Q 01/05

What was Oedipus's answer to the Sphinx's riddle of the four-, two- and three-footed creature?

A) Man

B) A dog

C) The Sun

D) A river

Answer · why

A) Man

A person crawls as a baby, walks upright as an adult and leans on a stick in old age.

Q 02/05

In some accounts the Sphinx asked a second riddle: which two sisters each give birth to the other?

A) Sea and sky

B) Day and night

C) Life and death

D) Sun and moon

Answer · why

B) Day and night

The pair endlessly produce each other, which is the whole trick.

Q 03/05

What did Samson's riddle 'Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet' describe?

A) Milk from a wild goat

B) Figs from a fallen tree

C) Honey in a lion's carcass

D) Wine from a crushed grape

Answer · why

C) Honey in a lion's carcass

The guests only got the answer by extorting it from Samson's wife, and he paid the lost bet with thirty stolen suits.

Q 04/05

The nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty' probably began life as a riddle. What was the answer?

A) A clock

B) A cannon

C) A drunk king

D) An egg

Answer · why

D) An egg

The trick relied on 'humpty dumpty' also being 18th-century slang for a short, clumsy person, who might survive a fall where an egg would not.

Q 05/05

In 'As I was going to St Ives', what is the usual trick answer to how many were going to St Ives?

A) Just one

B) 2,801

C) 2,802

D) Seven

Answer · why

A) Just one

Only the narrator is actually said to be heading there; the man and his entourage are simply met on the road.