters.^[28] An example = is the eighth- or ninth-century Veronese Riddl= e:

Se = pareba boves
alba pratalia araba
albo versorio teneba
negro semen seminaba

= Translation:
In front of him (he) = led oxen
White fields (he) ploughed
A white plough (he) held
A black seed (he) sowed.

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 wr= iting equipment are particularly widespread.^{=
[29]^[21]}

Year-riddle
edit

The year-riddle is foun= d across Eurasia.^{[30<=
span class=3D"cite-bracket" id=3D"mw7w">]} For examp= le, a riddle in the Sanskrit = Rig Veda, from aro= und 1500=E2=80=931000 BCE, describes a 'twelve-spoked wheel, upon which sta= nd 720 sons of one birth' (i.e. the twelve months of the year, which togeth= er supposedly have 360 days and 360 nights).^[31]=

Person-riddle
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The most famo= us example of this type is the riddle of the Sphinx. This Estonian example shows the = pattern:

Hommiku= l k=C3=A4ib nelja,
l=C3=B5una-ajal kahe,
=C3=B5htul kolme jalaga

Translation:
It goes in the morning on four feet,
at lunch-time on two,
at evening on three^[32]
=

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

Two-legs, t= hree-legs, and four-legs
edit

This type includes riddles along the lines of this German exam= ple:

Zweibein sass auf Dreibein und ass Einbein.
Da kam Vierbein und nahm Zweibein das Einbein.
Da nahm Zweibein Dreibein und schlug damit Vierbein,
dass Vierbein Einbein fallen liess.

<= blockquote>

T= wo-legs sat on Three-legs and ate One-leg.
Then Four-legs came and took One-leg from Two-legs.
Then Two-legs took Three-legs and with it struck Four-legs,
so that Four-legs let One-leg go.^[33]

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

Four Hang; Two Point the Way

= edit

An example of Four Hang; Two Point the Way, to = which the pre-eminent solution is 'cow'^[34]= is given here in thirteenth-century Icelandic form:

Fj=C3=B3rir hanga,
fj=C3=B3rir ganga,
tveir veg v=C3=ADsa,
tveir hundum var=C3=B0a,
einn eptir drallar
ok jafnan heldr saurugr.
Hei=C3=B0rekr konungr,
hygg=C3=B0u at g=C3=A1tu!

<= blockquote>

Four are hanging,
Four are walking,
Two point the way out,
Two ward the dogs off,
One ever dirty
Dangles behind it.
This riddle ponder
O prince Heidrek!^[35]

<= /div>

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

Featherless bird-riddle

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The featherless bird-riddle is best known in Centr= al Europe.^[36] 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.^[37]

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

Riddle-traditions by= region

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

Mesopotam= ia

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Some of the earliest recorded riddles come from Ancient Sumer, with the oldest tablet said to be dated aroun= d 2000 BCE. In Babylon, these were primarily = copied for schoolbooks, theorized to have been written off oral tradition. = The answers to some of these riddles are not preserved; examples include "m= y knees hasten, my feet do not rest, a shepherd without pity drives me to p= asture" (a river? A rowboat?); "you went and took the enemy's property; the= enemy came and took your property" (a weaving shuttle?); "who becomes preg= nant without conceiving, who becomes fat without eating?" (a raincloud?).[38] Due to this, they had b= een formally mistaken to be proverbs until 1960,^[39] where Edmund I. Gordon proved of their presence,= this being initially attempted by Martin J=C3=A4ger in 1893.^[40] Many of these were then identified = to be riddles by the concluding words ki-b=C3=BAr-bi (m= eaning: "Its solution").^[41]

The Sumerian genre term for 'riddle' is i-bi-lu-(dug-ga), m= eaning both t=C4=93ltu and hittu. T= he former a word for "saying" or "proverb" and the latter, translated to Akkadian, "riddle". Theorized t= o be cognate with the Hebrew h=C3=AEd=C4=81h.^{<=
span class=3D"cite-bracket" id=3D"mwAXE">[42]}

One example, being the most well-known riddle of the Sume= rians goes^[43]:

=C3=A9 dingir-gin uru ki-ga= -ra
=C3=A9 u dub-=C5=A1en-gin gada mu-un-dul
=C3=A9 uz-gim ki-gal-la gub-ba
igi-nu-bad ba-an-ku
igi-bad ba-an-ta-=C3=A8

<= blockquote>

A hou= se based on a foundation like the skies,
A house one has covered with a veil like a (secret) tablet box,
A house set on a base like a 'goose',
One enters it blind,
Leaves it seeing.^[44]

<= /div>

The imperfect knowledge of the language as well as the chro= nological and cultural distance make the understanding of these riddles dif= ficult. Making the meanings of the first three verses obscured by phonologi= cal ambiguties, double-entendres, and all kinds of word plays which are ess= ential to the genre. All the while, the final two make the answer apparent;= with it being a (scribal) school.^[45]

South Asia

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Main article: Riddles (South Asia)

It is thought that the world's earliest surviving poetic ri= ddles are found in the Sanskrit Rigveda.^[46=
]^{[47] Hymn 164 of the first book of the Rigveda can be seen as a series of riddles or enigmas^[48] which are now obscure but =
may have been an enigmatic exposition of the =
pravargya ritual.^{[49] These riddles overlap in significantly with a collection of forty-seven=
in the Atharvaveda; riddles also app=
ear elsewhere in Vedic texts.^[50]^[51] Taylor cited the following example: '"Who moves in the air? W=
ho 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 i=
n the manner of a charade, yield the answer to the fourth question. The fir=
st answer is bird (vi), the second dog (=C5=9Bv=C4=81), the third sun (mitra), and the who=
le is Vishvamitra, Rama's first teacher and counselor and a man noted for his outbursts =
of rage'.^[52]}}

Accordingly, riddles are treated in early studies of Sanskr= it poetry such as D= a=E1=B9=87=E1=B8=8Din's seventh- or eighth-century K=C4=81vy=C4=81dar=C5=9Ba.^{<=
span class=3D"cite-bracket" id=3D"mwAcI">[53]}

Early narrative literature also sometimes includes riddles,= most notably the Mahabha= rata, which includes the Ya= ksha Prashna, a series of riddles posed by a nature-spirit (yaksha) to Yudhishthira.^[54]<=
/sup>

The first riddle collection in a medieval Indic language is= traditionally thought to be the riddles of Amir Khusrow (1253=E2=80=931325), written in= Hindawi verse, using= the m=C4=81trika metre= .^[55]^[56]

As of the 1970s, folklorists had not undertaken extensive c= ollection of riddles in India, but riddling was known to be thriving as a f= orm of folk-literature, sometimes in verse.^[57] Riddles have also been collected in Tamil.^[58]^[59]

An Eastern Tharu riddle about a pigeon coop

<= h3 id=3D"Hebrew,_Arabic_and_Persian">Hebrew, Arabic and Persian edit

Main artic= les: Riddles (Arabic)<= /a>, Riddles (Persia= n), and Riddles (H= ebrew)

Rembrandt Harmensz. va= n Rijn's 1638 *The Wedding of Samson*, depicting Samson (= right of centre) posing Samson's = riddle

While riddles are not numerous in the Bible, they are prese= nt, most famously in Samson's rid= dle in Judges xiv.14, but also in I Kings 10:1=E2=80=9313 (where the Queen of Sheba tests Solomon's wisdom), and in the Tal= mud.^[60]= Sirach = 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 c= ontains riddles.^[=
61] Other= wise, riddles are sparse in ancient Semitic writing.

In the medieval period, however, verse riddles, alongside o= ther puzzles and conundrums, became a significant literary form in the Arab= ic-speaking world,^[62] and= accordingly in Islamic Persian culture^[63]= and (particularly in Al-A= ndalus) in Hebrew.^{[64] Since early Arabic and Persian poetry often features rich, metaphorical=
description, and ekphrasis, there is a n=
atural overlap in style and approach between poetry generally and riddles s=
pecifically; literary riddles are therefore often a subset of the descripti=
ve poetic form known in both traditions as wasf. Riddles are attested in anthologies=
of poetry and in prosimetrical portrayals of riddle-contests in Arabic maq=C4=81m=C4=81t and in Persian epics such as the Shahnameh. Meanwhile, in Hebrew=
, Dunash ben Labrat (920=
=E2=80=93990), credited with transposing Arabic metres into Hebrew, compose=
d a number of riddles, mostly apparently inspired by folk-riddles.^=
[65] Other Hebrew-writing exponents=
included Moses ibn Ezra, Yehuda Alharizi, Judah Halevi, Immanuel the Roman, and Israel Onceneyra.^[60]}

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

Riddles have been collected by modern scholars throughout t= he Arabic-speaking world.^[66]

Eur= ope

edit

<= div class=3D"mw-heading mw-heading4">
Greek
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<= div role=3D"note" class=3D"hatnote navigation-not-searchable" about=3D"#mwt= 177" id=3D"mwAjc">Main article: Riddles (Greek)

Riddles are known to have been popular in Greece in Helleni= stic times, and possibly before; they were prominent among the entertainmen= ts and challenges presented at symposia.^[67] Oracles were also represented as speak= ing in often riddlic language.^[68] However, the first significant corpus of Greek riddles survives in= an anthology of earlier material known as the Greek Anthology, which contains about= 50 verse riddles,^[69] pro= bably put into its present form by Constantine Cephalas, working in the = tenth century CE.^[70] Most= surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse.^[71=
] 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 ri= ddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a good metaphor."^{<=
span class=3D"cite-bracket" id=3D"mwAlQ">[72]}

Literary riddles were also composed in Byzantium, from perhaps the tenth century with the work of <= a rel=3D"mw:WikiLink" href=3D"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Geometres"= title=3D"John Geometres" id=3D"mwAlg">John Geometres, into the fifteen= th century, along with a neo-Byzantine revival in around the early eighteen= th century. There was a particular peak around the long twelfth century.[73]

Latin and Romance

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Two Latin riddles are preserved as graffiti in the Basilica= at Pompeii.^[74] The pre-eminent collection of ancient Latin riddles is= a collection of 100 hexametrical riddles by Symphosius which were influential on later medieval Latin writers. Th= e Bern Riddles<= /a>, a collection of Latin riddles clearly modelled on Symphosius, were com= posed in the early seventh century by an unknown author, perhaps in norther= n Italy. Symphosius's collection also inspired a number of Anglo-Saxon riddlers who wrote in Lat= in.^[75] They remained infl= uential in medieval Castilian tradition, being the basis for the second set= of riddles in the thirteenth-century Libro de Apolonio, posed by Apolonio's dau= ghter Tarsiana to her father.^[76]

The perhaps eighth- or ninth-century Veronese Riddle is a key witness to the linguistic = transition from Latin to Romance, but riddles are otherwise rare in medieva= l romance languages. Howe= ver, in the early modern period, printed riddle collections were published = in French, including the Adevineaux amoureu= x (printed in Bruges by Colard Mansion around 1479); and Demandes joyeuses en maniere de quolibets, the basis for Wynkyn de Worde's 1511 Demaundes Joyous.^=
=
[77]

=
The Germanic-speaking world
edit

Main articles: Anglo-Saxo= n riddles and Riddles (Scandinavian)

<= figcaption id=3D"mwAoQ">The Exeter Book: the principal manuscript of mediev= al Germanic-language riddles.
Riddles = survive only fragmentarily in Old= High German: three, very short, possible examples exist in manuscripts= from the Monastery of St Gallen, but, while certainly cryptic,^[78] they are not necessarily r= iddles in a strict sense.^{[79] About 150 survive in Mi=
ddle High German, mostly quoted in other literary contexts.^{<=
span class=3D"cite-bracket" id=3D"mwApM">[80]}^[81]^{[82] Likewise, riddles are rare in Old Norse: almost all occur in one section of Hervarar saga ok Hei=C3=
=B0reks, in which the god =C3=93=C3=B0inn propounds around 37 riddles (dep=
ending on the manuscript).^{[83] These riddles do, however, provide insights into Norse mythology, medieval Scandinavian social norm=
s, and rarely attested poetic forms.^=
=
[84]}}}

By contrast, verse riddles were prominent in early medieval England, following the seminal com= position of one hundred and one riddles by Aldhelm= (c. 639=E2=80=93709), written in Latin and inspired by the fourth- or = fifth-century Latin poet Symphosius. Al= dhelm was followed by a number of other Anglo-Saxons writing riddles in Lat= in. This prestigious literary heritage contextualises the survival of nearl= y one hundred riddles in the tenth-century Exeter Book, one of the main surviving collections of Old English verse. The riddles in this book vary in = subject matter from ribald innuendo to theological sophistication. Three, <= a rel=3D"mw:WikiLink" href=3D"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_Book_Rid= dle_35" title=3D"Exeter Book Riddle 35" class=3D"mw-redirect" id=3D"mwArE">= Exeter Book Riddle 35 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 E= xeter Book). Unlike the pithy three-line riddles of Symphosius, the Old Eng= lish riddles tend to be discursive, often musing on complex processes of ma= nufacture when describing artefacts such as mead (Exeter Book Riddle 27) or a reed-pen or -p= ipe (Exeter Book Ridd= le 60). They are noted for providing perspectives on the world which gi= ve voice to actors which tend not to appear in Old English poetry, ranging = from female slaves to animals and plants. In addition, they often subvert t= he conventions of Old English heroic and religious poetry.

While medieval records of Germanic-language r= iddles are patchy, with the advent of print in the West, collections of rid= dles and similar kinds of questions began to be published. A large number o= f riddle collections were printed in the German-speaking world and, partly = under German influence, in Scandinavia.^[85]= Riddles were evidently hugely popular in Germany: a recen= t research project uncovered more than 100,000 early modern German riddles,= with the most important collection being that Strassburger R=C3=A4tselb= uch, first published around 1500 and many times reprinted.^[86] This is one of the most famous rid= dles of that time:

Es kam e= in Vogel federlos,
sa=C3=9F auf dem Baume blattlos,
da kam die Jungfer mundlos
und fra=C3=9F den Vogel federlos
von dem Baume blattlos.

Translation:<= blockquote>
= There came a bird featherless
sat on the trees leafless
There came a maiden speechless
And ate the bird featherless
From off the tree leafless.

That is, "the snow (featherless bird) lies on a bare tree i= n winter (leafless tree), and the sun (speechless maiden) causes the snow t= o melt (ate the featherless bird)".^{<=
a href=3D"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riddle#cite_note-87" id=3D"mwAs8"><=
span class=3D"mw-reflink-text" id=3D"mwAtA">[87]}
Likewise, early modern English-speakers published printed riddle collection= s, 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.^[88]

After the ear= ly Middle Ages, the riddle was seldom used as a literary form in Englis= h. Tellingly, while Jonathan Swift<= /a> composed at least eight verse riddles on themes such as a pen, gold, an= d the privy, this was seen as a lapse in taste by many of his contemporarie= s.[29]^[89] 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, Wal= lace Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Rainer M. Rilke and Henrikas Radauskas,^[90] along with W. S. Merwin.[91] The famed Transcendentalist= Ralph Waldo Emerson = once wrote "All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle"= .^[92]

Riddles continued to flourish until recently as an oral for= m of entertainment, however; the seminal collection of Anglophone riddles f= rom the early modern period through to the twentieth century is Archer Taylor's.^[1] Riddles a= re, for example, prominent in some early-modern bal= lads collected from oral tradition. Some of those included in the Child Ballads are "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (C= hild 1), "The Elfin Knight"= (Child 2), "Ki= ng John and the Bishop" (Child 45), "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" (= Child 46), and "Proud Lad= y Margaret" (Child 47).^[93] Contemporary English-language riddles typically use puns and double entendres<= /a> for humorous effect,^[citation needed] rather than to puzzle the butt of the joke, 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 and games rather than lite= rary compositions.

Some riddles are composed of foreign words and play on simi= lar sounds, as in:

"There were two cats, one= two three cat and un deux trois cat. They had a swimming race from England= to France. Who won?"

"One two three cat, because un deux trois = quatre cinq (un deux trois cat sank)."

This plays on the fact that the French words for four and f= ive are pronounced similarly to the English words cat a= nd sank.

The Celtic-speaking world edit

Few riddles are attested in medieval Celtic languages, thou= gh this depends on how narrowly a riddle is defined; some early medieval We= lsh and Irish juridical texts have been read as being riddles.^[94] One undisputed riddle is attested = in medieval Welsh, an elaborate= text entitled 'Canu y Gwynt' ('song of the wind') in the fourteenth-centur= y Book of Taliesin probably= inspired by Latin riddles on the same theme. However, this record is suppl= emented by Latin material, apparently from a Brittonic cultural background in North Britain, abo= ut Lailoken: in a twelfth-century text, Lai= loken poses three riddles to his captor King Meldred.^[95]

The earliest riddles attested in Irish are generally held t= o be found in a short collection from the fifteenth-century Book of Fermoy.= ^[96]^[97] 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 su= ch contest, in Imthecht na Tromdaime, first attest= ed in the fifteenth century, at least one riddle is arguably posed.^[98]

Even research on the post-medieval Celtic-speaking world ha= s yielded a "comparatively meagre corpus".^[99]

The Finnic-speaking world edit

=
Main article: 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 e= astern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence of Russian Orthod= ox Christianity and Slavonic riddle culture. The Finnish for "riddle" is arvoitus (pl. arvoitukset), related t= o the verb arvata ("guess").

Finnic riddles are noteworthy in relation to the rest of th= e world's oral riddle canon for their original imagery, the abundance of se= xual riddles, and the interesting collision of influences from east and wes= t;^[100] along with the = attestation in some regions of an elaborate riddle-game.^[101] Riddles provide some of the first surv= iving evidence for Finnish-language literature.^[102]

East Asia edit

<= div class=3D"mw-heading mw-heading4">
China
edit

Main article: Riddles (Chinese)

In modern Chinese, the standard word for 'riddle' is mi (=E8=AC=8E, literally "to bewilder"). Riddles are spoken = of as having a mian (=E9=9D=A2, "surface", the question= component of the riddle), and a di (=E5=BA=95, "base",= the answer component). Ancient Chinese terms for 'riddle' include yin (=E8=AE=94) and sou (=E5=BB=8B), which = both mean "hidden".^[103]^{:=E2=80=8A56,=E2=
=80=8A67=E2=80=8A}

Literary riddles in China first begin to be attested in sig= nificant numbers around the second century CE.^[104]^[103]^{:=E2=80=8A54=E2=80=9356=E2=80=8A}

The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns = on Chinese characters.^{[105]<=
/sup> One example is the riddle "=E5=8D=83 =E9=87=8C =E4=BC=9A =E5=8D=83 =
=E9=87=91"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet tho=
usand gold'.}

The first stage of solving the riddle is = verbal:=20
In Chinese culture, "it is said that a go= od horse can run thousands of kilometers per day", so "=E5=8D=83 =E9=87=8C"= (thousand kilometer) is resolved as "=E9=A9=AC" (horse).

Meanwhile, because "a daughter is very important in the fa= mily", in Chinese culture it is possible to resolve "=E5=8D=83 =E9=87=91" (= thousand gold) as "=E5=A5=B3" (daughter).

The second stage of solving the riddle is visual: combinin= g the radical "=E9=A9=AC" (horse) with the radical "=E5=A5=B3" (daughter) p= roduces the character "=E5=A6=88" (mother).

Thus the answer to "thousand kilometres meet thousand gold"= is "=E5=A6=88" (mother).^[106]<=
/a>

The posing and solving of riddles has long been an importan= t part of the Chinese Lantern F= estival.^[1=
07] China= also contributed a distinctive kind of riddle known in English as the k=C5=8Dan (Chinese: =E5=85= =AC=E6=A1=88; pinyin: g=C5=8Dng'=C3=A0n), developed as a teaching technique in= Zen Buddhism in the = Tang dynasty (618=E2=80=93907). 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.^[108]

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 withou= t washing. (Water)

When you use it you throw it away, and when you do not use= it you bring it back. (Anchor)^[109]

The Philippines

edit

Quite similar to its English counterpart, the riddle in the= Philippines is called Bugtong.^[110] It = is traditionally used during a funeral wake 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 version is the way they st= art with the phrase Bugtong-bug= tong before saying the riddle; usually it is common to create riddles t= hat rhyme.

This is an example of a Tagalog Bugtong:

Bugtong-bugtong= , Hindi hari, hindi pari
ang suot ay sari-sari.
=E2=80=94=E2=80=8ASampayan

Translation:<= blockquote>
Riddle= -riddle, not a king, nor a priest,
but dresses for a feast.
=E2=80=94=E2=80=8AClothes line

Further south, in Sulawesi,= Indonesia, among the Pendau,= riddles are also used at funeral gatherings.^[111]

Africa

edit

Anthropological research in Africa has produced extensive c= ollections of riddles over the last century or so.^[112] Riddles have been characterised as "one of the = most important forms of oral art in Africa";^[113] Hamnett analyzes African riddling from an anthro= pological viewpoint;^{[114] Yoruba riddles have enjoyed a recent monograph study.^[115] Wambi Cornelius Gulere wrote his d=
octoral project at Makere=
re University, titled Riddle Performance and Societal D=
iscourses: Lessons from Busoga.^[116] He argues for recognition o=
f the importance of the riddling act, not merely gathering and studying lis=
ts of riddles. Grivas Muchineripi Kayange has seen African riddles as a win=
dow into African philosophy=
.^[117]}

The Americas

edit

Native American traditions
edit
Riddles in the Americas are of particular interest to scholarship because i= t was long thought that native American cultures had no autochthonous riddl= e traditions (as opposed to riddles inspired by European culture, as with t= he twenty-two Aztec riddles= collected by Bernardino de Sahag=C3=BAn in the sixteenth century, in the famous <= a rel=3D"mw:WikiLink" href=3D"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florentine_code= x" title=3D"Florentine codex" class=3D"mw-redirect" id=3D"mwA-A">Florentine= codex).^[1=
18]^[119]^[120] If so, this would have suggested that = riddles are not a universal art form.^[121] Publishing the first book to anthologise native America= n riddles in 1992, John Bierhorst noted that
<= p id=3D"mwA_I">fifty years ago, it was widely believed that there were no A= merican Indian riddles. And as recently as twenty years ago, some people we= re still wondering whether there were or weren't. The reason for doubt was = that some of the older sources were poorly known and some of the newer ones= had not yet been made available.^[122]
<= p id=3D"mwA_c">Indeed, Hieronymus Lalemant gave a fairly detailed account o= f a riddle-contest among the Huron<= /a> around 1639 as part of a healing ritual.[123]

Someone will say, "What I desire a= nd 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 se= en in my eyes=E2=80=94it will be marked with various colors"; and because t= he same Huron word that signifies "eye" also signifies "glass bead", this i= s a clue to divine what he desires=E2=80=94namely, some kind of beads of th= is material, and of different colors.

Accordingly, during the twentieth century, progressively mo= re substantial collections of Native American riddles were made.^[124] One important collection wa= s from the Alaskan Athaba= skans (Ten'a) people in Bri= tish Columbia;^[125]= ^[126] by 2021, "of th= e 11 Alaska Dene-Athabascan language groups" four had "documented riddle tr= aditions: Denaakk=E2=80=99e-Koyukon, = Dena=E2=80=99ina, Upper Tanana, and (Lower) Tanana".^[127] Indigenous riddles were also documented among the Amuzgo people = in Central America;^{[<=
/span>128] and Quechua people in South A=
merica.^[129] Bierhorst'=
s 1992 book and its bibliography afford an important survey of Indigenous A=
merican riddling.^[122] The Plains Cree elder Vern Harper commented "the thing too with Plains Cree =
is riddles, riddles our people used to do. We've lost a lot of that. The ri=
ddles teach you to think, to figure things out for yourself".^[130]^{:=E2=80=8A38=E2=80=8A} Thus, while data remains rather thin, it seems clear that =
riddling did exist in the Americas independently of European culture.}

Colonial traditions
edit

Riddles are found extensively in the settler-colonial cultu= res of the Americas.

One form of riddle features in payada de contrapunto ("counterpoint payada"), a Rioplatense musical= genre in which guitar players compete in a symbolic duel.^[131] Two guitar players challenge each = other in song by asking a riddle-like question and/or answering the opponen= t's questions. This is performed through several successive rounds of witty= exchanges which may include banter and even insults=E2=80=94typically with= a humorous intent. The most famous literary example of counterpoint payada= comes from Mart=C3=ADn Fie= rro, Part 2, Song 30, verses 6233=E2=80=936838.^[132]

Riddle

Contents

D= efinitions and research

Etymology

Definitions

R= esearch

International riddles

Writi= ng-riddle

Year-riddle

Person-riddle

Two-legs, t= hree-legs, and four-legs

Four Hang; Two Point the Way

Featherless bird-riddle

Riddle-traditions by= region

Mesopotam= ia

South Asia

Eur= ope

Greek

Latin and Romance

The Germanic-speaking world

China

The Philippines

Africa

The Americas

Native American traditions

Colonial traditions

Riddle-= contests

In real= life

In ancient, medieval, and folk literature

In modern literature

References

External links