“Once you have it, you want to share it. Once you share it, you don’t have it. What is it?” Questions like this are called riddles, and a riddle is a question intentionally phrased to require ingenuity and logic to be able to find the answer. There are two types of riddles, enigma and conundrum: enigma is an allegorical or metaphorical puzzle that requires deep thinking, and conundrum comes in puns. Riddles are from all over the world. Hungary, Persia, India, Africa, Philippines, Scandinavia, Mongolia, Russia and China. People who solved riddles were from Egypt and Russia. Archeologists found riddles and puzzles more than thousand years old.

There are also benefits of riddle, especially for children, it improve how kids think. It also develop a greater bond with parents and their child, with parents giving riddles, kids are not afraid to blurt out answers. It brings children confidence in expressing themselves and are useful to strengthen children’s social skills. Riddles also give children opportunity to teach, and it reinforces their understanding of the riddle allowing them to interact with people in a constructive social way. Riddles also play a role in expanding their vocabulary as well. When children encounter words that they don’t understand they figure hem out though context. Riddles help them remember and use these words and force kids to ask more questions about words they don’t understand. Here are a few riddles to solve:

1) “Feed me and I live, yet give me a drink and I die.”
2) “Take off my skin – I won’t cry, but you will! What am I?”
3) “Imagine you are in a dark room. How do you get out?”
4) “Thirty white horses on a red hill: first they champ, then they stamp, then they stay still.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
5) “Who makes it, has no need of it.
Who buys it, has no use for it.
Who uses it can neither see nor feel it.
What is it?”

Answers:

*Secret
1) Fire
2) Onion
3) Stop Imagining
4) Teeth
5) A coffin