Day 16: solve the riddle you must...

... if you want to continue on your quest.

I am still in a playful mood! I am a fan of the animated riddles on TED-Ed, and I found this one, which has the flair of medieval knight riddles.





Here's the challenge for today!


- Tell us if you could solve the riddle!

 - Give us your five favourite words from this video.



As an extra, this challenge reminded me of a song I love a lot, Koeeoaddi There, by The Incredible String Band. The chorus (or kind of) goes like this:


Earth, water, fire and air
Met together in a garden fair,
Put in a basket bound with skin.
If you answer this riddle,
If you answer this riddle,
You'll never begin.



Listen to it if you want to get into the mood for the riddle. Enjoy, brave knights!



Comments

  1. AngelMarch 30, 2020 at 12:03 PM

    Hi Bea!

    I managed to solve the number of games played, won, lost and tied of each team, following a similar reasoning.
    In the case of the scores, I was a bit saturated after a long monday, so I gave up... :(

    My five favorite words are:
    * enchantment
    * weighing
    * chuckles
    * cursed
    * meaningful

    ReplyDelete
  2. fdgcMarch 30, 2020 at 4:04 PM

    Hi, Bea,

    I´m afraid I couldn´t solve the riddle. I didn´t realize that the tournament hadn´t finished yet, so I started a spiral of thoughts with no exit. Anyhow, it was quite tricky.

    My favorite words:
    - meddling
    - hexes
    - underway
    - cursed

    and the expressions:
    - after weighing your options
    - but your deductive skills quickly evened the score

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. EvelitaMarch 31, 2020 at 3:14 AM

    Hello!

    Believe it or not, it wasn't until yersterday that I knew the word riddle in English was and... spent 7 hours in one of them! I couldn't help smiling when I saw this challenge this morning!

    I stopped watching the video when the solution was about to be provided. I do want to spend time pondering it, but not today (after yesterday's time investment...)
    So, I'll share five words I learnt with the video (they might not be my favourite in general terms, but let's concede them this status temporary as are were new to me):
    Joustin:(in the past) to fight with a lance (= a long pointed weapon) while riding on a horse, especially as a sport
    Medling: the act of trying to change or have an influence on things that are not your responsibility, especially by criticizing in a damaging or annoying way
    Hex: an evil spell, bringing bad luck and trouble
    Underway: if something is underway, it is happening now (LOVED THIS ONE)
    To chuckle: to laugh quietly

    Thanks Bea!



    Just in case someone feels like spending some precious time on making her mind work, here it goes the riddle I worked on and finally solved yesterday (truth be told, at 02:00 A.M)


    The Emperor has three twin daughters, none of whom have been introduced to you by name (on purpose).

    The eldest always tells the truth; the middle sometimes tells the truth and sometimes lies (sporadically); and the younger one always lies.

    (Strange value structure you have, but) you despise not knowing whether your future wife'll lie or not, and want to be sure of marrying either the daughter who always lies, or the one who always tells the truth - making sure not to leave any chance of picking the one who vacillates between truth and lies.

    When received by the Emperor, he tells you you may ask one question to one of his daughters, only [part one - what specific question?].

    And then you are to ask one of the three of them to marry you [part two - which one and why?]

    The only caveat is the answer given to your question by whichever girl you pick can only be answered "yes" or "no"

    This is not a trick riddle, there is only one answer (one for part a; one for part b), nor a meta-question (a question about a question such as 'if I asked her x, would she say y') - it's observably simple, yet deeply complicated - like most of life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shall I compare thee...April 1, 2020 at 7:32 AM

      Two days later, I'm still working on this! Hahaha!

      Thank you, Evelia!

      Delete

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