Riddles

[mneme]

[edits: credit added where it's due, and typos fixed]
I appear to be in a riddle mindset today, so you all get the "benefit." Two of these are very specific propper nouns, one is the more common sort of riddle:

I killed myself to make myself, and avenged myself shortly after.
He who wields me, built me, yet he is far younger than I.
I serve are those whom I was made to kill, and have done so since my birth.
What am I?
[answered by bigscary]

I drank from a king.
Yet kings have striven to drink from me?
What am I?
[first answered by bigscary]

Hermes's silver snake,
I speed but do not slither,
Burrow but do not dig.
What am I?
[incompletely, but correctly answered by nightface

Comments

[mephistakitten.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh I found it!

And a lot of them, too!

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/english/oldenglish/23.html

I am a wonderful help to women,

The hope of something to come. I harm

No citizen except my slayer.

Rooted I stand on a high bed.

I am shaggy below. Sometimes the beautiful

Peasant's daughter, an eager-armed,

Proud woman grabs my body,

Rushes my red skin, holds me hard,

Claims my head. The curly-haired

Woman who catches me fast will feel

Our meeting. Her eye will be wet.

[mneme]

Ah -- that would be the Onion Riddle, I take it. Pretty neat!