Dictionary of Riddles

by Mark Bryant

Originally published in 1990 by Routledge, Dictionary of Riddles is a collection of nearly 1500 of the most cryptic and entertaining riddles from history. Drawn from sources throughout the world, the collection ranges from earthy medieval jokes about fleas, worms and vegetables to the sophisticated puzzles composed by literary figures from Schiller, Swift, Voltaire, Rousseau and Cervantes to Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll and J.R.R. Tolkien. The book traces the history of riddles from their origins in antiquity through the golden age of the Renaissance, to their decline into the nursery and the first few signs of their modern revival, and draws together all the strands of the riddling art. Dictionary of Riddles received a Special Commendation in Reference Review ’s Best Specialist Reference Books of 1990 Awards.

382 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1990

Reviews

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why did every ancient culture have such a thing as a riddle? It's not a joke, exactly; it's more like a crossword puzzle clue, or a belabored pun. Yet they were deadly serious in many stories from around the world. In the 1700-1800s in Europe it was a parlor game, like charades or 20 questions. I have been thinking about analogies as a key to how we think lately, so my mind runs in that direction.
Well, this book hardly answers any of those kinds of questions, but it does provide thousands of examples of riddles from many different sources. Having read a lot of them, they are not hard to come up with on your own, with little effort:
My first is on the very top
My second goes and never stops.

The answer is "headline."
There are some other rules that most of them fulfill. A good riddle presents a consistent picture of something monstrous, or expresses apparent contradictions to seem impossible.