We now come, therefore, to the author's treatment of popular riddles
(devinettes), so common among savages and peasants. Their construction
is simple: anything in Nature you please is described by a poetical
periphrasis, and you are asked what it is. Thus Geistiblindr asks,
What is the Dark One
That goes over the earth,
Swallows water and wood,
But is afraid of the wind? &c.
Or we find,
What is the gold spun from one window to another?