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] None of the poems have a written solution, which has caused much debate over the answers to some of them. The poems were heavily influenced by Aldhelm's Enigmata. They are preserved today in only one manuscript,^[4] from the Carolingian scriptorium of Lorsch Abbey, discovered in 1753.^[5]

Editions

The Lorsch riddles have been edited multiple times, twice by Ernst Dümmler--once in 1879 and again in 1881.^[6]

The main recent edition is by Fr. Glorie, from 1968.^[7]

References

1. Cullhed, Sigrid Schottenius (2015-02-05). Proba the Prophet: The Christian Virgilian Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba. BRILL. ISBN 9789004289482.
2. Lockett, Leslie (2011-01-01). Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442642171.
3. Bitterli, Dieter (2009-01-01). Say what I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802093523.
4. Patrick J. Murphy, Unriddling the Exteter Riddles (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), p. 4.
5. Bitterli, Dieter (2009-01-01). Say what I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book and the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802093523.
6. Lockett, Leslie (2011-01-01). Anglo-Saxon Psychologies in the Vernacular and Latin Traditions. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442642171.
7. Glorie, Fr. (ed.), Variae collectiones aenignmatvm Merovingicae aetatis (pars altera), Corpvs Christianorvm, Series Latina, 133a (Turnholt: Brepols, 1968), pp. 345–58.