Another Riddle?

Alcuin of York (c.735–804) was a scholar and clergyman. When he was not on duty advising the one and only Charlemagne, teaching the children at the Palace School, or writing educational material, Alcuin busied himself with riddles and puzzles.Thijs Porck. “Alcuinundrums: Seven brain teasers from the early Middle Ages.” Accessed January 27, 2022, https://thijsporck.com/2016/06/05/alcuinundrums/. A type of puzzle that is attributed to Alcuin which many people will still be familiar with, is the river crossing puzzle.Thijs Porck. “Alcuinundrums: Seven brain teasers from the early Middle Ages.” Accessed January 27, 2022, https://thijsporck.com/2016/06/05/alcuinundrums/. In this type of puzzle, several items have to be moved from one side of the river to another using a small boat, and there are rules on how to move the items. For example: You, your black sheep, your lone wolf, and your favorite cabbage have to cross a river. You are the only one who can row the boat, and there is space for just one of your companions at a time. The wolf would eat the sheep and the sheep would eat the cabbage if left unsupervised. How do you get everyone across using the least amount of trips?

The verse riddle from before is just another of the many examples of Alcuin as a Riddler. Of this specific riddle, a prose version appears in another letter from Alcuin to Archbishop Riculf of Mainz.

De vestra valde gaudeo prosperitate, et de munere caritatis vestrae multum gavisus sum; tot agens gratias, quot dentes in dono numeravi. Mirum animal duo habens capita et dentes sexaginta non elefantinae magnitudinis, sed ebumeae pulchritudinis. Net ego huius bestiae territus horrore, sed delectatus aspectu, ne mefrendentibus illa morderet dentibus, timui; sed blanda adulatione capitis mei placare capillos adrisi. Net ferocitatem in dentibus intellexi, sed caritatem in mittente dilexi, quam semper fideliter in illo probavi.[I rejoice greatly in your prosperity, and I have taken great pleasure in your loving present, giving thanks in proportion to the number of teeth I have counted in your gift. A wonderful animal with two heads and sixty teeth - not as large as an elephant, but made of beautiful ivory. I was not terrified by this beast, but was delighted by its appearance, and had no fear that it might bite me with its gnashing teeth, but I was amused by the charming servility with which it smoothed down the hair on my head. I didn’t consider the ferocity of the teeth, but rather cherished the affection of the sender, which I have always found utterly reliable.] | Sorrell, “Alcuin's 'comb' Riddle,” 312. Both the Latin text and the translation are taken from Sorrel.

Alcuin again uses many metaphors and animates the comb, following Old English riddling tradition. The comb is likened to a wonderful animal, and mentioning an elephant is a playful nod to the material of the comb. Alcuin no longer specifically asks Riculf to solve the riddle. As this prose version is not as explicitly riddle-like as the verse one, development is not very shocking. Instead, Alcuin added another very strong characteristic of Old English riddling: the first-person narrative. The explicit first-person narrator occurs in over half of the riddles in the Exeter book, which holds all Old English riddles we know today.Dieter Bitterli, Say What I Am Called: The Old English Riddles of the Exeter Book & the Anglo-Latin Riddle Tradition. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 17.

Even though this prose riddle differs quite a bit from the verse version, they do share their focus on teeth. As said before, none of the Old English riddles have this focus. There are riddles that mention teeth (Riddle 34, Riddle 65, and Riddle 87 from the Exeter Book), but teeth are nowhere near as dominant in those riddles as in Alcuin’s prose and verse comb riddles. Other Anglo-Latin riddles (riddles written in Latin by Anglo-Saxon people) do not have this focus either, which again is likely to be explained by the fact that none of these riddles are about a comb.