Riddles: Perspectives on the Use,
Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre

by Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj translated by Susan Sinisaloed 186 pp.

Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre. By Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj. Trans. Susan Sinisalo. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 10. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2001. Pp. 186. Illustrations, bibliography, index.

Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj's Riddles, the newest volume in the Studia Fennica Folkloristica series, is an introduction to the study of riddles. Based largely on Finnish materials, it nevertheless gives careful attention to broader issues in the study of riddles.

In the first chapter of her book, Kaivola-Bregenhøj introduces the history of riddle studies and the basic research questions that have dominated this scholarly endeavor. She also points to sources for the study of traditional and contemporary riddles. As she shows here, and throughout the book, the riddling traditions of various groups have been changing; but if the traditional riddle has largely become a thing of the past, the generic form--especially riddling questions--maintains a solid place in folk tradition. The second chapter addresses the "debate on basic issues"; here, the author takes up issues such as the elements and definitions of the riddle. The next chapter discusses riddle subgenres, ranging from "true riddles" to "literary riddles," while a fourth chapter centers on sexual riddles.

Chapter Five discusses the contexts in which riddles are told, as well as their functions in those contexts. The sixth and seventh chapters focus on stylistic aspects of the riddle. For instance, in Chapter Six Kaivola-Bregenhøj discusses the "expressive devices of riddles"--such as ambiguity, metaphors, and formulae--as well as problems of "culture bound riddle metaphors" and international riddle types. The seventh chapter looks at riddle imagery and its relationship to riddle answers. The book concludes with an examination of the status and future of riddle research. As is proper in an introductory work like this, Kaivola-Bregenhøj does not concentrate on a single model of riddle study, but rather gives an overview of the major works of scholarship and their approaches to the riddle. Her attention to non-English language scholarship is especially useful for readers in the United States; German, Swedish, and Finnish scholars writing in these languages have made important contributions to the theory and study of riddles. Thus, Kaivola-Bregenhøj's book is a useful and comprehensive introduction to the theory and study of riddles.

David Elton Gay
Indiana University, Bloomington