Page:Anglo-Saxon Riddles of the Exeter Book (1963).djvu/15



RIDDLES are, so to say, universal. Some are so widespread as to deserve the name of world-riddles. The same theme will appear in different places, at different times, with different treatment, either from a common origin scattered by oral or written transmission, or of spontaneous origin based on similar observation or similar mental processes. Riddles appear in the Vedas and in the Koran. The Sphinx riddle is famous, and Homer is said to have died of vexation because he could not solve this one: &ldquo;What we caught we threw away; what we could not catch we kept.&rdquo; Samson propounded one to the Philistines on a wager:  &ldquo;Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness&rdquo; (Judg. 14:12–14). The Philistines lost, and no wonder. One of the best-known riddles involving a gamble occurs in the incest story of Apollonius of Tyre, related by Gower (Confessio Amantis, 271 ff.) and deplored by Chaucer. (Our Riddle 46 is based on incest.)

Thus riddles exist on two levels, popular (oral) and literary (learned), often passing from one group to the other. For a folk riddle may be taken over by the learned and dressed accordingly, or vice versa, a learned riddle may pass to the folk and suffer modification to fit popular taste. Our Anglo-Saxon riddles illustrate both movements. No positive distinctions can be made, but in general the longer and more poetic may safely be called learned, notably the Storm riddles, but also for a different reason those containing runes; and