Puzzle
A puzzle is a problem or enigma presented as entertainment; that is written down, acted out, etc. Many puzzles stem from serious mathematical or logistical problems (see packing problems and tour puzzles). Others (like chess problems) are derived from board games. Others again have been devised for the purpose of being brain teasers.
The history of puzzles goes back thousands of years, Tangram being one of the earliest and still one of the most popular puzzles. In certain temples of Japan monks used to write mathematical puzzles on temple walls.
A riddle is a puzzle, consisting of text with a question to answer. Riddles have a distinguished literary ancestry, although the contemporary sort of conundrum that passes under the name of “riddle” may not make this obvious. Riddles occur extensively in Old English poetry, and also in the Old Norse literature of the Elder Edda and the skalds. A manuscript in Old English, The Exeter Book, preserves almost sixty versified riddles from the Old English literature.
A general technique is to obliquely refer to the subject by kenning and other sorts of figurative language; since kennings formed such an important element of alliterative verse forms in the Germanic languages, the riddles served the dual purpose of puzzling the poet’s audience and teaching the lore needed to successfully use or understand the poetic language. The god Odin was a master of riddle lore, and sparred with several of his foes using contests of riddles. In the Vafthruthnismal, Odin defeats his foe by posing a question only he could possibly know the answer to.
In Hebrew Bible, the hero Samson proposes a riddle to the Philistines, which centered around Samson’s discovery of honey in the carcass of a lion. (Judges 14) In Greek mythology, riddles were the province of the Sphinx, a female monster who challenged passersby with riddles; those who failed to guess them were devoured. She famously asked Oedipus, “What is the animal that goes about on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three in the evening?” The correct answer given by Oedipus was “Man,” who crawls as a baby, walks upright as an adult, and goes with the help of a walking stick when elderly.
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Gollum challenges Bilbo Baggins to a riddle competition; Bilbo wins the competition by asking Gollum, “What have I got in my pocket?”, which Gollum could not answer. The answer, of course, was the One Ring, which Gollum had lost and Bilbo had since found.
In the Batman comic books, one of the hero’s best known enemies is The Riddler who is personally compelled to supply clues about his upcoming crimes to his enemies in the form of riddles and puzzles. Stereotypically, they are the kind of simple riddles as described below, but modern treatments generally prefer to have the character use more sophisticated puzzles.
Contemporary riddles typically use puns and double entendres for humorous effect, rather than to puzzle the butt of the joke.
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