Chapter 1
- (Naming day; a pig and a dog; "Hart of the Wood"; a night with Lorna)
- A hunting expedition coincides with 12-year-old Riddley's initiation into manhood. A traditional story tells us the basics of how the world got the way it is, and we meet Lorna, the village priestess and Riddley's lover.
- dedication: "to Wieland"
Wieland is the youngest of Russell Hoban's children. In a coincidence that is appropriate to this novel, Wieland (Wayland, Weland, Volundr) in Germanic myth was a demigod and master metalworker, who forged the sword of Siegfried.
- Epigram from the Gospel of Thomas. "Jesus has said: Blessed is the lion that the man will devour, and the lion will become man. And loathsome is the man that the lion will devour, and the lion will become man."
One of the most famous sayings from the Gnostic Gospels, expressing a typically paradoxical view of man's higher nature. Several events in this novel invite us to consider the meaning of devouring or being devoured. Lions themselves do not appear in the Anglocentric world of Riddley Walker, but are prominent in Middle Eastern mythology—and also in Russell Hoban's novels, particularly The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz and Pilgermann.
A 1 1 1 A 1 1 2 A 1 1 6 A 1 1 29 A 1 2 3 A 1 2 7 A 1 2 8 A 1 2 17 A 1 3 4 a A 1 3 4 b A 1 3 28 A 1 4 18 A 1 4 20 A 1 4 27 A 1 4 31 A 1 5 2 a A 1 5 2 b A 1 5 13 A 1 5 18 A 1 5 31