Lorsch riddles

The Lorsch riddles, also known as the Aenigmata Anglica,[1] are a collection of twelve hexametrical, early medieval Latin riddles that were anonymously written in the ninth century.

The absence of line breaks separating individual verses (among other things)[2] show that they are possibly of English origin.[3] None of the poems have a written solution, which has caused much debate over the answers to some of them. The poems were heavily influenced by Aldhelm's Enigmata. They are preserved today in only one manuscript,[4] from the Carolingian scriptorium of Lorsch Abbey, discovered in 1753.[5]

Editions

The Lorsch riddles have been edited multiple times, twice by Ernst Dümmler--once in 1879 and again in 1881.[6]

The main recent edition is by Fr. Glorie, from 1968.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Cullhed, Sigrid Schottenius (2015-02-05). Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba. BRILL. ISBN 9789004289482.
  2. ↑ Lockett, Leslie (2011-01-01). Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442642171.
  3. ↑ Bitterli, Dieter (2009-01-01). Say what I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802093523.
  4. ↑ Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exteter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 4.
  5. ↑ Bitterli, Dieter (2009-01-01). Say what I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802093523.
  6. ↑ Lockett, Leslie (2011-01-01). Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442642171.
  7. ↑ Glorie, Fr. (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), pp. 345–58.
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