• Arts
• Business
• Computers
• Games
• Health
• Home
• Kids and Teens
• News
• Recreation
• Reference
• Regional
• Science
• Shopping
• Society
• Sports

Anglo-Saxon Book Riddles

Anglo-Saxon Riddles and Charms, by Karl Young Notes and translations by Karl Young Just under a hundred Anglo-Saxon riddles have come down to us. We can't say with any certainty who composed them, or when, or how, or for what purpose. They may have been oral compositions: short pieces the bards used while their audiences were getting settled, or as fill between sets during performances of epics such as Beowulf. Minstrels might also have sung them in less formal situations, where audience attention span was short or a higher degree of audience participation was desirable. However, we also have a large number of riddles written in Latin and some of the riddles are translations or adaptations of Latin poems. This has suggested to some scholars that riddling was a purely literate genre, without an oral base. This leads into confusions and assumptions from later periods. We tend to assume that knowledge of Latin must have included literacy. It did not. The clergy of the period included members who could speak Latin but could not read or write it. Some of the aristocracy included fluent Latin speakers. My own feeling is that there was an oral tradition of riddling in Anglo-Saxon England (the riddle is an almost universal form, found in most cultures) and that oral and literate riddling practices interacted with each other from the mid seventh century up to the Norman conquest. It seems likely enough that those riddles which survive were produced largely by clergymen with a knowledge of Latin, but that nattive traditions of riddling found their way into their riddles. Nearly all the riddles that have survived are preserved in the

Contact Information