Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

RIDDLES, JOKES, AND ROUTINES OF VICTIMIZATION
Riddles
In 
Children’s Riddling
(1979), John H. McDowell defines the riddle as “an in-
terrogative ludic routine incorporating some form of contrived ambiguity” (88). 
Interrogative routines involve dynamics of power. McDowell explains that the 
riddler (the asker of the riddle) has “final authority on the correct solution” but 
“may not disavow a correct solution” (132). The riddle “What’s black and white 
and red all over?” has drawn such diverse responses as “a newspaper,” “an embar-
rassed zebra,” and “a bleeding nun.” If the riddler wants to give the riddlee a hard 
time, he or she can keep the session going until the desired answer emerges.
While many question/answer sequences qualify as riddles, those that empha-
size humor more than the guessing process can be called 
riddle-jokes.
Folklorists’ 
terms for these expressive forms vary. Simon J. Bronner’s 
American Children’s 
Folklore 
distinguishes riddles from riddle parodies, which mock established rid-
dles; riddling questions, which ask the riddlee to identify a referent; and joking 
questions, which emphasize humorous punch lines (114 –18). Danielle Roemer’s 
1995 study covers both verbal and nonverbal riddles.
Some riddles are easier to remember because of their rhymes. Iona and Peter 
Opie include some fine examples of rhyming riddles in their 
Lore and Language 
of Schoolchildren;
one of these, from a 13-year-old girl, is “White and thin, red 
within, with a nail on the end” (77). Its answer: “A finger.” Rhyming riddles have 
circulated in oral tradition for centuries, but nonrhyming questions have been 
more popular in recent years.
The oldest known riddle takes the form of a three-part question. The Opies 
present a variant of the ancient Greek “Sphinx riddle” from a 15-year-old girl: 
“What walks on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the 
evening?” (76). The answer: “A man.” An alternative answer, more suitable for 
the early twenty-first century, would be “a person.”
Young children who have not yet mastered the complexity of the riddle may 
describe a referent without trying to confuse the listener. Brian Sutton-Smith 
calls such questions “pre-riddles” (“Developmental Structural Account” 114 –15); 
McDowell calls them “descriptive routines.” Among the descriptive routines in 
McDowell’s data sample are “What’s red? 
A
rose,
” “What has three wheels and 
pedals? 
A tricycle,
” and “What’s brown and its round and it gots the leaves on it? 
A tree
” (244).
Riddles that embarrass or surprise the riddlee are generally called 
catch riddles.
One such riddle that circulated while I was in high school was “What do virgins 
eat for breakfast?” If the riddlee said nothing, the riddler could assume that the 
riddlee was not a virgin. My friends and I learned to avoid being caught by saying 
“toast,” “eggs,” or the name of any other breakfast food.

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Closely related to the riddle is the puzzle, which provides enough details so 
that the listener can come up with a solution. According to Sarah Lash, the teller 
of a situational puzzle describes a situation, then asks the audience to explain 
how the situation occurred. Some puzzles seem solvable but are actually catches. 
When asked “If a plane crashes on the border between Kansas and Colorado, in 
which state would you bury the survivors?” you might spend some time figuring 
out which state seems most appropriate; however, survivors do not want to be 
buried alive.
Jokes
Like riddles, jokes use verbal trickery to amuse and impress listeners. Some 
children’s jokes, such as knock-knock routines, follow a well-established ques-
tion-and-answer format, but others tell detailed stories. Folklorists call jokes that 
go on for quite a while and culminate in a tricky or ridiculous punch line