The corpus of traditional riddles from the Finnic-speaking world is fairly unified, though the eastern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence from Russian Orthodox Christianity and Slavonic riddle culture. The Finnish word for riddle, arvoitus, is related to the verb arvata, meaning to guess, and to arpa.
Facts
Place of OriginFinnic-speaking world (Finland, Estonia and parts of Western Russia) 1 Notable ExampleRiddle of the tailor who goes through the village without saying good morning (answer: needle and thread without an end knot), collected in Naantali in 1891 1 Defining TraitOriginal imagery and an abundance of sexual riddles 1 Sources
1. Finnic riddles - Wikipedia
Lead, sentence 1
The corpus of traditional riddles from the Finnic-speaking world (including the modern Finland, Estonia, and parts of Western Russia)
Form
the tailor goes through the village without saying good morning
Lead, sentence 3
Finnic riddles are noteworthy in relation to the rest of the world's oral riddle canon for their original imagery, their abundance of sexual riddles
View the SourceReader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.