First Published in 2005. The true folk riddle of oral traditions that have been rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth in the last hundred years is one of the most ancient threads of culture. One of the smallest genres of verbal culture-usually under a dozen of words, it is an intensely articulated utterance. It is eccentric and as such breaks every logical mould. This volume presents results of a study driven by the sheer intellectual curiosity of the author.

The true folk riddle from oral traditions that are now rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth is one of the most ancient threads of culture. Truly old specimens of it are succinct, eccentric, poetic, and highly intense. Have you ever tried to guess a folk riddle? If you have, you couldn't fail to notice that the task is impossible. Contrary to common-sense expectations, a true folk riddle cannot be answered. Why so? Because it wasn't meant for individual wit. It was a collective property as concerns both the description and the answer.

The present study delves into the folk riddle from oral traditions by rereading works from the history of riddle study and reconsidering the problems they faced and solutions they found. It unfolds a chain of twenty-six functional and structural conditions that describe how the folk riddle is articulated as utterance. It offers a new and quite unexpected view of the subject. Among other things, the study argues that the true ancient folk riddle is a figure of concealment that has two targets: besides the recorded, explicit answer, it harbors another one, unpronounced and esoteric. The folk riddle, in this light, turns out to be much more hilarious than common wisdom would have it.