I have to admit that I am really fond of this one because my parents played pool every night; the pool table totally filled our den. I also like the weirdness of a pool table up in a tree! I wonder if there are other pieces of "killer furniture" out there...?
Pool table.
The "foot of the bed" is still a phrase people use, right? There are other pieces of furniture with four "legs," but adding in the "one foot" adds to the weirdness and also helps zoom in on the bed!
A bed.
Yes, it's a trick question, but it's one that I love. I would like to be able to think of other categories like months that could be the basis for a riddle like this.
They all do.
I'm guessing that with all the "flying" metaphors in English (time flies, etc.), there might be alternate answers here which would require adding an extra item to make sure the answer would be flag.
Flag.
This same riddle can also have the answer "smoke," so it would definitely be worth adding an addition item to make it clear the answer is age.
Your age.
This is a riddle pretty specific to sponges, but it would be possible to vary the prompt, maybe even change it into a poem, or add some distractors... or get Sponge-Bob in there somehow ha ha.
Sponge.
This is a very nice example of negative growth: less dirt, more hole! I wonder if there are other "empty" negative spaces that could turn into riddles likes this.
A hole.
Your nose can also run but not walk, so this might be the kind of riddle that needs to be paired up with another "water" feature so that the answer is not ambiguous.
Water.
Yes, this is a trick question; it plays with the nature of language itself: the word as a thing in and of itself, and the meaning of the word.
Wrong.
It would be fun to make some other number puzzles since 1, 2, 4, and 8 and are words as well as numbers.
Because seven eight nine.
It seems like there might be other possible answers to this riddle! For example: your age. So it might need a second part to make the answer unambiguous.
Smoke.
This is a great one: you could do it with just "What's green, white, and bearded?" but it is definitely more fun with the distractors.
A leek
I wonder if there are other words that can be made backwards like this! Perhaps there is a name for words that are meaningful backwards and forwards; not palindromes exactly, but with actual meanings both ways, albeit different meanings.
Edam.
Compare the similar riddle about tall people and their long arms! I think I like this one even better, although I think I like the other way of phrasing the answer (if their necks were short...).
Because their heads are so far away.
Yes, it's still, but since Alexander the Great and Winnie the Pooh are two of my favorite things, I had to include it. You could use other characters too, of course, like Kermit the Frog, etc. etc.
Their middle name.
I like the way this riddle plays with a proverbs, since they are closely allied folk genres! I wonder if there are other "before" or "after" proverbs that could be made into riddles like this.
In the dictionary.
This is one of those part of a word / compound word riddles which are language-specific, but they are still fun. The word sounds like a compound, but it's really not; here's the etymology.
A mushroom.
I first heard this as an Italian joke, but of course it works in any language. I wonder how much longer people will appreciate this riddle in a world of email, not air mail letters.
A postage stamp.
I really like these "anatomy of things" riddles!
A book.
This could easily be extended to anything you stir with a spoon, but I like this "tea" version since there are all kinds of rituals associated with how people make and drink their tea.
Don't use your hand! Use a teaspoon.
Yes, it's very silly... but silly jokes can be fun too. The book I found this in had two versions: "Why did the elephant paint its toenails red? To hide in the strawberry jam," etc. etc. The possibilities are endless!
To hide upside down in the custard. Never seen an elephant in the custard? It works!
This is another one of those great ones based on the way English nouns can verb. I'd like to be able to make up some riddles like this. Yes, it's really just a pun, but I like it!
A bird can fly but a fly can't bird.
This is a classic riddle, and the variation here is really just in how you phrase it... and there are so many possible ways to phrase it!
Silence.
This is another really brilliant little riddle based on misdirection: you think the riddle is about food, but it's not really.
Lunch and dinner.
Yes, this is a kind of weird morbid riddle, but it provides a model that could generate an infinite number of more riddles like it... because the answer of course really has nothing to do with fish or swimming!
Dead ones.
This is a brilliant little riddle; this gives us an expanded perspective on what "days" are, so that could perhaps be the basis for more riddles.
Tuesday, Thursday, today, tomorrow.
Yes, it's a bit silly, but it makes me laugh, and of course it's an excuse to use animal sounds. Maybe the cow could speak even more languages... or you could make another animal the linguist.
A cow who speaks five languages.
This is another one that can have so many possible answers, and it can also be a model for other riddles with three adjectives that can be flipped like this.
Because if it was small, write, and smooth, it would be an aspirin.
Yes, it's a trick question... but it's just such a fun one! And of course you can multiple this endlessly; the trick is just to come up with the two objects that might have something to say to each other. What did the toaster say to the loaf of bread? What did the shoe say to the sock? and on and on and on.
Nothing; apples don't talk.
This is one of those classic goes-but-doesn't-move riddles, which are easy to create, thanks to the English word "go."
A fence.
The source I used was a British book so it had "Brighton," but I changed it to Brooklyn, but of course you can do that for any place with a "B" in the name. I'm sure it would also be possible to make spelling riddles like this based on the other letters that are words in and of themselves (kind of like the no "I" in team, etc.)
Because there's only one B in Brooklyn.
This riddle is infinitely easy to multiple: which side of a bear has the most fur, which side of a fish has the most scales, etc. etc.
The outside.
On the one hand, this is a kind of dopey riddle, but in a way it is a kind of misdirection because a stork who is not standing on one leg (or two) is... flying! They don't fall down really. But it is a strange phenomenon and the way that birds stand on one leg and also the way they tuck their head under their wing is the basis for all kinds of African folktales (and perhaps elsewhere?) about the foolish imitator who decides to cut off their leg or their head and suffers the terrible consequences.
I did change the form of the answer in mine so that it plays with the English idiom of "a leg to stand on" rather than actually saying the bird would fall down. I wonder if there are riddles to be made with that "leg to stand on" idiom, since it is a bit odd itself, being just the one leg!
Because otherwise they wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
I imagine all kinds of riddles could depend on the weird properties of English idioms built with the word "get" like this!
Another year older.
I love the way this implies a word "bee-ing" which could be the basis for other riddles of course. Although I suspect that fools are actually far more dangerous than bees.
Fooling with a bee.
You could even tell this about humans banging their heads, and that makes me think about the great African folktale about the women who raised the sky up high by banging the fufu with their pestles! This is also an example of a kind of "divine providence" joke, like in the Nasruddin stories about how we are so lucky that camels do not fly and that pumpkins do not grow on trees, etc.
So the birds won't bump their heads.
Normally I am not a big fan of pun riddles, but I think this one is especially elegant. I wonder if there are other compound animal names that could be turned into such elegant puns as this one?
Because if they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels.
This is a "trick question" type of riddle that uses a kind of misdirection that leads you to avoid seeing the obvious. (Another one in the group today like this is "Why does a stork stand on one leg?") You can take all kinds of phenomena, not just animal behavior, and turn it into a riddle like this.
Because it's too far to walk.
I absolutely love this type of misdirection riddle, and it's also so sweet to think about bees actually singing words instead. I imagine there are a lot of animal behaviors that are described as variant human behaviors that could be turned into riddles...? Or maybe words that pun on what inanimate objects do which can be contrasted with human behavior?
Because they don't know the words.
This is what you could call a take-away letter riddle puzzle (as opposed to add-a-letter, like "B makes oil boil" etc.). You can do this kind of riddle where it reduces down to one letter that means something (B, C, I, J, L, N, P, Q, T, U, Y I think are those letters, right?), or reduces it down to another word inside the word.
A B.
Pun-riddles: The source I used just asked "why couldn't the astronauts land on the moon," but I thought it would be a good distractor to say specifically the Apollo 10 astronauts, as they were the last Apollo mission before the first landing with Apollo 11, which might be a good factoid for kids to learn too, along with the silly double-meaning on which the riddle is based. There might be other ways to play with real moon landings to make variations.
The moon was full.
This is another one of my favorite riddle types. The original source I used had a "chicken," but I really don't think about chickens as having tails (although of course they do)... so I switched it to "peacock," since peacocks have very dramatic tails. Of course, any kind of bird will do; you need a bird to supply a wing, tail, head, and 2 of the legs.
There are lots of riddles like this and the variations are endless based on what kind of creature the person is riding (and it could be two people), plus what animal(s) the person(s) might be carrying. Or perhaps some other thing: since chairs have four legs, for example, you could have it be a person sitting on a chair rather than riding, etc.
A person on a horse carrying a peacock.
This is one of those foolish-answer riddles: the question seems serious, but the answer is decided foolish. This works for things that are long or things that are tall; see this giraffe riddle for example.
If they had short arms, they wouldn't reach their hands.
This falls into the category of the "trick question" type of riddle, because of course "in English" makes you think it means "in the English alphabet" ... not "in the word English"! Of course, this one can be multiplied in all kinds of ways: you can do all the letters (even H, because you would say "nothing comes after H in English), and you could also do it for other languages, too (what comes after R in French, etc.).
N.
This is another one of those sound-them-out letter riddles. I've never tried to make up one of these on my own, but they sound very do-able, and a fun way for kids to think about letter sounds and words. There are probably so many words that can be analyzed this way; I should make a list of all the letter names that can make syllables in a word.
NRG
I guess these kinds of riddles can be used to practice spelling, especially one like this where the resulting word has a funky spelling (as is true of many English words!). These riddles always make me think of that Tom Lehrer song for The Electric Company: who can turn a can into a cane? you just add silent e!
It turns your host into a ghost.
The original source I used just said "are prone to jealousy" but I thought it would be fun to make them jealous of the other letters! I am not sure what this type of letter-riddle should be called; it needs a name, and I am sure it is possible to make more of them.
NV
This style of letter-riddle is a bit silly, but I still really like them, especially because it plays with the idea of rhyme when the letter addition comes at the start of the word, but of course this type of riddle could work no matter where the letter is added to the word.
It makes oil boil.
My source did not phrase this as an "I am" riddle, but that is one of my favorite riddle styles. I also love the "woman dancing" image here, but all the images are just great. There are lots of riddles about this body part, but I really like this one! Of course, it's possible to play with the red and the white imagery, and also the tongue's movements to create all kinds of variants on this one.
Mouth.
Book.
There are many nursery-rhyme riddles and, thanks to Lewis Carroll's Alice, this is one of the most famous. Humpty even has his own Wikipedia article. Sometimes it is "the king's horses and the king's men," but I liked "great" (which is the version found in the source I used). Eggs are one of the most famous subjects for riddles because of their many strange qualities, and you can mix-and-match those qualities to create your own riddles; in this riddle, it is all about the fact that an egg absolutely cannot be repaired once it is broken... and it is so easy to break! Plus you have to break an egg to use it (but that's another riddle!).
Egg.
This is another one of those riddles that you can ponder literally at any moment! I'm guessing that there might be other answers to this riddle, so it could be paired up with the prompt for another "breathing" riddle.
A breath.
I changed this to the "I" form; the source I used just had "it" instead. Especially because this is about a disembodied voice, I thought it would be fun to make it an "I" riddle. Because of the weirdness of this phenomenon, it is the subject of many riddles, and also of myths that explain its origin (as in the story of Greek Narcissus).
Echo.
The source I used just had "no one turns them on," but I added the part at the end about them shining bright. It seems like it should be possible to make this into a rhyming riddle too!
Stars.
My favorite part of this one is the part about the keyhole! Although I also like the idea of happily sitting on the table, feeling no shame. Just imagine all the places that sunlight goes, and you can make up variations on this riddle, and it would also be possible to do it with moonlight; there are similar riddles about where the wind goes, etc.
Sunlight.
This is another great one where it helps you see the world around you in a new way.
Bicycle wheels.
This is another one of those riddles that you can think about, perceiving your own body in a new way. Technically, it should be 32, although that doesn't fit the meter as nicely! (And plenty of people have 28, which also doesn't do as well with the meter.) I'm not a big fan of the tramp/champ rhyme there: I think I'd prefer stomp and chomp!
Teeth.
This riddle is based on a beautiful, suggestive metaphor. I wonder if this metaphor could inspire similar metaphors to create other riddles with the same answer. Since we don't live in villages anymore, it might be possible to replace this with something else that gets abandoned or deserted in the modern world. Or maybe it is some kind of dumping ground or landfill...
The heart (thinking about the past).
I like rhyming riddles! This is the kind of riddle about something you might actually see, and it gives you a new way to "see" it! Because insects and other creatures are sometimes so different-looking than humans, it might be possible to make other riddles like this with misdirection like "two hairs upon her head" as in this riddle.
Butterfly.
I added the part about "they never come out" since I thought that made it more mysterious, and also weird, thinking about what it would mean for them to actually come out! I like the idea of them as "sisters" in this riddle, but of course it could be brothers, or even twins, or maybe even birds in their nests in a tree, just as long as it is something up high with a good vantage point.
Eyes.
As someone who is a keen watcher of the lunar cycle, I really like this one! This is the kind of riddle that is harder to imitate, but I think it would be possible to combine it with other lunar riddles somehow, making it new by virtue of being used in combination.
Moon.
sky-riddles
This riddle may be outdated these days in a world of email, but I like the walking and speaking part. The version I found was not told in first-person, but I thought it was more cool that way! For black and white, see this riddle.
Letter or postcard.
There are lots of variations on this riddle; I'll collect more of them here as I find them. There are many great metaphors you can use to describe the night sky with its mix of light and dark and its coming and going.
Stars.
I am a fan of letter-riddles like this one! To learn how to make riddles like this, you need to become attuned to words-inside-words (which is kind of like that word game at The Guardian newspaper online, Wordiply).
Heroine.
This one seems like it is going to be one of those "road" riddles, but then it goes in a very different direction, with the poor thing longing for light but forever in the darkness. It's very sad in a sense, but perhaps also hopeful. There are other riddles like this about how the heart never stop beating, how we never stop breathing, etc.
The heart.
I love this riddle! It is both a memento mori but it also makes you think about the houses where we live and how important it is to have light in the house, either light from windows or light that we make ourselves with fire, candles, lightbulbs and so on. Light is life! It seems like it would be possible to make the prompt more elaborate, maybe a rhyming prompt.
The grave.
This is a classic riddle; the prompt can take many forms. It's anything that "goes" -- roads, borders, etc.
A road.
It conquers tigers, lions, raging bulls,
poor men alike and kings;
they all fall, overcome, at its feet,
and then they rise again.
I added "and then they rise again" at the end because otherwise it seemed like the answer could be "death," but that is not the answer. Also, the original just had "men," but I changed it to "poor men" to heighten the contrast with kings. It would so easy to vary this prompt with anything that sleeps; this one has a nice rhythm, for example, and it would also sound good as a rhyming riddle.
Sleep.
I planted black seeds in the white earth;
its harvest cannot be harvested with the hand,
but only with the mind.
I changed "rice" in the original to "seeds" here, and "knife" to "hand." Now that people don't really do as much handwriting as they used to, this riddle is becoming obsolete, but I like the idea of harvesting with the mind, so I wanted to go ahead and include it. This contrast between black and white is a good one to play with in making riddles about writing.
Writing.
We love it more than life, fear it more than death;
the poor have it; the rich have need of it.
