Gripla - 20.12.2015, Blaðsíða 240

GRIPLA240
ure or enjoyment in the reading.25 some riddles appear to be considered
easy or transparent (e.g. 4 ‘greinileg getspeki’; 13 ‘ómyrk’), which could
well be construed as a negative judgement for a riddle. others have the less
ambiguous praise of being well-devised or at least well-explicated (e.g. 2
‘vel og skýrlega ráðin’; 23 ‘vel tilfundið og ráðið’). In yet other cases we have
clear statements of doubt about the way the riddle is composed (e.g. 11 ‘og
held ég merkilega getið svo óglöggra samlíkinga sem hér eru framsettar’;
22 ‘er þessi gáta mjög merkilega ráðin’) and assertions that the comparison
is unnatural (e.g. 10 ‘það er óeiginleg líking’, as opposed to 17 ‘eiginleg
líking’). Based on all of these comments it seems that Björn is fond of
paradoxes (such as the obsidian which is both black and white (8), or the
dew which has sated one’s thirst although one has not ‘drunk’ (3)), and
particularly unimpressed by riddles which have complex solutions (such as
the dead horse on the ice floe (11) and the duck’s nest in an ox’s skull (22)).
Personification riddles can go either way: angelica figured as women (10)
is deemed strained and unnatural, whereas the animalistic shield (17) is said
to make good sense. the latter makes no use of ancient references or turns
of phrase (‘fornyrðalaus’), but a good riddle which also does so, such as that
of the suckling piglets (25), seems to be Björn’s favourite type.26 Perhaps
even more interesting than Björn’s own preferences are the clear signs that
there was disagreement over this matter: in AM 591 k 4to there are three
occasions where Björn’s evaluations are altered to contrary ones: first (8)
in the case where Björn says that many people would have found the obsid-
25 It is worth bearing in mind that for large swathes of intellectual writing it is atypical to
allude to affective responses concerning the object of study, and thus absence of mention of
pleasurable reading may be generically dictated rather than a sign of no affective response.
We should also not overstress a false dichotomy between the ‘intellectualʼ pleasure of
marvelling over a well-constructed conundrum and the immediate ludic pleasure of a witty
riddle.
26 It is perhaps worth mentioning that Björnʼs likes and dislikes do not seem to be divided
along lines of the different types of riddle which Burrows identifies (natural world,
manmade objects, mythological allusions). See Burrows, “Wit and Wisdom,” 120. Burrows
mentions Hilda Ellis Davidsonʼs earlier suggestion that mythological riddles had already
become outmoded at the time of Hauksbókʼs production (c. 1300; the text of Hervarar saga
ok Heiðreks konungs in Hauksbók is in the Am 544 4to part of the manuscript), but going
by Björn Jónssonʼs willingness to read mythological explanations into superficially non-
mythological riddles we may state unequivocally that there was nothing outmoded about
mythological (or mythologised) poetry in the seventeenth century. See Burrows, “Wit and
Wisdom,” 122.
GRIPLA XXVI. - 12.12.B.indd 240 12/13/15 8:24:59 PM