Perhaps he is in an office where a window separates the receptionist from the waiting room and he jumped through it.

Or he could be in the penthouse that has a balcony or the roof of the main building outside of it.

Then again he could be standing on the window ledge and just jumps back into the building, This is the simplest answer, so must be the correct one.


(Most riddles are easier to understand if you step outside of the box to look at them.)

The suggestive first riddle on the first page is driving me nuts: it's in a class like the "sits under the bed with its tongue hanging out" style of riddle that blatantly seems to mean one thing but is actually another. But I can only see the obvious, indiscrete answer, which can't be the right one, because that's not how these riddles work.

And for that matter the "golden bow" was answered "rainbow" which I doubt is right... why would it be golden? But it's not a banana, because that's not endless. Ergh. Finally, there's one that people said "photograph" that I'm almost certain is really "memory".


I love the old-style riddles, not modern logic puzzlers, but unfortunately I'm not much good at either of them. Nevertheless:

(to explain my comment above)

1. Runs over fields and woods all day
Under the bed at night sits not alone,
With long tongue hanging out, A-waiting for a bone.

And a few more, for fun.

2. A pearl on black velvet
encicled by a necklace of diamonds.

3. Light as a feather,
nothing in it.
A stout man can't hold it
for more than a minute.

(this one hurt my head so much when I was a kid, and I was fascinated by it)

4. What goes down the chimney down,
Up the chimney down,
But never down the chimney up?

This one's a bit like one of Bilbo's:

5. There was a green house. Inside the green house there was a white house Inside the white house there was a red house. Inside the red house there were lots of babies. What is it?

Here is a lovely, old, traditional-style riddle:


6. Iam the black child of a white father, a wingless bird, flying even to the clouds of heaven. I give birth to tears of Mourning in pupils that meet me, even though there is no cause for grief, and at once on my birth I am dissolved into air. What am I?

And here's one I invented:

7. Bury this seed and my children die;
Leave in the sun-- they'll reach the sky,
Yet never bear leaf. Who am I?

4. What goes down the chimney down,
Up the chimney down,
But never down the chimney up?

An umbrella

:elfembar: Oh how obvious.

#7:Beanstalk? Probably not, but I might as well try.

I belive the answer is "coffin".

Counterfeit money!



1. Turn on Lightswitch A for one hour and fifty minutes
2. Turn off Lightswitch A
3. Turn on Lightswitch B
4. Enter the room

The lighbulb that is hot belongs to lightswitch A
The lightbulb that is on belongs to lightswitch B
The other lightbulb belongs to lightswitch C



An evergreen tree?


Here's modern riddle:

A man is suspected of stealing $50,000 from a bank at 12:31 PM. When the police pull up to his house that night he is playing in the driveway with his three year old nephew. The nephew is sitting on the hood of the car while the police are questioning the man. When questioned the man says he had been just gotten back from a vacation and had been driving home from the airport for all day and just got home fifteen minutes ago. The police immediately arrest him. Why?

And a few older ones:

An iron horse with a flaxen tail
The farther the horse does run
The shorter his tail does become.

What goes through the door without pinching itself
And sits on the stove without burning itself
And sits on the table and is not ashamed?

Fifty is my first
Nothing is my second
Five is my third
My fourth is the end of time and beginning of all eternities

I die in the morning
At dusk I awaken
Night I am present
But not always there

Bury this seed and my children die;
Leave in the sun-- they'll reach the sky,
Yet never bear leaf. Who am I?

A birds egg?

[Edited on 28/6/2003 by Rhodry*of*Aberwyn]

I thought that was familiar. Sure enough, it is Samson's Riddle and I found it in The Book within 30 seconds of looking for it. I'll leave it for someone else to come up with the answer. Time works for some of the clues, but probably not all. The smoke from a steam locomotive?Salt?

Right. The LOVE one's similar to the DAVID one earlier in the thread.



No, though it would work.



Not quite.

Here's another one:

I am one away
But am never seen
Once you reach me
I have jumped ahead

An udder?

A hoard of rings am I,
but no fit gift for a bride;
I await a sword's kiss.