Riddling Collection

Science Jottings (engraving)
1596838 Science Jottings (engraving) by English School, (19th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Science Jottings. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 8 November 1890)

Riddling Cinders, War Office photographs, 1916 (b / w photo)
XJF425321 Riddling Cinders, War Office photographs, 1916 (b/w photo) by English Photographer, (20th century); Private Collection; (add.info.: Official War Office photographs; ); English

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) new potatoes, tubers passing over riddle for sorting before bagging, East Lancashire, England, july

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) crop, loading harvested tubers on trailer ready for sorting, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England, march

Riddling a Changeling
A Galloway couple, believing their child a changeling, take it on Hallowe en to the village wise woman who riddles it in rowan smoke which breaks the spell

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Amidst Science Jottings and engravings of old, a riddle's allure once intrigued the bold. In War Work WW1, women's hands were busy, sorting potatoes with unwavering industry. Riddling Cinders, a War Office photograph from '16, reveals the process, as tubers passed through a frame, ready for their new life in a sack, or on a trailer, the same. The humble Potato (Solanum tuberosum), a crop of Lancashire's pride, was harvested with care, and sorted with great stride. Workers in Ormskirk, marching in line, ensured no imperfection would mar the bounty divine. With riddles, they sifted, the new potatoes' fate decided, before being bagged and sent far and wide. But what is this riddle, you may ask, that brought such order to the potato's path? A testament to the power of human wit, it separated the best from the rest, a changeling's disguise, stripped away, leaving only the truth beneath. A simple tool, yet a vital step, in the journey from earth to table, a riddle, a testament to the human spirit's ability to bring order to the chaos of the harvest.