The Limelighters and Other Riddles

This evening we were looking for a CD that has been missing for several weeks, The Limelighters: Through Children’s Eyes. My husband walked over to the CD case, plucked it right out, and handed it to us. “Why do things hide whenever they find out you’re looking for them?”

It’s true. When you want a book or a CD or something like that, you can’t find it. They know they are wanted and they disappear.

I loved that CD—or rather, album—my parents gave me the LP record album for my birthday when I was a child, and I played it and played it. I had all the songs memorized. When I found it in a CD a few months ago, I found that I could still sing along on all the tracks.

Tonight somebody remarked what a beautiful song “I Gave My Love a Cherry” is. Something clicked and I started to think about my master’s degree, and how, when I was researching the Old English charms, I ended up reading an awful lot about Old English riddles.

How can there be a cherry that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a story that has no end?
How can there be a baby with no crying?

Those aren’t very hard to answer, but I love some of the harder ones. Here are some of my favorites. The first really is Old English:

Moððe word fræt—me þæt þuhte wrætlicu wyrd þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn, þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes, þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne wæs wihte þy gleawra þe he þam wordum swealg.

Moth gobbled songs—it seemed to me marvelous when I learned that wonder, the worm swallowing songs of men, a thief in darkness with glorious cud and that base of strength. The stealthy guest was none the wiser for his word-feast.

I never was, am always to be,
No one ever saw me, nor ever will
And yet I am the confidence of all
To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.


At night they come without being fetched,
And by day they are lost without being stolen.


My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.
Another view of man, my second brings,
Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!
But ah! united what reverse we have!
Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown:
Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.
Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
May its approval beam in that soft eye!
—Jane Austen


Riddle me, riddle me, rot-tot-tote!
A little wee man, in a red red coat!
A staff in his hand, and a stone in his throat;
If you’ll tell me this riddle, I’ll give you a groat.
—Beatrix Potter

And we are now back to the cherry and the riddles posed in the Limelighters CD. There is an answer to all the riddles in this posting except the first one. Do you have an answer?