Description:
Riddle contests are exactly that, contests of knowledge, in often poetic form, of riddles between two contestants. Riddle contests are a subset of more general knowledge contests in literature, and can either be the entirety of a story (riddle-tales) or a part of a larger narrative. Such riddle contests and riddle-tales have existed for millennia, going all the way back to ancient Sumerian literature in the 3rd millennium BC.
Riddle contests have been deployed as motifs in literature for a variety of narrative purposes, from determining the suitability of a suitor to divine conflicts between rulers and deities. Such uses demonstrate the variety of contexts of riddle contests, including mundane and mythological or religious significances.
Riddles in verse in the Middle Ages were a quite popular short form literature, using a poetic mindset to describe things in relations to other things. They also could function simply as a literary framework for the preservation of ancient riddles and the knowledge they contained. Riddle-tales are thus studied both for the riddles they contain and as literary works themselves.
The most well-known riddle contest in modern medievalist fiction is the one between Bilbo Baggins and Gollum in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. The seriousness of such contests is exemplified in the life-or-death stakes at play, which mirrors the renowned riddle contests of medieval literature. In Old Norse literature, the god Óðinn is depicted as a tenacious knowledge-seeker, leading him to summon up dead seeresses to interrogate about the beginning and end of the world (Ragnarök) and to engage in deadly riddle contests with powerful jötnar (LINK), or giants as they are often mistranslated. One such story is the eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál("The Words of Vafþrúðnir"), when Óðinn, in disguise and with a fake name, enters the hall of the jötunn Vafþrúðnir, and wagers his head in a wisdom contest of riddles. In the end, Óðinn uses his penchant for deceit and trickery to win the contest, asking a question that only he knows (Óðinn's last words to his son Baldr's body on the funeral pyre). Bilbo uses a similar deceit to escape being killed and eaten by Gollum, asking him "what have I got in my pocket?" Though technically not a riddle, formally, in both cases, both supernatural, monstrous creatures demonstrate a willing refusal to bend the rules of the contest, and accept defeat (more or less, in Gollum's case), where such contests in premodern cultures seem sacrosanct and binding to non-human entities.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Vafþrúðnismál | Vafþrúðnismál ("The Words of Vafþrúðnir") is an eddic poem preserved in the Codex Regius manuscript of the
|