Riddles
Collections online
Ancient
Riddles - Five traditional riddles with hints and answers.
BS - Lawyer
Riddles - Riddle-jokes for and about lawyers.
Droodle Archive - Weekly
archived riddles in pictures.
Easy
Riddles - Weekly added collection of riddles with answers
on a click.
Funny
Riddles Collection - Collection of riddle-jokes and catch
questions.
Greek Spider
- Handful of riddles, including the famous riddle of the Sphynx.
Jokes for the
ESL/EFL Classroom - Riddles - Small collection of riddle-jokes
for students of English.
Law Riddles
- Collection of riddle-jokes about lawyers.
Letter
Riddles - Conundrums (wordplay riddles) compiled between 1850
and 1920.
Puzzles
by Lewis Carroll - A decent choice of classic riddles.
Random
Riddles - Generates a random riddle-joke on each reload.
Riddle
Archive - Riddles are listed by categories - classic, letter,
ridiculous, and word.
Riddle Me, Riddle
Me, Riddle Me Ree - A collection of historial riddles with
anwsers and hints on demand.
Riddles - A
set of classic riddles, most with an answer.
Riddles
- Seven riddles from Archer Taylor's classic "English Riddles
from Oral Tradition".
Roland's
Riddles - Choose a difficulty level from easy to very hard;
answers are included.
Science-related
Jokes and Riddles - Science and animals riddles.
Swahili Riddles
- Small collection of riddles and their answers.
Traditional
Riddle - In the Tezoatlán Mixtec Language with Spanish and
English translation.
Traditional
Riddles - Forty traditional riddles with answers.
Children's
riddles
Aaron's Joke Page
- Small collection of riddle jokes with answers in WAV.
ARMiller's
Riddles - Mostly childhood riddles from easy to more challenging
with answers.
AZKidsNet
- Readers' submitted classical bits.
Braingle: Brain
Teasers & Riddles - User submitted and ranked brain teasers,
riddles, logic problems and mind puzzles.
Butler
Webs - Halloween, cute and funny, political and redneck riddles
with answers.
Eight
Riddles - Tricky riddles with pictures.
Fruit
and Veggie Riddles - Writing riddles using different names
of fruits and vegetables.
Joke-O-Rama
- General silliness, creepy crawlies, spooky creatures and many
more riddle-jokes.
Mike's Jokes
for Kids - Collected and sent children's riddles and jokes.
NIEHS Kids'
Pages - Jokes and riddle-jokes galore.
Ocean
Jokes and Riddles - Several fish riddles.
Riddles in
Three Categories - Test your brain by riddles from easy to
hard.
Rusty's
Ridiculous Dog Riddles and Jokes - Children's dog riddles
with answers visible next to them.
Squigly's
Jokes and Riddles - Riddles and knock-knock jokes from all
around the world.
Winnie-the-Pooh
- Features visitor-submitted jokes and riddles related to Winnie-the-Pooh
and his friends in the 100 Aker Woods.
Riddles
from literature and folklore
Aenigmata
- The early Medieval riddle collections by Symphosius and Aldhelm
(in Latin), with an introduction.
Ambiguity,
Classification and Change: The Function of Riddles - Article
by Ian Hamnett discussing how riddling reflects social structures,
illustrated by Bantu riddles.
Grecian
Riddle-Jokes - Article by Evangelos Gr.Avdikos on riddle-jokes,
which use word patching for parodying social situations.
Homefun
on Riddles - A guide to general questions about riddles, their
significances, and forms.
Mambila
Riddle Machine - Interactive introduction to riddles collected
in the village of Somié, Cameroon.
The
Morrison Collection - Dengmi Yadiao - Collection of 67 Chinese
lantern riddles (in Chinese) with introduction, from a collection
of Chinese books at SOAS.
Old
English Riddles - Paper by Hazel Brewer on the history of
Old English riddles.
Sexual
Riddles: The Test of The Listener - Article by Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhøj
discussing the history and context of sexual riddles.
Sirandanes - Riddles
- Riddles of Mauritia in Mauritian Creole, French and English.
Syllabus
for Puzzling Narratives - Online course materials exploring
the function of charms and riddles in traditional and modern literature.
Versification
of Vietnamese Riddles - Discussion by Cong-Huyen-Ton-Nu Nha-Trang
on stylistic features as a means to distinguish the riddle from
other genres of folk poetry.
Works
in Progress: Riddle Me This and Riddle Me That - A glance
through stories where riddles take a leading role.
Yahoo!
Groups: ClassicRiddles - Forum keeping the classic rhyming
riddles alive.
Riddles
and brain teasers to try
Able2Know
- A public forum for riddlers and riddle lovers in several topics.
Amusements
in Mathematics - Riddles by Henry Ernest Dudeney.
A Collection of
Quant Riddles - Logical and lateral type thinking riddles
used by Wall Street investment banks at interview with some answers.
DiMensIoNS
- Riddles abound, odd and complex riddles, brain teasers. Explained
meanings and complete answers.
Fleabusters'
Kids Fun Page - Riddles with responses as well as unanswered.
Harder Riddles
- Some harder riddles marked with stars to identify the degree
of difficulty of each riddle. Accompanied with answers.
HumorShack
- Archive of cartoons, riddles with answers and a free mailinglist.
iRiddles - Contains riddles
divided into 5 categories allowing users to rate and send them.
Includes answers.
The Masters of Logic
- The difficulty of the logic puzzles increases until almost unsolvable.
The list "The Masters of Logic" shows the solutions.
Opossum Sally's Goldenmean
- Collections of jokes and riddles from penpals.
Pack
114 Fun Pages - A collection of ten trivial riddles.
PickandSend
- A collection of brain teasers, riddles, and logic puzzles. Answers
on highlight, sending feature.
Puzzles
by Sam Loyd - Ten puzzles from a collection that appeared
in various newspapers and magazines over the previous fifty years.
Random
Riddles - A collection of submitted riddles.
Rhyming
- Different riddles based on The Hobbit. Determine what each rhyme
is describing.
Riddle
of the Week - Just one question a week. Answer on e-mail.
Riddle Planet
- A contest with twenty-five riddles per each classified round
with a money prize for the first person to solve them all.
RiddleAday - Riddles,
puzzles and brain teasers to challenge and entertain all ages.
[E-mail lists]
Riddlemaster - Enter
a riddle contest where you can win money. Game rules as well as
winners' lists included.
Riddle-Poems,
and How to Make Them - The gentle and literate art of the
rhyming riddle.
Riddles -
A collection of riddles sorted into categories to amuse, puzzle
and test.
Riddles
- Logical riddles and tasks on matches' repositioning.
Riddles
- Some challenging riddles to solve. Answers below each of them.
Riddles
at Funtestiq - Interesting riddles served to you automatically.
Rubik's Riddles
- A selection of different tasks to beat Rubik.
Spreadsheet
Jokes - A bunch of riddles on spreadsheet programs.
Stumpers
- Students submitted math riddles for problem of the day.
Sureshot Riddles
- A fun and challenging collection of logic riddles and sequences.
Terry's
Riddles Page - From silly to hard including some disgusting
and unaswered.
Tree Riddle
- An old multiple riddle. Identify 65 names of trees.
Able2Know
- Message board of user submited riddles and brain teasers.
Abnorm's Conundrums
- Easy, medium and difficult brain teasers without answers.
All-Star Puzzles:
Logic Problems - Collection of logic problems to solve. Printable.
The Amazing Art
Site - Huge collection of optical illusions, hidden imagery,
ambiguous art and upside downs.
Archimedes' Laboratory
- Recreational mathematics including puzzles to make and solve,
tessellations, geometric puzzles, optical illusions, and curiosities.
Bill's Brain
Teasers - A collection of visual and linguistic riddles.
Brain Juice
- An assortment of entertaining logic puzzles with solutions and
indicated levels of difficulties.
Braingle - Brain Teasers &
Riddles - Tangles the brain with user submitted and user ranked
brain teasers, mind puzzles and riddles.
BrainVista - Collection
of solved and unsolved brain teasers.
ButlerWeb
- A page of about 30 brain teasers. Answers are hidden in drop
down screens.
Confusion - Its a challenge
to reach the end of this puzzle maze.
Curiouser.co.uk - Paradoxes,
puzzles, games, optical illusions, poetry, curious facts, and
quotations.
Eli's Math and Logic Puzzles
- Collection of math and logic puzzles.
Eluzions - Featuring all sorts
of games, optical illusions, puzzles, trivia, mazes, and magic
tricks. Suitable for all ages.
A Game A Day - A puzzle
site featuring a new puzzle format each weekday for each month.
Puzzles are fun, educational, entertaining and are also printable.
The Grey Labyrinth
- A beautifully illustrated collection of puzzles, riddles, and
paradoxes. Features a changing "unsolved puzzle" plus three years
worth of previous puzzles.
iRIDDLER - Challenge your
mind with free online riddles/puzzles, logic games, brain teasers
and view optical illusions.
Just Riddles and
More - Riddles, illusions, puzzles, brain teasers, and other
entertainment for your brain.
Logic
Puzzles by Borborygmus - The devious logic puzzles by Borborygmus,
published every Saturday by The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand.
National Puzzlers' League
- Crosswords & other word puzzles and games, samples; monthly
puzzle magazine; 800,000 word searchable list.
Nonogram
Solver - Information about Nonogram logic puzzles and how
to solve them, plus examples of two on-line solvers, software,
and links.
Online
Adlibs - This is a silly word puzzle riddle that you make
up, with your own words.
Pastelina - Site containing
a number of logic puzzle games created in Flash.
Peculiar
- Brain teasers, problems, mathematical mind mazes, questions
and optical illusions.
PedagoNet
Brainers - Over 60 brain teasers to enhance your mind
Planetarium
- An on-line puzzle story in twelve weekly installments.
Professor Tangent
- Have fun with games, puzzles, brainteasers and humor as you
learn about logic and analysis.
Purple Hunt - A fun site
for puzzles, free games, treasure hunts, cryptograms and intrigues.
Prizes for winners.
Puzzability - Some
real mind benders here
Puzzle Contest Center
- Riddles, brainteasers, cryptograms, anagrams, and logic puzzles.
Compete in eight new contests monthly.
The
Puzzle Meisters - Features puzzles and mysterious enigmas
along with a few trivia questions here and there.
A Puzzlemakers Site
- Puzzles of all descriptions.
Puzzles
on Seniority - Riddles, mind benders and puzzles for seniors
(aged 50 or above).
Rec.puzzles Archive - An
archive of many popular puzzles from the rec.puzzles newsgroup.
Riddle Me This
- Mystery stories - Collection of riddles, with clues given on
separate days.
Say What
You See! - Collection of visual brain teasers which can be
solved by saying what you see.
Sesquip Word Games - Challenging
word games published in newspapers.
The Stone - an online mystery
game. Hours of clever puzzles and riddles. Puzzles challenge the
mind of serious and amateur players worldwide.
Ten Teasers
- Some of these brain-teasers need some thinking, others need
no thinking at all.
The Ultimate
Thinking Puzzler - Discover who killed Ronald Opus in this
contorted thinking puzzle.
Unitix Entertainment
- Online games, puzzles and other interactive brainteasers. Fun
for all ages.
Wordles! - Get free cryptograms,
create your own, and look up crossword puzzle words.
Mathematical
puzzles
Dave's
Logic Puzzles - Monthly logic puzzles with solving grids.
Flooble: Perplexus
- A forum and collection of brain teasers, logic problems, math
problems, paradoxes, science games, probability, riddles, and
geometric shapes.
IBM Research: Ponder
This - Monthly logic and math puzzles set by IBM researchers
with solutions.
Jim Loy's Puzzle
Page - Classic and original puzzles.
Leisure Ideas:
Puzzles - Some mathematical puzzles with answers and/or a
hint.
The
Pyramid - Contains a collection of progressively more difficult
problems. The more challenging problems require more than just
mathematics to solve.
TechInterview - Answers
to technical interview questions, programming problems, and brain
teasers.
The Truth Tree's
Math and Logic Board - Collection of math and logic puzzles
ranging in levels of difficulty.
What
are Riddles?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
A riddle is a puzzle, consisting of text with a question to answer.
Riddles have a distinguished literary ancestry, although the
contemporary sort of conundrum that passes under the name of "riddle"
may not make this obvious. Riddles occur extensively in Old English
poetry, and also in the Old Norse literature of the Elder Edda
and the skalds. The Exeter Book, a manuscript in Old English,
preserves almost sixty versified riddles from the Old English
literature. An example:
Moððe word fræt. Me þæt þuhte
wrætlicu wyrd, þa ic þæt wundor gefrægn,
þæt se wyrm forswealg wera gied sumes,
þeof in þystro, þrymfæstne cwide
ond þæs strangan staþol. Stælgiest ne
wæs
wihte þy gleawra, þe he þam wordum swealg.
A moth ate words. I thought that was quite curious, that a mere
worm, a thief in the dark, ate what a man wrote, his brilliant
language and its strong foundation. The thief got no wiser for
all that he fattened himself on words.
The answer called for by the poem is bookworm. The general technique
is to obliquely refer to the subject by kennings and other sorts
of figurative language; since kennings formed such an important
element of alliterative verse forms in the Germanic languages,
the riddles served the dual purpose of puzzling the poet's audience
and teaching the lore needed to successfully use or understand
the poetic language. The god Odin was a master of riddle lore,
and sparred with several of his foes using contests of riddles.
In the Vafthruthnismal, Odin defeats his foe by posing a question
only he could possibly know the answer to.
In Greek mythology, riddles were the province of the Sphinx,
a female monster who challenged passersby with riddles; those
who failed to guess them were devoured. She famously asked Oedipus,
"What is the animal that goes about on four legs in the morning,
on two legs at noon, and on three in the evening?" The correct
answer given by Oedipus was "Man," who crawls as a baby,
walks upright as an adult, and goes with the help of a walking
stick when elderly.
In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins
to a riddle competition; Bilbo wins the competition by asking
Gollum, "What have I got in my pocket?", which Gollum
could not answer. The answer, of course, was the One Ring, which
Gollum had lost and Bilbo had since found.
In the Batman comic books, one of the hero's best known enemies
is The Riddler who is personally compelled to supply clues about
his upcoming crimes to his enemies in the form of riddles and
puzzles. Stereotypically, they are the kind of simple riddles
as described below, but modern treatments generally prefer to
have the character use more sophisticated puzzles.
Contemporary riddles typically use puns and double meanings for
humorous effect, rather than to puzzle the butt of the joke, as
in:
When is a door not a door?
When it's ajar.
What's black and white and red all over?
A newspaper.
What's brown and sounds like a bell?
Dung.
Why are all numbers afraid of number seven?
Because seven eight nine.
These riddles are now mostly children's humour and games rather
than literary compositions.
A close relation the riddle is the trick question, which can
be used to humiliate the answerer. They generally either have
no good answer at all, or have a number of natural answers of
which one or more can under closer scrutiny be ridiculed.
Some examples:
Are you a virgin, mister? (The particular answer does not matter,
as long as it is boldly delivered.)
Boxers or Briefs? (Either answer is okay, but don't answer: "Depends.")
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Source - This informational article is licensed
under the GNU
Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia
article Riddles.
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