Riddles and Riddling: An Introduction

Abstract

ELIAS LONNROT, THE COMPILER OF THE SECOND FINNISH RIDDLE COLLECTION, published in 1844, wrote about riddles and riddling: As mathematics is in the schools of the learned, so is the riddle in the home school of the folk. Both exercise the mind to understand the unknown, starting with the known conditions.' Lonnrot pointed at what we would now call the cognitive functions of riddling, especially in education and socialization. Christfrid Ganander described riddling occasions in the first Finnish riddle collection, Aenigmata Fennica, which he completed in 1783.2 He refers first to the practices of Old Goths, our ancestors in this kingdom (Finland was still part of Sweden) who with riddles the acuity, intelligence and skills of each and who presumably tested suitors: also when a suitor or a young man came to ask for a girl, three or more riddles were posed to him, to test his mind with them, and if he could answer and interpret them, he received the girl, otherwise not, but was classified as stupid and good for nothing. Later he states: Lastly, one takes note that the young folks, boys and girls, test each other still at present with riddles in our province; it is shameful if the other cannot answer three riddles, and they then send [her] to the yard of shame (hapiapiha), and even wee children know still today how to say to each other, if the companion cannot answer three riddles: 'Go to Hyvola; may the dogs of Hyvola bark. Daughter, go to see who is coming there? A poor ragged girl all dressed in rags. A mouse is her horse, a ladle is her sleigh . .. .' 3