ABSTRACT
The category “riddle tales” is often used in a looser sense than has been appropriate in this study, to include tales with motifs such as wisdom questions and enigmatic statements. Common sense suggests that these wisdom tales should somehow be like riddle tales (in the narrower sense), that they might share motifs, structural patterns, or historical background. Like riddles, the wisdom motifs in tales provide a challenge, settle a problem, or decide a contest. The simplest tales have the same structure as neck-riddle tales: a frame sets the conditions of the contest and the outcome, and one or more challenges constitute the contest proper. Further elaboration of the frame can render the tale more complex. Certain questions are found most often in certain frames, but there is also considerable crossover resulting in several frame tales sharing the same and similar questions. The contestants recall those in riddle tales: a man and a woman or two men, both in ballads and in tales, but never two women. In addition, legends tell of contests between a child and a man arid between the devil and a human. The content and structure of the tales is under examination here, so the status of the contestants forms a convenient basis for the organization of this chapter. As was the case with the riddle motifs examined in Chapter 5, the material is difficult to arrange neaüy because of the many floating motifs.
