" Friar Andrew," quoth the Lord Abbot, as he lay a-dying,
" methinks I could now rede thee the riddle of riddles—an I had—
the time—and—" The good friar put his ear close to the holy
Abbot's lips, but alas ! they were silenced for ever. Thus passed
away the life of the jovial and greatly beloved Abbot of the old
monastery of Riddlewell.
The monks of Riddlewell Abbey were noted in their day for
the quaint enigmas and puzzles that they were in the habit of
propounding. The Abbey was built in the fourteenth century,
near a sacred spring known as the Red-hill Well. This became
in the vernacular Reddlewell and Riddlewell, and under the Lord
Abbot David the monks evidently tried to justify the latter form
by the riddles they propounded so well. The solving of puzzles
became the favourite recreation, no matter whether they happened
to be of a metaphysical, philosophical, mathematical or mechanical
kind. It grew into an absorbing passion with them, and as I have
shown above, in the case of the Abbot this passion was strong
even in death.
It would seem that the words " puzzle," " problem," " enigma,"
etc., did not occur in their vocabulary. They were accustomed to
call every poser a " riddle," no matter whether it took the form of
" Where was Moses when the light went out ? " or the Squaring of
the Circle. On one of the walls in the refectory were inscribed
the words of Samson, " I will now put forth a riddle to you," to
remind the brethren of what was expected of them, and the rule
was that each monk in turn should propose some riddle daily to the
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