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Riddle stories
Our story of Hannah and her father,
the farmer, is adapted from a much-loved and oft-told Czechoslovakian Tale, known originally as Clever Manka.
Riddle
me this. What kind of folktale can be found from Afghanistan to Arabia, from China to Czechoslovakia, from Germany to Greece,
from Indonesia to Ireland, from Poland to Puerto Rico?
The answer is the riddle or puzzle story. In most of these
tales, a social inferior outwits someone who supposedly is his or her superior, though sometimes there’s a twist as in a famous
Hawaiian tale in which a king demands young men bring him one new riddle after another, and it’s he who can solve them all
while none can solve his.
Usually, though, the person who solves the riddle proves her or himself to be cleverer than
everyone else, and that, indeed, is our clever Hannah.
Now and then a folktale proposes a dilemma that is riddle-like
but without a specifically correct answer, and of course our Clever Hannah could have responded any number of ways to the
magistrate’s riddles (just as the riddles could have been posed in any number of ways). But then, half the fun of these tales
is trying to find the answers you’d like to give, and likely some listeners are clever too, perhaps even as clever as Hannah.
There is in this tale an element beyond the riddle and that is the teasing courtship with its surprising end. Like
some of the Lazy Jack tales, the heroine in this folktale has, for centuries, delighted readers with her wit, her wiles, and
her strength. This woman is loved for her mind, and a dazzling mind it is. The original Manka tale has traveled across oceans
and survived centuries and exists in many folktale collections that celebrate women, including Alison Lurie’s marvelous Clever
Gretchen and Other Forgotten Folktales and Rosemary Minard’s Womenfolk and Fairy Tales both of which also include another
marvelous heroines of lore—Molly Whuppie who, despite originating in England is surely Clever Manka’s cousin. In that story,
in true folktale tradition, three girls find shelter with a friendly woman who, sadly, is married to a giant clever. Naturally
the heroine, Molly Whuppie, discovers he is up to no good. And it's Molly, the youngest girl, who helps her sisters escape.
But folktales being what they are, she doesn’t get off that easy. Heroines and heroes seldom do. When Molly and her sisters
come upon the king, he sends her back to steal the giant’s sword, and it’s with her courage and cunning, that Molly twice
more outwits both the giant and his wife.
Many of the best tales of feminist folklore heroines are in books that are,
sadly, out of print, but the cleverest among you will find these books that include: Maeve Binchy’s Ride On Rapunzel: Fairy
Tales for Feminists from Ireland’s Attic Press, Angela Carter’s 1990 The Old Wives’ Fairy Tale Book New York: Pantheon, and
Allan Chinen’s 1996 Waking the World: Classic Tales of Women and the Heroic Feminine. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher.
And
for a marvelous retelling (with a southern twang) you won't want to miss Mary Hamilton's "The Farmer's Daughter" on her CD
Some Dog & Other Kentucky Wonders.
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Classroom exercises
One game that's fun to play,
and results in surprising responses, is to divide a classroom, a group at a party, friends at home into two groups.
One
group invents three riddles.
The members of Group One then select a partner from Group Two, and the Riddlers announce
their riddles.
Separately or together, Group two must come up with answers to the riddles, and finally the entire group
votes.
Which were the best riddles, and which the best answers?
Other questions
What makes a riddle
work?
What makes an answer wise and what makes an answer foolish?
What sort of judgements make sense? Was the
judge's first decision in this story foolish? Could he have made a decision, and if so, what should it have been?
Who
is able to make judgments, and why? Who should judges be?
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