{"collection":"Northern European Mythology","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/celt/btf/btf18.htm","path":"neu/celt/btf/btf18.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/btf/btf18.htm","text":"Riddles\n[170]\nA great great house it is,\nA golden candlestick it is,\nGuess it rightly,\nLet it not go by thee.\nHeaven.\nThere's a garden that I ken,\nFull of little gentlemen,\nLittle caps of blue they wear,\nAnd green ribbons very fair.\nFlax.\nI went up the boreen, I went down the boreen,\nI brought the boreen with myself on my back.\nA Ladder.\nHe comes to ye amidst the brine\nThe butterfly of the sun,\nThe man of the coat so blue and fine;\nWith red thread his shirt is done.\nLobster.\nI threw it up as white as snow,\nLike gold on a flag it fell below.\nEgg.\nI ran and I got,\nI sat and I searched,\nIf could get it I would not bring it with me,\nAnd as I got it not I brought it.\nThorn in the foot.\nYou see it come in on the shoulders of men,\nLike a thread of the silk it will leave us again.\nSmoke.\n[171]\nHe comes through the lis* to me over the sward,\nThe man of the foot that is narrow and hard,\nI would he were running the opposite way,\nFor o'er all that are living 'tis he who bears sway.\nThe Death.\nIn the garden's a castle with hundreds within,\nYet though stripped to my shirt I would never fit in.\nAnt-hill.\nFrom house to house he goes,\nA messenger small and slight,\nAnd whether it rains or snows,\nHe sleeps outside in the night.\nBoreen.\nTwo feet on the ground,\nAnd three feet overhead,\nAnd the head of the living\nIn the mouth of the dead.\nGirl with (three-legged) pot on her head.\nOn the top of the tree\nSee the little man red,\nA stone in his belly,\nA cap on his head.\nHaw.\nThere's a poor man at rest,\nWith a stick beneath his breast,\nAnd he breaking his heart a-crying.\nLintel on a wet day.\n[172]\nAs white as flour and it is not flour,\nAs green as grass and it is not grass,\nAs red as blood and it is not blood,\nAs black as ink and it is not ink.\nBlackberry, from bud to fruit.\nA bottomless barrel,\nIt's shaped like a hive,\nIt is filled full of flesh,\nAnd the flesh is alive.\nTailor's thimble.\n* Rath or fort or circular moat.","title":"Beside the Fire: Riddles","type":"page"}