CHAPTER 1

The Introductory

What is it thatwalks with four legs in the morning,with two legs at midday, and with three legswhen the sun has gone down?

Should you be wily enough to answer this curious question correctly, as Oedipusdid when he was challenged by a strange creature on the road to ancient Thebes,you too will have solved one of the most confounding problems ever to face awayward traveler. Dispatched by the gods to prevent travelers from reaching thecity, the fabulous beast had perched herself on a cliff outside the city, andseized all who tried to pass by. Those who couldn't think quickly—orimaginatively—enough she hurled to their deaths, or devoured.

But Oedipus outwitted her.

"It is a human being," he answered calmly, "who crawls on all fours as a baby,walks upright on two legs in middle age, and in old age stumbles along with acane."

The writers of old said the creature was so shamed by Oedipus' clever deductionthat she hurled herself off the precipice. Who was this menacing creature, andwhat about her has haunted the world's imagination ever since? And what does herdramatic confrontation say about the enigmatic powers of the human imagination?

I am older than the pyramids.

I am the daughter of Titans.

I have the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head and breasts of awoman.

I am more obscure than oracles, and more puzzling than gods.

I ask travelers questions that their lives depend on.

O wise one, weigh your words well and say what I am.

If you answered, the Sphinx, you have identified a character who has tantalizedcommentators for centuries, and you have begun to crack the mystery of theimagination. Many people have regarded the Sphinx's treatment of unfortunatewayfarers as merely the vengeance of the gods. But there is more than one way toread myths, which are sacred precisely because they reflect inexhaustiblemysteries. Myth's power to stir the soul depends on each generation breathingnew life into them, as the Egyptians did with the story of the Sphinx, which wasalready ancient when they immortalized her in stone along the banks of the Nile.

Forty centuries later, the monument still stares out at us over the desertsands, and her name is remembered for her challenges to travelers and for hertime-devouring gaze that questions everything from here to eternity.

THE MOTHER WIT

I am as enchanting as a medieval spell,charming as a nursery rhyme, as challenging as a duel.I accompany you from cradle to grave,providing laughter for childhood,literary games for middle age,and wisdom tests for elders.

Guess my gnomic name, if you can.

Walk around these words I have cobbled together as you would walk around thesands that surround the Sphinx. Take a leap of imagination. Tease the answer outof its hiding place. Turn these words around like a whetstone in your mind, thenturn to these, "When first I appear I seem mysterious, but when I am explained Iam nothing serious." Sharpen your wit on these old English words; hone yoursense of humor on them, and soon the playful subject of this book will berevealed to you as the noble riddle.

Described variously as enigmas, conundrums, puzzle poems, bafflers, charades,logogriphs, teasers, verbal jigsaws, queer words, and quiz questions, sinceolden times riddles have been posed to test people's wit and stretch theirimaginations. Riddles reveal the prodigious imagination of our ancestors andthroughout history have given a voice to those who were not commonly heard.

According to Webster's, a riddle is "a proposition put in obscure or ambiguousterms to puzzle or exercise the ingenuity in discovering its meaning; somethingto be solved by conjecture." The Dutch folklorist Jan Van Hunyard has written,"Folk riddles are traditional questions with unexpected answers, verbal puzzlesthat circulate, mostly by word of mouth, to demonstrate the cleverness of thequestioner and challenge the wit of his audience." For French anthropologistClaude Lévi-Strauss, a riddle was "an overt question with a covert answer." Myown favorite description is given by an old African American storyteller fromthe South, who drawled, "A riddle is what you guess up on."

In the spirit of conciseness, we can hazard a guess, so to speak, that riddlesare simply ingenious questions in search of clever answers:

Guess a riddle now you must:Stone is fire, and fire is dust,Black is red, and red is white—Come and view the wondrous sight.

In other words, the genius of the Sphinx is in the way her question allows us tosee the "lie that tells the truth," as Picasso once described the beauty of art,and as the traditional riddle from England just quoted tells us about coal.Consider also this old Turkish riddle: "It enters the forest and does notrustle" and its unexpected answer, the shadow. And this Spanish one: "A lazy oldwoman has a tooth in her crown, and with that tooth she gathers the people,"with its clanging answer, a bell.

At first glance or hearing, a riddle may seem to be incomprehensible, butperhaps a more fruitful descriptor would be enigmatic (literally "a darksaying"); the solving of a riddle can bring light to the imagination. Part ofthe genius of riddles is the way they illustrate the perennial wisdom thatthings aren't always what they seem, and the manner in which they reveal the"genius," the vital life, in everything.

For at least six thousand years, the riddle was held in high esteem. But inmodern times, it has unfortunately been relegated to the playgrounds of childrenand delegated to the research projects of folklorists. Unless disguised in theform of a detective story or mathematical mind-cruncher, for most modern adultsriddles are, frankly, exasperating. The most honor the word riddle receivestoday is when it is used to express a respectably mysterious problem: "The OlmecRiddle," or "The Riddle of Time." However, a closer look reveals that riddles—trueriddles—rank alongside myths, legends, fairy tales, maxims, and proverbs,as one of the earliest types of folk wisdom. From Borneo longhouses to Comanchetepees, from Anglo-Saxon mead halls to the huts of Laplander nomads, riddleshave flourished as a way to pass the time—or question it. An even deeper lookreveals that riddles were a favorite form of wordplay and brain teaser for manyof the greatest minds in history, from Aristotle to Emily Dickinson, Leonardo daVinci to James Joyce.

The source of riddles' charm remains similar from culture to culture, era toera. It begins at the beginning, with lullabies: "Twinkle, twinkle little star /How I wonder what you are...." My grandfather, Sydney England, my mother has longbeen fond of telling me, used to lull her to sleep each evening with a differentset of riddles, ending with these lilting words: "Riddle, riddle, where are you?Riddle, riddle, I love you...."

Riddles thrive not only on wonder, but on sheer surprise. Imagine this one, ifyou will: "This girl, who has six legs and...