‘When a man or a reed dies, there grows up another.’ (‘Il n’y a pas d’homme nécessaire.’)
‘Sleep has no favourite.’
‘Lingering met with liers in wait.’
Riddles, as already mentioned, are very popular. They are usually of the simple kind which describes some well-known object in more or less veiled and allusive language, something after the style of
‘Walls there are as white as milk,
Lined with skin as soft as silk,
Within a fountain crystal-clear,
A golden apple doth appear;
but much more crudely expressed.
‘I built my house without a door’ is one which has the same answer as the above—viz. ‘an egg.’