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People have loved puzzles and riddles for hundreds and hundreds of years. The most famous puzzles are almost as old as mankind itself, and yet many people don’t know the answer to them. These are puzzles that have been passed down from generation to generation. Some of them require a sharp mind and logical thinking, others keep you guessing. Test your intelligence like thousands of people before you. Will you be successful?
People have been testing their thinking skills since more than 4,000 years ago. In what is now Iraq, a riddle was created that has survived to this day. Here it is: ” There’s a house. A man enters it blind and comes out and sees. What is it?”
Have you heard this riddle before or is this the first time you’ve encountered the world’s oldest riddle? Do you know the answer or did you think of it on the first try? The correct answer is school. The Sumerians placed great emphasis on the value of education.
Samson was giving a riddle to his thirty dinner guests in the seventh book of the Old Testament. He told them that if they answered correctly, he would give them 30 expensive pieces of clothing, but if they answered incorrectly, he must give them the expensive clothing. The catch was that the riddle was rigged.
Only those who knew Sampson well stood a chance of solving it. And the riddle? “From the eater, something to eat, from the strong something sweet.” Does that sound convoluted and strange? Can’t figure out the answer? The bees build a honeycomb inside the lion’s body. Sampson killed the lion with his bare hands before the feast, and when he returned, he found bees building a hive inside his body.
The poet Homer is said to have visited a Greek island and met fishermen there. Legend has it that Homer asked the fishermen what kind of day they were having. They answered him with a riddle. “What we caught, we threw away; what we did not catch, we kept. What did we keep?”
Homer didn’t know the answer and searched for it until his death. Will you be able to answer? Do you know what the fishermen kept? The answer is seemingly very simple, but you have to think hard. Lice! That’s what the fishermen didn’t catch and yet they kept.
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The classic Alice in Wonderland is basically full of nonsense. The riddle is no exception. When Alice is at the Mad Tea Party, she is asked a confusing question by the Hatter. “Why is a raven like a desk?”
Do you have a clue, or are you like Alice? She had no idea. So she asked the Hatter, who asked her the question. His answer may surprise you. “I have no idea!” He wasn’t actually saying a riddle, but asking something he himself had no idea.
From the novel Ulysses comes a riddle that Stephen Dedalus gave to his students. “The cock crows, the sky was blue. The bells in the sky struck eleven. It’s time for this poor soul to go to heaven.” I don’t think you’ll find the answer easily. It’s not very logical.
Wondering? Here it is: “A fox burying his grandmother under holly.” Don’t you get it? It’s supposedly a riddle that can’t be answered unless the answer is known in advance.
