Can you Solve these Medieval Riddles?
Can you Solve these Medieval Riddles?
Ten riddles from the Middle Ages. How many can you answer?
Ten riddles from the Middle Ages. How many can you answer?
I carry a greater load dead than alive. While I lie, serving many men; if I were to stand, I should serve a few. If my entrails are torn out to lie open out of doors, I bring life to all, and I give sustenance to many. A lifeless creature which bites nothing, when loaded down I run on my way yet never show my feet.
Truly no one is outstanding without me, nor fortunate; I embrace all those whose hearts ask for me. He who goes without me goes about in the company of death; and he who bears me will remain lucky for ever. But I stand lower than earth and higher than heaven.
A vessel have I, that is round as a pear, moist in the middle, surrounded with hair; and often it happens, that water flows there.
I have one and you have one. So do the woods, fields, streams and seas, fish, beasts and crops and everything else in this revolving world.
Tell me, what is that fills the sky and the whole earth and tears up new shoots, and shakes all foundations, but cannot be seen by eyes or touched by hands?
An eater lacking mouth and even maw; yet trees and beasts to it are daily bread. Well fed it thrives and shows a lively life, but give it water and you do it dead.
I’m soft as wool, soft as a bog. When I swell up, I’m like a frog. I grow in water, where I plunge.
What is it that’s blind with an eye in its head, but the race of mankind its use cannot spare; spends all its life in clothing the dead, but always itself is naked and bare?
What is the sister of the sun, though made for the night? The fire causes her tears to fall, and when she is near dying they cut off her head.
What speaks in all languages in his riding, and his mouth spits the poison of life or death? It is silent when it rests, and is deaf like a boy or one of the poor.