Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/285

Rh Social progress more readily changes the outward expression than the inward significance, and a fashionable novel may differ little in essence from the brutally coarse anecdotes of the Renascence, or the equivocal questions propounded to each other by modern Sicilian peasants, or English ploughboys, though at first sight the crudeness which delights in needlessly plain diction may appear the more dangerous to morals.

In a further division of the introduction Signor Pitrè describes riddle-asking in its aspect as a recognised domestic pastime during the dark hours of winter after the dusk has gathered. Throughout Sicily, Italy, France, Germany, and beyond their borders, enigmas are proposed and solved round about the hearth in the bosom of the peasant-family while its members are occupied with the monotonous employments of the eventide, which leave the thoughts idle while occupying the hands. It is easy to understand how in ages before books were to be procured all sorts and conditions of men would find recreation and instruction in trying their minds on phrases whose true meaning was purposely disguised. The popularity of the amusement is shown by the fact that riddles are connected with the carnival, and with other mirthful occasions, such as weddings, as appears from Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 353 (1872), from which it is to be judged that real importance attaches to them at a marriage. After commenting on these and on other closely related facts, Signor Pitrè next undertakes the consideration of ancient puzzles, allegories, and analogies relating to striking natural objects, such as the moon or the sunset sky, and he further dwells on the significance of questions like those propounded by the Queen of Sheba to Solo- mon, or the strife of wits between Odin and the giant Wafthrudnir. It is probable that riddles were once of immense consequence to all the nations which have helped to influence modern Europe. It is not to the Chaldeans and Finns alone that secret words and meanings have appeared to enshrine stupendous powers and mysteries. Egyptian and Hebrew, Greek and Roman, German and Slavonian, have all ancient riddles, traditions, or turns of phraseology, which show how mighty a thing the true knowledge of hidden names used to be. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe," says the author of Proverbs (xviii. 10), and though the writer of The Revelation of St. John the Divine had never heard of the hidden and all-power-