Riddles Wisely Expounded

"Riddles Wisely Expounded" is a traditional English song, dating at least to 1450. It is Child Ballad 1 and Roud 161, and exists in several variants. The first known tune was attached to it in 1719. The title "Riddles Wisely Expounded" was given by Francis James Child and seems derived from the seventeenth century broadside version "A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded".

Origins and Context

The motif of riddling in folklore is very ancient, the stories of Oedipus and Samson giving two early examples. The particular form used here matches the folktale Aarne-Thompson type 875 The Clever Girl where a woman wins a husband by her clever answers to riddles. Other tales of this type include What Is the Fastest Thing in the World? and The Wise Little Girl. There are strong parallels with ballads in other languages, with many German, and Scottish and Irish Gaelic versions known to exist. There is also significant crossover with other popular English language ballads, such as The Two Sisters and The False Knight on the Road and The Elfin Knight.

''Inter diabolus et virgo'', "between the devil and the maiden" (c. 1450)

In the earliest surviving version of the song, the "foul fiend" proposes to abduct a maiden unless she can answer a series of riddles. The woman prays to Jesus for wisdom, and answers the riddles correctly.

First two verses

Some riddles

What ys hyer than ys tre?
What ys dypper than ys the see?
What ys scharpper than ys the thorne?
What ys loder than ys the horne?
What longger than ys the way?
What is rader than ys the day?

Some answers

Hewene ys heyer than ys the tre.
Helle ys dypper than ys the see.
Hongyr ys scharpper than the thorne.
Thonder ys lodder than ys the horne.
Loukynge ys longer than ys the way.
Syn ys rader than ys the day.

"A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded"

In a seventeenth century version entitled "A Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded", the words of each verse are interspersed with a chorus phrase "lay the bent to the bonny broom". A. L. Lloyd euphemistically describes this as a phrase of "physiological significance", explaining that the word "bent" means a horn. "Broom" most likely refers to the flowering shrub. This version is very similar to The Two Sisters.
In later versions, including this one, a knight puts a woman to test before he marries her ; the woman knows the answers, and wins the marriage. In other versions, a devil disguised as a knight tries to carry the woman off.
The riddles vary, but typical ones include:

What is longer than the way? – love
What is deeper than the sea? – hell
What is louder than the horn? – thunder
What is sharper than a thorn? – hunger
What is whiter than milk? – snow
What is softer than silk? – down
What is worse than woman was? – the devil
Recent versions and traditional recordings

The most commonly found traditional version in recent times, usually entitled "Ninety-nine and ninety", begins roughly as follows:
Traditional recordings of this version have been made several times in the twentieth century. American recordings include those performed by the Appalachian traditional singer Texas Gladden Nancy Philley of Fayetteville, Arkansas and Alfreda Peel of Salem, Virginia. Jeff Wesley of Whittlebury, Northamptonshire, England sang a very similar version, suggesting that this popular version came from England relatively recently.

Popular versions

Recordings

Album/Single	Performer	Year	Variant
Two Way Trip	Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger	1961	The Devil's Nine Questions
Lowlands	Jean Redpath	1980	Riddles Wisely Expounded
Sails of Silver	Steeleye Span	1980	Tell me why Listed as Steeleye Span / Traditional, but a rewrite from the Child ballad, that features the same riddles
Minstrel	Hanita Blair	1992	Riddle Wisely Expounded
A Thousand Miles or More	Kate Burk & Ruth Hazleton	2000	Lay The Bent to the Bonny Broom
Rain and Snow	Elizabeth LaPrelle	2004	"The Devil's Nine Questions"
Waxed	The Demon Barbers	2005	Noble Riddle Wisely Expounded
Fearful Symmetry	Jon Loomes	2005	Riddles Wisley Expounded
Child Ballads	Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer	2013	Riddles Wisely Expounded
Riddles and Love Songs	Avon Faire	2017	Riddles Wisely Expounded
A Minstrel Meets a Harper	Mary-Kate Spring Lee & Jim Hancock	2017	Riddles Wisely Expounded
Wilde Roses	Wilde Roses	2017	Riddles Wisely Expounded
Cold Light	Nick Wyke & Becki Driscoll	2019	Riddles Wisely Expounded
The Confluence	Stray Hens	2019	Riddles Wisely Expounded
Each Machine	Carolyn Kendrick	2024	The Devil’s Nine Questions

Modern literary retellings include Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary by Pamela Dean and "A Diorama of the Infernal Regions, or the Devil's Ninth Question," by Andy Duncan.