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] The poems were heavily influenced by Aldhelm's Enigmata.^[4] None of the poems have a written solution, which has caused much debate over the answers to some of them; the solutions as given in Glore's edition are: 1. de homine/person; 2. de anima/soul; 3. de aqua/water; 4. de glacie/ice; 5. de cupa uinaria/wine-cup; 6. de niue/snow; 7. de castanea/chestnut; 8. de fetu/foetus; 9. de penna/feather; 10. de luminari/eternal light; 11. de tauro/bull; 12. de atramento/ink.^[5]

The riddles are preserved in only one manuscript (Vatican, Pal. Lat. 1753).^[6] The manuscript was written c. 800 in the Carolingian scriptorium of Lorsch Abbey, where it was rediscovered in 1753.^[7] It contains among a variety of grammatical texts the Aenigmata of Symphosius, the Enigmata of Aldhelm and a variety of prose and metrical texts by Boniface.^[8]

Editions

• 'Aenigmata "lavreshamensia" [anigmata "anglica"]', ed. by Fr. Glorie, trans. by Karl J. Minst, in Tatuini omnia opera, Variae collectiones aenigmatum merovingicae aetatis, Anonymus de dubiis nominibus, Corpus christianorum: series latina, 133-133a, 2 vols (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), I 345–58 [including German translation].

The Lorsch riddles have also been edited twice by Ernst Dümmler--once in 1879 and again in 1881.^[9]

See also

• Anglo-Saxon riddles