Folk-lore from the Dominican republic / by Manuel J. Andrade.

354

Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society

justified in suspecting that some of them have passed through
such literary mediums. My suspicion falls upon numbers 39, 217,
281, 300, 358, but there may be others. The fact that some of
these riddles may be found in other Spanish collections with
practically the same form does not preclude the possibility of a
literary medium of diffusion, which would tend to give the riddle an
improved form or restore a forgotten riddle. The literary riddler
often takes folklore material and reshapes it. I am aware of a few
instances in printed collections. We all remember the old riddle
about the three stages of life which the Sphynx proposed to all
travellers (No. 316). In the early part of the seventeenth century
Dr. Perez de Herrera gave this riddle a poetic form, and transformed it by adding up the feet of childhood and old age. It is
number CCLXIIII of his philosophical riddles.' There is another
interesting example. Lehmann-Nietsche tells us2 that he copied
riddle No. 736 of his collection from the Almanaque de las Portefias
published in 1888. This riddle, with the identical words, appears as
No. 645 in Vol. I of Rodriguez Marin's work, published in 1882.
Incidentally, it is found with the identical words in Porto Rico
(No. 7 of Mason's collection).
RIDDLES3
1 (R)4
En el medio del mar estoy;
ni soy sol ni estrella,
ni tampoco luna bella.
Adivina lo que soy.
La letra A.
2 (R)
En las manos de las damas
casi siempre estoy metido;
unas veces estirado
y otras encogido.
Abanico
3 (F)
(a) Un pajaro va volando
sin sangre ni coraz6n.
Les da oonsuelo a los muertos
y a los vivos mantencion.
Abeja
1Proverbios morales, y consejos christianos, muy provechosos para concierto y espejo de la vida... y Enigmas filos6ficas..... por el Doctor
Christoval Perez de Herrera, Medico del Rey N. S. Aflo 1618.
2 See op. cit., footnote on page 983.
3 For table of comparative references, see p. 400.
4 The initials (R) and (F) refer to the frequency distribution groups, as
explained on page 337.