The Story of English in 100 Words Read Online Free PDF Page B

the word for ‘read’ with an
-els
ending. It meant a ‘reading’ or ‘opinion’ about something. Gradually the sense broadened to an ‘interpretation’ of something, and then, in an interesting switch, to a ‘saying that defies easy interpretation’ – an enigma. The modern meaning was in place by the 10th century.
    The form of the word changed too. That
-els
ending was quite common in Old English, turning up in such words as
gyrdels
(‘girdle’) and
byrels
(‘tomb’ – think
buriels
). But during the 14th century it evidently confused everyone. By then, the
-s
ending on a noun was being thought of as a plural. So when people saw the word
redels
(as it was usually spelledin the Middle Ages), they thought it of it as a plural form,
riddles
. During the 15th century, they gradually dropped the
-s
to make a new singular form,
riddle
.
    There’s a collection of Old English riddles in one of the finest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts: the Exeter Book. It was compiled in the late 10th century, and is so called because it was acquired by Bishop Leofric for Exeter Cathedral some time afterwards. It contains over thirty poems and over ninety verse riddles. They cover a wide range of subjects reflecting the Anglo-Saxon way of life, such as weapons, book-making, animals and everyday objects.
    Each riddle presents a topic in a mysterious or puzzling way and asks the reader to identify it. Some are the equivalent of the modern ‘dirty joke’. The riddle whose answer is ‘a key’ begins like this: ‘Something wondrous hangs by a man’s thigh …’ Here’s R. K. Gordon’s translation of one of the cleaner riddles:
    I saw a creature in the cities of men who feeds the cattle. It has many teeth. Its beak is useful. It goes pointing downward. It plunders gently and returns home. It searches through the slopes, seeks herbs. Always it finds those which are not firm. It leaves the fair ones fixed by their roots, quietly standing in their station, gleaming brightly, blowing and growing.
    The answer is: a rake.
    The story of
riddle
doesn’t end here. By the 14th century it had developed the general sense of a‘difficult problem’ or ‘mystery’. It came to be applied to people:
He’s a complete riddle; I don’t understand him at all!
And then, in the 16th century, the noun became a verb, meaning ‘to speak in riddles’. ‘Lysander riddles very prettily,’ says Hermia in Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(II.ii.59).
    Something very curious then took place. Some people started to use the verb and the noun together.
Riddle me a riddle
, says one 16th-century writer, meaning ‘Solve this riddle for me’. Others dropped the noun and used the verb twice:
Riddle me, riddle me
. Evidently people found the sound of the word appealing. And children did too, because eventually the phrase became part of a popular nursery rhyme:
    Riddle me, riddle me, ree;
A little man in a tree;
A stick in his hand,
A stone in his throat,
If you tell me this riddle
I’ll give you a groat.
    Riddle-me-ree
became a frequent title for collections of riddles, and the phrase often appeared in children’s stories. You’ll find it in
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
, by Beatrix Potter.

What
    an early exclamation (10th century)
    Imagine the scene. You are in front of an audience, about to make an announcement or give a speech. Everyone is noisy. Some may have had too much to drink. You need to quieten people down. You’ve no hammer to bang against a table. There’s no spoon to clink against a glass. All you have is your voice. At least you can shout. But what will you say? ‘Ladies and gentlemen …’? ‘Quiet, please …’? ‘Excuse me …’? They all seem a little weak.
    The poet-minstrels in Anglo-Saxon mead-halls had the same problem. They were called
scops
(pronounced ‘shops’), and their role was to tell the heroic stories of the Germanic people to the assembled warriors. The scops must have had prodigious memories. The epic