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 Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn's
universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures 1638 The Wedding of Samson,
including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, depicting Samson (right of centre)
Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others.[1]: 3 Many posing Samson's riddle
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[2] 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".[3]

Definitions and research

Etymology
The modern English word riddle shares its origin with the word read, both stemming from the Common
Germanic verb *rēdaną, which meant 'to interpret, guess'. From this verb came the West Germanic noun
*rādislī, literally meaning 'thing to be guessed, thing to be interpreted'. From this comes Dutch raadsel,
German Rätsel, and Old English *rǣdels, the latter of which became modern English riddle.[4]

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 in 1899,[5] with
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 more descriptive elements, a pair of which may be in opposition; the referent of the elements is to
be guessed".[6] There are many possible sub-sets of the riddle, including charades, droodles, and some
jokes.
In some traditions and contexts, riddles may overlap with proverbs.[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]

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 in 1918–20,[11]
and by Archer Taylor.[12] In the case of ancient riddles recorded without solutions, considerable scholarly
energy also goes into proposing and debating solutions.[13]

Whereas previously researchers had tended to take riddles out of their social performance contexts, the
rise of anthropology in the post-War period encouraged more researchers to study the social role of
riddles and riddling,[14] highlighting their role of re-orienting reality in the face of fear and anxiety.[15]
However, wide-ranging studies of riddles have tended to be limited to Western countries, with Asian and
African riddles being relatively neglected.[16]

Riddles have also attracted linguists, often studying riddles from the point of view of semiotics;[17][18]
meanwhile, the twenty-first century has seen the rise of extensive work on medieval European riddles
from the point of view of eco-criticism, exploring how riddles can inform us about people's
conceptualisation and exploration of their environment.[19][20][21][22][23]

International riddles
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 by
speakers of the neighboring Logba language: "This woman has not
been to the riverside for water, but there is water in her tank". The
answer is "a coconut".[24] 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.[25]

Key examples of internationally widespread riddles follow, based

on the classic (European-focused) study by Antti Aarne.[11]

Writing-riddle
The basic form of the writing-riddle is 'White field, black seeds', Tree of the year – a Faroese stamp
where the field is a page and the seeds are letters.[26] An example depicting a traditional Faroese
is the eighth- or ninth-century Veronese Riddle: version of the year-riddle.
 Se pareba boves In front of him (he) led oxen
alba pratalia araba White fields (he) ploughed
albo versorio teneba A white plough (he) held
negro semen seminaba 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 writing equipment are particularly widespread.[27][28]

Year-riddle
The year-riddle is found across Eurasia.[29] For example, a riddle in the Sanskrit Rig Veda, from around
1500–1000 BCE, describes a 'twelve-spoked wheel, upon which stand 720 sons of one birth' (i.e. the
twelve months of the year, which together supposedly have 360 days and 360 nights).[30]

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

Hommikul käib nelja, It goes in the morning on four feet,

lõuna-ajal kahe, at lunch-time on two,
õhtul kolme jalaga at evening on three[31]

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:

Zweibein sass auf Dreibein und ass Two-legs sat on Three-legs and ate One-leg.
Einbein. Then Four-legs came and took One-leg from
Da kam Vierbein und nahm Zweibein das Two-legs.
Einbein. Then Two-legs took Three-legs and with it
Da nahm Zweibein Dreibein und schlug struck Four-legs,
damit Vierbein, so that Four-legs let One-leg go.[32]
dass Vierbein Einbein fallen liess.

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.

Four Hang; Two Point the Way

An example of Four Hang; Two Point the Way, to which the pre-eminent solution is 'cow'[33] is given
here in thirteenth-century Icelandic form:
 Fjórir hanga, Four are hanging,
fjórir ganga, Four are walking,
tveir veg vísa, Two point the way out,
tveir hundum varða, Two ward the dogs off,
einn eptir drallar One ever dirty
ok jafnan heldr saurugr. Dangles behind it.
Heiðrekr konungr, This riddle ponder
hyggðu at gátu! O prince Heidrek![34]
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.[35] 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.[36]

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 Babylonian 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.[37]

South Asia
It is thought that the world's earliest surviving poetic riddles survive in the Sanskrit Rigveda.[38][39]
Hymn 164 of the first book of the Rigveda can be understood to comprise a series of riddles or
enigmas[40] which are now obscure but may have been an enigmatic exposition of the pravargya
ritual.[41] These riddles overlap in significant part with a collection of forty-seven in the Atharvaveda;
riddles also appear elsewhere in Vedic texts.[42][43] 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, Rama's first teacher and counselor
and a man noted for his outbursts of rage'.[44]

Accordingly, riddles are treated in early studies of Sanskrit poetry

such as Daṇḍin's seventh- or eighth-century Kāvyādarśa.[45]

Early narrative literature also sometimes includes riddles,

prominently the Mahabharata, which for example contains the
Yaksha Prashna, a series of riddles posed by a nature-spirit
(yaksha) to Yudhishthira.[46]

The first riddle collection in a medieval Indic language is

traditionally thought to be the riddles of Amir Khusrow (1253–
1325), which are written in Hindawi, in verse, in the mātrika
Attic red-figure pelike, Oedipus
metre.[47][48]
solves the riddle of the Sphinx and
frees Thebes, by the Achilleus
As of the 1970s, folklorists had not undertaken extensive
painter, 450–440 BC, Altes Museum
collecting of riddles in India, but riddling was known to be Berlin (13718779634)
thriving as a form of folk-literature, sometimes in verse.[49]
Riddles have also been collected in Tamil.[50][51]

Hebrew, Arabic and Persian

While riddles are not numerous in the Bible, they are present, most famously in Samson's riddle in Judges
xiv.14, but also in I Kings 10:1–13 (where the Queen of Sheba tests Solomon's wisdom), and in the
Talmud.[52] 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 contains riddles.[53] 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,[54] and accordingly in Islamic Persian culture[55]
and in Hebrew — particularly in Al-Andalus.[56] Since early Arabic and Persian poetry often features
rich, metaphorical description, and ekphrasis, 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 and in Persian epics such as the
Shahnameh. Meanwhile, in Hebrew, Dunash ben Labrat (920–990), credited with transposing Arabic
metres into Hebrew, composed a number of riddles, mostly apparently inspired by folk-riddles.[57] Other
Hebrew-writing exponents included Moses ibn Ezra, Yehuda Alharizi, Judah Halevi, Immanuel the
Roman and Israel Onceneyra.[52]

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.[58]

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.[59] Oracles were also
represented as speaking in often riddlic language.[60] 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,[61] probably put into its present form by Constantine Cephalas, working in the tenth
century CE.[62] Most surviving ancient Greek riddles are in verse.[63] 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."[64]

Literary riddles were also composed in Byzantium, from perhaps the tenth century with the work of John
Geometres, 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.[65]

Latin and romance

Two Latin riddles are preserved as graffiti in the Basilica at Pompeii.[66] 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. The Bern Riddles, 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.[67]
They remained influential in medieval Castilian tradition, being the basis for the second set of riddles in
the thirteenth-century Libro de Apolonio, posed by Apolonio's daughter Tarsiana to her father.[68]

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 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's 1511 Demaundes Joyous.[69]

The Germanic-speaking world

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,[70] they are not necessarily
riddles in a strict sense.[71] About 150 survive in Middle High German, mostly quoted in other literary
contexts.[72][73][74] Likewise, riddles are rare in Old Norse: almost all occur in one section of Hervarar
saga ok Heiðreks, in which the god Óðinn propounds around 37 riddles (depending on the
manuscript).[75] These riddles do, however, provide insights into Norse mythology, medieval
Scandinavian social norms, and rarely attested poetic forms.[76]
By contrast, verse riddles were prominent in early medieval
England, following the seminal composition of one hundred and
one riddles by Aldhelm (c. 639–709), written in Latin and inspired
by the fourth- or fifth-century Latin poet Symphosius. 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, one of the main surviving collections of Old English verse.
The Exeter Book: the principal
The riddles in this book vary in subject matter from ribald manuscript of medieval Germanic-
innuendo to theological sophistication. Three, Exeter Book Riddle language riddles.
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 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). 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.[77] 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.[78] This is one of the
most famous riddles of that time:

Es kam ein Vogel federlos, There came a bird featherless

saß auf dem Baume blattlos, sat on the trees leafless
da kam die Jungfer mundlos There came a maiden speechless
und fraß den Vogel federlos And ate the bird featherless
von dem Baume blattlos. From off the tree leafless.

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)".[79]

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.[80]

After the early Middle Ages, the riddle was seldom used as a literary form in English. Tellingly, while
Jonathan Swift composed at least eight verse riddles on themes such as a pen, gold, and the privy, this
was seen as a lapse in taste by many of his contemporaries.[27][81] 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, Wallace Stevens, Richard Wilbur, Rainer M.
Rilke, and Henrikas Radauskas.[82] The famed Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote "All
is a riddle, and the key to a riddle ... is another riddle".[83]

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's.[1] Riddles are, for example, prominent in some early-modern ballads collected from oral
tradition. Some of those included in the Child Ballads are "Riddles Wisely Expounded" (Child 1), "The
Elfin Knight" (Child 2), "King John and the Bishop" (Child 45), "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship"
(Child 46), and "Proud Lady Margaret" (Child 47).[84] Contemporary English-language riddles typically
use puns and double entendres for humorous effect, 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 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.[85] One
undisputed riddle is attested in medieval Welsh, an elaborate text entitled 'Canu y Gwynt' ('song of the
wind') in the fourteenth-century Book of Taliesin probably inspired by Latin riddles on the same theme.
However, this record is supplemented by Latin material, apparently from a Brittonic cultural background
in North Britain, about Lailoken: in a twelfth-century text, Lailoken poses three riddles to his captor King
Meldred.[86]

The earliest riddles attested in Irish are generally held to be found in a short collection from the fifteenth-
century Book of Fermoy.[87][88] 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.[89]

Even research on the post-medieval Celtic-speaking world has yielded a "comparatively meagre
corpus".[90]

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;[91] along with the attestation in some regions of an elaborate riddle-game.[92] Riddles provide some
of the first surviving evidence for Finnish-language literature.[93]

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".[94]: 56, 67

Literary riddles in China first begin to be attested in significant numbers around the second century
CE.[95][94]: 54–56

The Chinese riddle-tradition makes much use of visual puns on Chinese characters.[96] One example is
the riddle "千 里 会 千 金"; these characters respectively mean 'thousand kilometre meet thousand gold'.

1. The first stage of solving the riddle is verbal:

1. 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).
2. 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).
2. 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).[97]

The posing and solving of riddles has long been an important part of the Chinese Lantern Festival.[98]
China also contributed a distinctive kind of riddle known in English as the kōan (Chinese: 公案; pinyin:
gōng'àn), developed as a teaching technique in Zen Buddhism in the Tang dynasty (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.[99]

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)[100]

The Philippines
Quite similar to its English counterpart, the riddle in the Philippines is called Bugtong.[101] 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 start with the phrase Bugtong-bugtong before saying the riddle; usually it
is common to create riddles that rhyme.

This is an example of a Tagalog Bugtong:

Bugtong-bugtong, Hindi hari, hindi pari Riddle-riddle, not a king, nor a priest,
ang suot ay sari-sari. but dresses for a feast.

—Sampayan —Clothes line

Further south, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, among the Pendau, riddles are also used at funeral gatherings.[102]

Africa
Anthropological research in Africa has produced extensive collections of riddles over the last century or
so.[103] Riddles have been characterised as "one of the most important forms of oral art in Africa";[104]
Hamnett analyzes African riddling from an anthropological viewpoint;[105] Yoruba riddles have enjoyed a
recent monograph study.[106] Wambi Cornelius Gulere wrote his doctoral project at Makerere University,
titled Riddle Performance and Societal Discourses: Lessons from Busoga.[107] 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.[108]

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 riddles collected by Bernardino de Sahagún in the sixteenth
century, in the famous Florentine codex).[109][110][111] If so, this would have suggested that riddles are not
a universal art form.[112] However, Hieronymus Lalemant gave a fairly detailed account of a riddle-
contest among the Huron around 1639 as part of a healing ritual.[113]

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 (Ten'a) people in British Columbia;[114][115]
Amuzgo people in Central America;[116] and Quechua people in South America.[117] 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 de contrapunto ("counterpoint payada"), a Rioplatense musical
genre in which guitar players compete in a symbolic duel.[118] 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, Part 2, Song 30, verses 6233–6838.[119]

Riddle-contests
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 occur frequently in mythology and
folklore as well as in popular literature.

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.[120] 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, riddle-competitions were popular as an intellectual entertainment at
symposia.[59] A key source for this culture is Athenaeus.[121]

Elaborate and unusual riddle-games took place in the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
Finnish-language riddles.[92] For example, Elias Lönnrot 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.[103]

In ancient, medieval, and folk literature

In older texts, riddle-contests frequently provide the frame stories whereby riddles have been preserved
for posterity.[122] 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 Princess Who Can Not Solve
the Riddle.[123]

In modern literature
In J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins 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. 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.[124]
In The Grey King, the third book of Susan Cooper'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'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'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 riddles, effectively frustrating
Blaine's highly logical mind.
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 these kinds of simple children's riddles, but
modern treatments generally prefer to have the character use more sophisticated puzzles.

See also
Droodles
Missing dollar riddle
Newspaper riddle
Oedipus and the Sphinx
Rumpelstiltskin
Riddles (Anglo-Saxon)
Riddles (Arabic)
Riddles (Chinese)
Riddles (Finnic)
Riddles (Greek)
Riddles (Hebrew)
Riddles (Persian)
 Riddle joke
Charades
Neck riddle
Dilemma story

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43. See also J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: Proeve eener bepaling van het spel-element der
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44. Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
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52. Joseph Jacobs, "Riddle", in The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History,
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53. Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
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54. G. J. H. van Gelder, "lughz", in Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, ed. by Julie Scott Meisami
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56. See further Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1948), pp. 35–37.
57. Archer Taylor, The Literary Riddle before 1600 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1948), pp. 33–35, citing Nehemya Aluny, "Ten Dunash Ben Labrat's Riddles", The Jewish
Quarterly Review, New Series, 36 (1945), 141–46, doi:10.2307/1452496 (https://doi.org/10.
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58. E.g. Charles T. Scott, Persian and Arabic Riddles: A Language-Centered Approach to Genre
Definition (Bloomington, 1965).
59. 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).
60. 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.
61. Christine Luz, "What has it got in its Pocketses? Or, What Makes a Riddle a Riddle?", 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. 83–99.
62. Jan Kwapisz, "Were there Hellenistic Riddle Books?", 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. 148–67 (p. 148).
63. Christine Luz, "What has it got in its Pocketses? Or, What Makes a Riddle a Riddle?", in The
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72. Jeffrey Scott Love, The Reception of Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks from the Middle Ages to the
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73. Tomas Tomasek, Das deutsche Rätsel im Mittelalter, Hermea: Germanistische
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74. On German riddles, see further Mathilde Hain, Rätsel, Sammlung Metzler, 53.
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76. Burrows, Hannah, "Wit and Wisdom: The Worldview of the Old Norse-Icelandic Riddles and
their Relationship to Eddic Poetry", in Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond: Poetic Variety in
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77. Frauke Rademann-Veith, Die skandinavischen Rätselbücher auf der Grundlage der
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78. Strassburger Räthselbuch: Die erste zu Strassburg ums Jahr 1505 gedruckte deutsche
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81. Gregg A. Hecimovich, Puzzling the Reader: Riddles in Nineteenth-century British Literature
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82. Živilė Gimbutas, The Riddle in the Poem (Dallas: University Press of America, 2004).
83. "IX. Illusions. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1904. The Complete Works" (http://www.bartleby.com/
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84. Andrew Welsh, "Riddle" in Medieval Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales,
Beliefs, and Customs, ed. by Carl Lindahl, John McNamara and John Lindow, 2 vols (Santa
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85. Robin Chapman Stacey, 'Instructional Riddles in Welsh Law', in Heroic Poets and Poetic
Heroes in Celtic Tradition: A Festschrift for Patrick K. Ford, ed. by Josoph Falaky Nagy and
Leslie Ellen Jones (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), pp. 336-43; Robin Chapman Stacey,
'Speaking in Riddles', in Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and
Transmission, ed. by Próinséas Ní Chatháin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), pp. 243-48;
Fergus Kelly, 'An Old-Irish Text on Court Procedure', Peritia, 5 (1986), 74-106.
86. Christine Goldberg, Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, Garland Folklore
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87. Patrick Sims-Williams, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford: Oxford
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88. Stokes, Whitley (1904). "Irish Riddles" (https://zenodo.org/record/1449711). The Celtic
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89. Christine Goldberg, Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, Garland Folklore
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 90. Patrick Sims-Williams, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010), p. 115. Cf. Vernam Hull and Archer Taylor, A Collection of Welsh
Riddles, University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 26 (Berkeley: University of
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(1930), 138–40.
91. Leea Virtanen, "The Collecting and Study of Riddles in Finland", in Arvoitukset: Finnish
Riddles, ed. by Leea Virtanen, Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj and Aarre Nyman, Suomalaisen
Kirjallisuuden Seura, Toimituksia, 329 ([Helsinki]: Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1977), pp.
51–57.
92. 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 ([Helsinki]: Suomen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1977), pp. 77–89 (at 80–82).
93. Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English, ed. and trans. by Matti
Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch, Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia,
329 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977), pp. 33–34.
94. Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 'A New Reading of an Early Medieval Riddle', T’oung Pao, 99
(2013), 53–87 doi:10.1163/15685322-9913p0002 (https://doi.org/10.1163%2F15685322-99
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95. Richard C. Rudolph, "Notes on the Riddle in China", California Folklore Quarterly, 1.1 (Jan.
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96. Andrew H. Plaks, 'Riddle and Enigma in Chinese Civilization', in Untying the Knot: On
Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes, ed. by Galit Hasan-Rokem and David Shulman
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 225–36.
97. Chuanqi Tan, Furu Wei, Li Dong, Weifeng Lv, and Ming Zhou, "Solving and Generating
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Computational Linguistics, 2016), pp. 846–55.
98. Richard C. Rudolph, "Notes on the Riddle in China", California Folklore Quarterly, 1.1 (Jan.
1942), pp. 65–82 (p. 77). JSTOR 1495728 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/1495728).
99. Charles G. Zug III, 'The Nonrational Riddle: The Zen Koan (https://www.jstor.org/stable/5384
19)', The Journal of American Folklore, 80, no. 315 (January–March 1967), 81-88
doi:10.2307/538419 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F538419).
100. Richard C. Rudolph, "Notes on the Riddle in China", California Folklore Quarterly, 1.1 (Jan.
1942), pp. 65–82 (quoting pp. 74–75). JSTOR 1495728 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/149572
8).
101. Hart, Donn V. 1964. Riddles in Philippine Folklore: An Anthropological Analysis. Syracuse,
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102. Quick, Phil (2007). "Riddles of death: The structure of the tangke-tangke riddle game used
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103. Elli Köngäs Maranda, "Riddles and Riddling: An Introduction", The Journal of American
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6); JSTOR 539686 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/539686).
104. Lyndon Harries, "The Riddle in Africa", The Journal of American Folklore, 84 (1971), 377–
93; doi:10.2307/539632 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F539632); JSTOR 539632 (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/539632).
105. Hamnett, Ian, "Ambiguity, Classification and Change: the Function of Riddles", Man, 2
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106. Akíntúndé Akínyẹmí, Orature and Yorùbá Riddles (Palgrave Macmillan US, 2015),
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107. Wambi Cornelius Gulere. 2012. Riddle Performance and Societal Discourses: Lessons from
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108. Grivas Muchineripi Kayange, Meaning and Truth in African Philosophy: Doing African
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109. Archer Taylor, "American Indian Riddles", The Journal of American Folklore, 57 (no. 223)
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110. Cf. Wolfgang Mieder, "Proverbs of the Native Americans; A Prize Competition", Western
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112. Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj, Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a
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115. Archer Taylor, "American Indian Riddles", The Journal of American Folklore, 57 (no. 223)
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116. Charles T. Scott, "New Evidence of American Indian Riddles", The Journal of American
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stable/53852).
117. Isbell, Billie Jean; Roncalla Fernandez, Fredy Amilcar, "The Ontogenesis of Metaphor:
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118. R.Fernández Manzano y otros: El trovo de la Alpujarra. Ed. Centro de Documentación
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121. Erin Sebo, "In scirpo nodum: Symphosius' Reworking of the Riddle Form", in The Muse at
Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry, ed. by Jan Kwapzt, David Petrain,
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External links
Bradley, Henry (1911). "Riddles" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia
_Britannica/Riddles). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). pp. 316–317.
Riddleness - Riddles With Answers (https://riddleness.com/)
Puzzles And Riddles (http://www.puzzlesandriddles.com/Riddles.html) – A mix of both
original and classic riddles.
Funny Riddles with Answers (http://www.funnyriddles.online/) – Collection of funny riddles
online.
Riddles.net (https://riddles.net) – A collection of riddles with answers for all ages.

– An active listing of riddle links.

Riddle Mastery (http://www.starsuncounted.com/p/riddle-mastery.html)

Best Riddles (https://riddlesbest.com)

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