The constellation
H720 Metaphorical riddles
A constellation is one motif’s neighborhood in the record — the story-shapes filed around it, the tale types that carry it, and the texts where it is witnessed, every line a receipted link. Click a motif to travel. Click a text to read it. The entry · wander
● motif
● tale type
● on the shelf
● attested
The same sky, in words
beneath it
- Riddle of the year · H721 entry
- Riddle of the day and night. (Cf. H721.1, H721.2, H721.4.) · H722 entry
- Riddle of the course of the sun · H725 entry
- Riddle: who are the real travellers? The son and the moon · H726 entry
- Riddle of king and courtiers · H731 entry
- Riddle: what is the mother who devours her children when they grow up? (Ocean and rivers.) · H734 entry
- Riddle white field, black seed. (Paper with writing.) · H741 entry
- Riddle: two legs, three legs, four legs. (Man, three-legged stool dog.) · H742 entry
- Riddle: four hang, four walk, two show the road, one wags behind. (Cow's teats, feet, eyes, tail.) (Other answers: cat, dog, horse, hog, etc.) · H743 entry
- Riddle: six legs, four ears, two faces, etc. (Horse and rider.) · H744 entry
- Riddle: bill white, horns on feet, knob on head (cock) · H746 entry
- Riddle: who of fourfold beard is he, of azure foot and neck so ruddy? Arrow · H751 entry
- Riddle of the Sphinx: what is it that goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening. (Man, who crawls as a child, walks in middle life, and walks with a stick in old age.) · H761 entry
- Riddle: what is the creature that is of all countries, that is loved by all the world, and that has no equal? (The sun.) · H762 entry
- Riddle: the father not yet born, the son already at the top of the house. (Flame and smoke.) · H763 entry
- Riddle: bird without feathers flies on tree without leaves. (Snow falls on bare tree.) · H764 entry
- From wooden spring iron bucket makes stones from which water flows. (Metal stick picks stone from eye. If you rub lids with it, tears come.) · H765 entry
- Allegorical riddles · H767 entry
- What house gives no hostages, cannot be burned, and cannot be harried? (The fairy stronghold [sídh] of brugh na Boinne.) · H768 entry