Content Starts Here
riddle
Encyclopaedia Search
Riddle
Verbal puzzle or question that offers clues rather than direct aids to solving it, and often involves unlikely comparisons. Riddle poems were common in Old English poetry.
In ancient literature, finding the answer to a riddle could be a matter of life and death. Oedipus, for example, became the ruler of the ancient Greek city of Thebes by solving the riddle of the Sphinx: ‘What goes on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in the evening?’ The answer is a human being – crawling on all fours as a baby, and walking with a stick in old age.
© RM 2009. Helicon Publishing is division of RM.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
Beowulf
ballad (literature)
caesura
carol
cinquain
concrete poetry
courtly love
dirge
doggerel
dramatic verse
elegy
epic
epigram
epithalamium
erotic verse
form (literature)
free verse
genre
haiku
heroic verse
hymn
iambic
idyll
jingle
kenning
lament
lay
limerick
lyric
metaphysical poets
metre (poetry)
narrative verse
ode
pastoral(e)
pattern poetry
poet laureate
poetry
rhyme
rhythm (poetry)
riddle
rondeau
sonnet
stanza
tanka
threnody
tone (literature)
verse
war poetry
ballad (literature)
caesura
carol
cinquain
concrete poetry
courtly love
dirge
doggerel
dramatic verse
elegy
epic
epigram
epithalamium
erotic verse
form (literature)
free verse
genre
haiku
heroic verse
hymn
iambic
idyll
jingle
kenning
lament
lay
limerick
lyric
metaphysical poets
metre (poetry)
narrative verse
ode
pastoral(e)
pattern poetry
poet laureate
poetry
rhyme
rhythm (poetry)
riddle
rondeau
sonnet
stanza
tanka
threnody
tone (literature)
verse
war poetry
Romania Flag
Nowadays the colours are said to stand for Moldavia, Transylvania, and Wallachia. Effective date: 27 December 1989.
>>
Advertorial
Find out how to buy the things you've always wanted and sell the things you don't on ebay.
Advertisement starts
Advertisement ends
Page Footer
Access keys
You will need to use different key combinations in order to use access keys depending on your internet browser, find out which on our accessibility page.
- (0) Navigate to Accessibility page.
- (1) Navigate to Home page.
- (2) Navigate to My email.
- (3) Navigate to My Account.
- (4) Navigate to Site Map page.
- (5) Navigate to Contact us page.
- (6) Navigate to Members channel.
- (7) Navigate to Services channel.
- (8) Navigate to News & Info channel.
- (9) Navigate to Entertainment channel.
- ([) Skip down to the Primary navigation block.
- (]) Skip down to the more links within this section block.
- (=) Bypass all navigation and jump to the content.
- (x) Text only version of this page.
