They are statements or questions having a double or veiled meaning. A riddle is of two types: enigmas, which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking to find their solution, and conundrums, which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the . You will find about 100 riddles in this page .

Riddles are word games. They stretch your brain by making you think about the meanings of words. They play with associations between ideas and images. Writing riddles is tricky because you don't want to make them too easy, but making them too difficult frustrates people. Here's how to write a good riddle.

Riddles occur extensively in Old English poetry, and also in the Old Norse literature of the Poetic Edd a and the skalds. Riddles thus have a distinguished literary ancestry, although the contemporary sort of conundrum that passes under the name of "riddle" may not make this obvious. In the Anglo-Saxon world, the wis had wisdom due to their wit – their ability to conciliate and mediate by maintaining multiple perspectives, which has degenerated into a species of comedy, but was not always a mere laughing matter.

How to Solve a Riddle

The first thing you will need is an alert mind. Use the morning, when your mind is well-rested and ready to exert thought power, to begin thinking about the riddle. I find it helpful to have a cup of coffee to really get to the peak of my mental capacity. If you wait until you come home from work, or after taking care of the kids all day, or after a day of school, you will be less alert and therefore less likely to successfully solve the riddle.

The next thing you will need is time to carefully review each component of the riddle - what, where, when, why, who, and how. Consider the meaning of each fact given. As you write down the facts, write down the various things that come to mind when you think about each part of the riddle. What you are doing in this step is getting all the information down on paper.