Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/286

260 ful name of the chief god of dead and forgotten Chaldea, the name before which every head must bow, he writes:

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself" (xix. ii, 12).

A comparison of the indovinelli from different parts of the world, shows, as was to be anticipated, that an enigma may have as wide a range as a folktale. For instance:

is not Scotch alone. It occurs in many versions, both in Italy and France, and is known far beyond their limits, while the idea on which it is based may be traced up to the sixth century. The gruesome riddle relating to the use made of the body of a murdered lover is also wide-spread. There are several Italian forms of it, and it appears in Greek, Slavonian, and High and Low German. The English version, quoted from Henderson's Notes on the Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, may be supplemented by one from Lincolnshire:

The key to the riddle in this instance being that a man murdered his wife or lover, and then formed her bones into a chair, while he buried her flesh under the hearthstone, and made candles of her fat.

Signor Pitrè dwells at length on the literary and the popular origin of riddles, on the forms they assume, the formula with which they frequently commence, the metre in which they are clothed, and the frequent use of personal names, words without sense and alliteration. He also discusses the multiplication of interpretations, the use of words with two distinct meanings, and homonyms. Facetious and arithmetical enigmas come likewise within the wide sweep of the net in which he entangles the débris