This compendium provides the first complete methodical documentation of the aphorisms and proverbs in the German medieval romances of Arthur, Tristan, and The Holy Grail . The work collects and classifies the sayings from 21 romances over a period of about 100 years (approx. 1170 - 1300), relates them to their narrative context, gives a paraphrastic explanation of their meaning, locates them via parallel passages in the network of sayings in each work, and using passages from the Bible and both Latin and vernacular medieval literatureplaces them in the relevant tradition of their use.

The first printed collection of riddles in German, the so-called AStraAburger RAtselbuchA, ran to 39 known editions covering a period of 280 years from 1510 to 1789. This makes it one of the most successful early modern books in German on a worldly subject. At a very early stage, the popularity of the riddles and joke questions contained in the collection spawned not only a spate of counter-publications but also various imitations. As a best-seller it initiated a whole new genre, the 'RAtselbuch'. To this day, its numerous representatives have handed down in written form a wide range of riddles frequently classified as "folk riddles."