Hey, all. This is a pretty random question and kind of a long shot, but I'm trying to figure out a riddle and I'm totally stumped.
Does anybody have any clue how chestnuts would tie into the Robin Hood myth? Specifically, Robin Hood as mentioned in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe?
Here are the lines:
A chestnut gentle makes me sentimental,
For those glorious stories of yore.
Of the days in the glen, when men were men,
Och! Have I become a prodigious bore?
There were lines in yesterday's riddle that seemed to point to Robin Hood to me, and this kind of backs it up - "days of yore", obviously, and "days in the glen", as well as the specific Scottish exclamation and the allusion to the fact that - if it IS referencing him - Scott was considered by many to be a very ponderous, wordy writer. I have this vague tickling at the back of my mind that says that I've read something Robin Hood-related that...had to do with chestnuts...but...that just sounds moronic. I've been reduced to looking up the history of the spread of the chestnut around the world.
Anyway, it's for this St. Paul yearly medallion hunt thing - they hide a small medallion in a park somewhere around the city that's worth several thousand dollars, and post riddles as clues. The clues are supposed to get progressively more specific, and discussion is strongly encouraged. I'm not actually looking in parks, since I can't get off work, but working on the riddles is pretty fun. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
P.S. There's always a chance that phrases like "chestnut gentle" and "prodigious bore" are anagrams, but I seriously don't have a clue.