Reviving a lost classic of American fairy-tale literature Charles Godfrey Leland was one of the most popular American writers and artists of the nineteenth century, publishing more than twenty books of legends, fairy tales, humor, and essays. Today, however, he is a woefully underappreciated writer. Written, designed, and illustrated by Leland in 1892, The Book of One Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria is a forgotten classic and a small sample of his influential and experimental work. The Book of One Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria features the Scheherazade-like fairy goddess Bellaria: powerful and mysterious, courageous and clever, goddess of spring, flowers, love, fate, and death. In this story, Bellaria engages in a duel of wits with an evil king, a death match of one hundred riddles. Each riddle is spoken as a rhyme and illustrated by an original engraving in the arts and crafts style. This book is a beautiful reintroduction to Leland and his pioneering design.

Mythologist and adventurer Phil Cousineau theorizes that riddles are proverbs turned into questions. He believes telling riddles is a lost folk art. This eclectic collection of brain twisters from Leonardo da Vinci to Lewis Carroll is designed to bring the practice back to the living room. Cousineau invites readers into the peripatetic, poetic, and sweet language of riddles

The Curious History of the Riddle investigates the fascinating origin and history of the riddle, from the very first riddle (the Riddle of the Sphinx) to the twenty-first century, with riddles found in pop culture, including movies (Us), television shows (Game of Thrones) video games, and escape rooms. Riddles are ageless, timeless, and so common that we hardly ever reflect upon what they are and how they originated. Most importantly, their invention helped in the development of lateral thinking, the form of thinking that is the foundation of all kinds of discoveries, from mathematics to science and beyond. In The Curious History of the Riddle, puzzle expert Marcel Danesi delves deep into the riddle's origin and history and covers these fascinating topics: 1. The Riddle of the Sphinx: Origins, Legends, Patterns What creature walks on all fours at dawn, two at midday, and three at twilight? (answer: man) 2. The Greek Anthology and the Exeter Book: Medieval Views and Uses of Riddles This chapter looks at the spread of the riddle in recreational and educational contexts. 3. The Merry Book of Riddles: Riddles in the Renaissance By the late Renaissance, riddles were being tailored more and more to produce humorous or whimsical effects. 4. Enigmas, Charades, and Conundrums: Riddles from the 1600s to the Twentieth Century After the Renaissance, riddles had become virtually every literate European person’s favorite form of recreation, and were included as regular features of many newspapers and periodicals 5. The Twentieth Century: Riddles as Children’s Literature In the twentieth century, riddles became specialized for children, spreading throughout children’s literature and educational manuals. 6. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Riddles Go to the Movies and Online In this chapter, the focus is on riddles in various entertainment media, from best-selling novels such as Harry Potter, to movies, such as the Batman series. 7. Connections: Riddles and Rebuses This chapter explores the structure of rebuses as visual riddles, connecting them historically. Part history book, part puzzle book, The Curious History of the Riddle is fully illustrated with over 200 riddles interspersed throughout the text for solving.

Its accuracy is disputed by some, while others consider it a vital resource for studying and understanding Italian witch folklore of the 19th century. What is certain is that this 1899 classic has become a foundational document of modern Wicca and neopaganism. Leland claimed his "witch informant," a fortune-teller named Maddalena, supplied him with the secret writings that he translated and combined with his research on Italian pagan tradition to create a gospel of pagan belief and practice. Here, in the story of the goddess Aradia, who came to Earth to champion oppressed peasants in their fight against their feudal overlords and the Catholic Church, are the chants, prayers, spells, and rituals that have become the centerpieces of contemporary pagan faiths. American journalist and folklorist CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (1824-1903) was editor of Continental Monthly during the Civil War and coined the term emancipation as an alternative to abolition, but he is best remembered for his books on ethnography, folklore, and language, including The Gypsies (1882), The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria (1892), and Unpublished Legends of Virgil (1899).