“Riddles (Scandinavian)”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Few riddles are attested from medieval Scandinavia (by contrast with the numerous Anglo-Saxon riddles in the quite closely connected literature of medieval England), although Norse mythology does attest to a number of other wisdom-contests, usually involving the god Óðinn. Almost all the surviving medieval Scandinavian riddles occur in one section of the Icelandic Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, in which the god Óðinn propounds around 37 riddles (depending on the manuscript),^[2] though a riddle also appears in Þjalar-Jóns saga.^[3]^[4] Unlike the Old English riddles, the riddles in Hervarar saga have a fairly tight stanzaic form, often with formulaic phrases like "hvat er þat undra, er ek úti sá | fyrir Dellings durum?" ("what wonder is that, which I saw outside, before the doors of Dellingr?"). The riddles in Heiðreks saga provide insights into Norse mythology, medieval Scandinavian social norms, and rarely attested poetic forms.^[5] They were also the subject of a seventeenth-century commentary by Björn Jónsson á Skarðsá.^[6]

One, about a sow with an unborn litter, is paralleled as the Anglo-Saxon poet Aldhelm's enigma 'De scrofa pregnante'.^[7] But only two seem to reflect the stock of folk-riddles known from more widely in Europe. One is an example of the famous cow-riddle:^[8]

The other is the so-called "Óðinn riddle", which is a variant of the international Rider-and-horse riddle:^[10]^[11]

Becoming more widely known in the early modern period through printed editions of the saga, this riddle entered oral tradition. A modern Swedish children's variant of the same runs "vad har tre ögon, tio ben och en svans?" ("what has three eyes, ten legs and a tail?").^[13] Indeed, the whole riddle-contest in Heiðreks saga seems to have become the basis for a Faroese ballad, Gátu ríma ('riddle ballad'), first attested from nineteenth-century oral tradition.^[14]

Modern period

With the advent of print in the West, collections of riddles and similar kinds of questions began to be published. A large number of riddle collections were printed in the German-speaking world and, partly under German influence, in Scandinavia.^[15] Scandinavian riddles have also been extensively collected from oral tradition. Key collections and studies include:

References

1. ^Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj, Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), p. 163 {{doi|10.21435/sff.10}}.
2. ^Alaric Hall, "Changing Style and Changing Meaning: Icelandic Historiography and the Medieval Redactions of Heiðreks saga", Scandinavian Studies, 77 (2005), 1–30, at pp. 9–10. {{JSTOR|40920553}}
3. ^‘Þjalar-Jóns saga’, trans. by Philip Lavender, Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 46 (2015), 73–113 (p. 79).
4. ^See further Laurits Bødker, Brynjilf Alver, Bengt Holbek, Leea Virtanen, The Nordic Riddle: Terminology and Bibliography (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1964).
5. ^Burrows, Hannah, "Wit and Wisdom: The Worldview of the Old Norse-Icelandic Riddles and their Relationship to Eddic Poetry", in Eddic, Skaldic, and Beyond: Poetic Variety in Medieval Iceland and Norway, ed. by Martin Chase (New York: Forham University Press, 2014), 114–35; Hannah Burrows, "Enigma Variations: Hervarar saga{{'}}s Wave-Riddles and Supernatural Women in Old Norse Poetic Tradition", JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 112 (2013), 194–216, {{doi|10.5406/jenglgermphil.112.2.0194}}, {{JSTOR|10.5406/jenglgermphil.112.2.0194}}.
6. ^Philip Lavender, "Oedipus industrius ænigmatum islandicorum: Björn Jónsson á Skarðsá's Riddle Commentary", Gripla, 26 (2015), 229–73.
7. ^The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, trans. by Christopher Tolkien (London: Nelson, 1960), pp. xix, 43 [verse no. 70], 90.
8. ^Cf. Antti Aarne, Vergleichende Rätselforschungen, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 60–172.
9. ^The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, trans. by Christopher Tolkien (London: Nelson, 1960), p. 43 [no. 70].
10. ^Archer Taylor, '[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1495557 The Riddle]', California Folklore Quarterly, 2.2 (April 1943), 129-47 (p. 142).
11. ^Cf. Antti Aarne, Vergleichende Rätselforschungen, 3 vols, Folklore Fellows Communications, 26–28 (Helsinki/Hamina: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1918–20), II 173–216.
12. ^The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, trans. by Christopher Tolkien (London: Nelson, 1960), p. 44 [verse no. 72].
13. ^Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj, Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre, Studia Fennica, Folkloristica, 10 (Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001), pp. 13–14; {{doi|10.21435/sff.10}}.
14. ^Kershaw, Nora, [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33471/33471-h/33471-h.htm Stories and Ballads of the Far Past] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1921), pp. 212-16.
15. ^Frauke Rademann-Veith, Die skandinavischen Rätselbücher auf der Grundlage der deutschen Rätselbuch-Traditionen (1540–1805) (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2010) (PhD thesis, Münster University, 2004).

Medieval period

Modern period

References

External links