The enduring allure of Riddles, Anglo-saxon Poetry, and Pangrams

The Banquet, Medieval; Ed. 1

Dear All and Sundry,

Welcome to today’s Banquet. Here’s what’s in store:

• A Greek riddle whose answer is also a riddle

• Riddle as training in close study

• The culture and practice of Anglo-saxon riddles

• A bonus original riddle

• Pangrams!

I hope everyone can find something to chew on!

The Irony of the Riddle of the Sphinx

The enduring attraction of riddles is as old as the Western Tradition itself. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the sphinx devours all who cannot guess the answer to her riddle-what walks on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?

The answer - Man - requires the unlucky traveler to have enough self-possession and introspection to look beyond the immediacy of the present, where mortal danger lurks, into their own imagined past and possible future, and see the answer is the answerer.

For Oedipus, the prophetic destiny that allows him to escape the sphinx in the present will bind him to a past the audience already knows and future that is pre-ordained.

Oedipus will give the answer, but in the course of the play will be stumped by another question-who has killed king Laius? The irony that he has killed the king, and that the king was his father, and that he has married his mother is a horror that Oedipus is unprepared for. It seems the sphinx has the last laugh-once again, the answerer is the answer.

When is man to live as a man, in his past, present or future? If the future is already decided, do the choices of the present matter?

Is man the ruler of his fate or is he merely the subject to the will (or whims) of the gods?

The answer to the riddle that the sphinx has become the riddle, the riddle that continues to unfold over the course of time: What is man?

Riddling as a preparation for close reading

The riddle will be a unifying feature throughout the Western Canon- it surfaces again and again. Samson’s riddle shows that its enjoyment was not unknown to the Israelites, nor did the Romans neglect it. The Anglo-Saxons delighted in them, and through them it finds its way into later English works Riddling will, in one way or another, undergird many novels, from James Joyce’s Ulysses to The Hobbit.

The root of the word ‘riddle’ is the Anglo-Saxon word raed, which meant counsel or thought, and it is cognate with ‘read’ and ‘ready’. When we read, we take cousel from books (hopefully!) and then we are ready, full of good advice for whatever comes at us.

In introducing works such as Beowulf or The Dream of the Rood, it would be wise to give students a taste of riddles, and their place in Anglo-Saxon literature. Usually, students delight in the mental puzzle, and it serves as an introduction to the joy that resides in real intellectual effort, which will be required as they contend with difficult works.

Anglo-Saxon riddles

The riddle as a literary form finds expression in the earliest English literature. That riddles were very popular during the Anglo-Saxon period, (many survive) should not surprise us; the particular habit of mind that finds expression in riddles-a gift for metaphor, a taste for surprise and novelty, and joy in one-upmanship - is prevalent in Anglo-Saxon culture and finds expression in many ways.

Indeed, one of the most noteworthy aspects of this literature is the kenning-a sort of miniature riddle that acts as a poetic circumlocution to a common word. So Ocean becomes Whale-road; King becomes Ring-Giver. The kenning allows the poet variety regarding often repeated terms, while offering the reader the pleasure of participation in completing the image.

In the best of riddles, there is a sort of sleight-of-hand, a false answer that comes easily to mind, that the true answer is being compared to, but acts as a distraction and cover for the real answer. At times, this false answer involved a certain amount of double entendre, which added a distraction of another sort, stirring the appetite and passions, and most likely made it even harder to think clearly. At other times, it made the audience think of the poet himself in his role as thane, or loyal freeman, who owes fealty to his king, or the king who conversely owes protection and payment to his warriors. In this way, the riddle can call a king or thane back to his duty without putting too fine a point on it.

Consider the following, taken from the Exeter Book of Riddles, translated from the Anglo-Saxon by Kevin Crossley-Holland:

I must fight with the waves whipped up by the wind,
contending alone with their force combined,
when I dive to earth under the sea.
My own country is unknown to me.
If I can stay still, I’m strong in the fray.
If not, their might is greater than mine: 
they’ll break me in fragments, and put me to flight,
intending to plunder, what I must protect.
I can foil them, if my fins are not frail,
and the rocks hold firm against my force.
You know my nature, now guess my name.

The reader (or audience) of this riddle is perplexed. Dear Sundry, you may be thinking of a coast-raiding sailor, and indeed the voice seems to be of a proud warrior fighting the elements. This is the false answer, however. It is the comparison.

On closer inspection we see that this “warrior” is fighting below the waves, and the key line is the last one-it is struggling to hold the rocks.

It is the voice of the Anchor, and in its service to the ship and in its struggle with the elements, the poet calls to the minds of the thanes present the duty that is expected of them.

The riddle speaks in the voice of the object, and this too is of note. There is a sympathetic desire to see the world from a new perspective that informs these riddles, and to imbue the world, and even the everyday objects with purpose, even will and personality. It is unsurprising then to find intricate craft even in mundane things -bone combs, dagger hilts, the prows of ships - for these objects are analogous to the thane himself—they serve, and should they serve well, will be prized. If they break or shatter, they will have betrayed their purpose.

A Bonus Riddle

Here is a riddle for you, in the 3-line structure of Symphosius, with a nod to Emily Dickinson (herself, no mean riddler):

I teach things how to fly, at least a little;
A thing with feathers sits upon my middle
And with one note, flies off! Guess the riddle!

Pangrams

In thinking of the Sphinx, my mind cannot help but think of pangrams. A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet. These sentences were created to test fonts and type-faces. The difficulty is to make a sentence with as few letters as possible above the twenty-six. While the most famous is The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, at 35 letters, it is hardly the most clever. The most elegant pangram ,for my money, (though not the shortest) which uses no abbreviations, proper names, and still makes grammatical sense as a sentence, coming in at 29 letters is the following:

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.

Isn’t that wonderful?

There are others and it’s an amusing pastime to try to create originals. Here are two of my own:

Kvetchy bald pawn, mix jugs of quartz!

Jumpy quacks vow next big wizard flight.

Dear Sundry, feel free to offer your favorites or originals below.

Until the next Banquet, take care!