A Blood Red Shroud

The thunder comes before the lightning,
And the lightning comes before the cloud,
The rain dries all the land it touches,
Wrapping the earth in a blood red shroud.

What am I?

A volcano.

Posted in Riddles

I Stand Like A Sentry

I stand like a sentry
And am barred by the gentry,
The first month and its god oft slip
Between my hard, dun colored lip.

What am I?

Sentries are posted at borders, gates, or doors.
The gentry (in this case to referring to the general populace) bar their doors at night.
The first month is January, named after the Roman god Janus, the double-faced God of doorways, passages and thresholds.
You pass through the doorway (hence the slip), and dun is a brown color, referencing the color of wood, which most doors are made of. Though it’s not commonly referred to, the “lip of the door” is the part of the door that fits into the doorframe on the handle/knob side, particularly if the door is lipped or ridged in order to fit the door frame better.

Thanks to Helena for creating this and sending it in.

Posted in Riddles
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Mixed Animals for $100

At the market you can buy a cow for $10, a pig for $1 and 8 hens for $1. How many animals would you need to buy to get 100 mixed animals for exactly $100?

7 cows, 21 pigs and 72 hens. The trick to this is finding the combination of cows and hens with the same cost and quantity since pigs are already equal. The magic combination is 7 cows and 72 hens, giving you 79 animals that cost $79 ($70 + $9). Then you just add 21 pigs to get to 100 animals.

Posted in Brain Teasers

The Ants Go Marching

Three ants are walking in the same direction. The first ant has two ants behind him, the second ant has one in front and one behind, but the third ant has one in front and one behind too. How is this possible?

The ants are in a circle. Lets say the ants are A, B and C. A has has B and C behind him, B has A in front and C behind, and C has B in front and A behind.

Posted in Brain Teasers

I Am, In Truth, A Yellow Fork

I am, in truth, a yellow fork
From tables in the sky
By inadvertent fingers dropped
The awful cutlery.
Of mansions never quite disclosed
And never quite concealed
The apparatus of the dark
To ignorance revealed.

— Emily Dickenson

Lightning.

Posted in Riddles

Coffee

What does this represent?

COF FEE

Coffee break. The word coffee is broken into two pieces.

Posted in Brain Teasers
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How Many Mangoes?

From a basket of mangoes when counted in twos there was one extra,
counted in threes there were two extra,
counted in fours there were three extra,
counted in fives there were four extra,
counted in sixes there were five extra,
but counted in sevens there were no extras.

At least how many mangoes were there in the basket?

119. The number has to be evenly divisible by seven for there to be no extras when counting in sevens, and it has to be odd in order for there to be one extra when counting by twos. It also can’t be evenly divisible by three through six. 119 is the first odd multiple of 7 that satisfies the requirements.

Posted in Brain Teasers

What Comes Next I S I T

What comes next in this series?

I S I T P N A A D L I I Y N ___

The letter A.

There are three separate series

1. Starting with the first letter and taking every third letter you get ITALY.
2. Starting with the second letter and taking every third letter you get SPAIN.
3. Starting with the third letter and taking every third letter you get INDIA.

Posted in Brain Teasers

Word With All 26 Letters

What word contains all 26 letters?

Alphabet (unfortunately there aren’t any actual dictionary words with every letter in the alphabet, so this gimmicky, somewhat unsatisfying answer has to suffice).

Posted in Riddles

Traveling Colorful Balls

Kevin, Charles, Larry and Alex are in a room that’s about 110 feet long. In front of them are 5 balls which are exactly 100 ft from the exit. The balls are yellow, purple, green, red and blue, respectively. Each man must carry a ball to the exit. After traveling 20 ft a ball will change color twice. The sequence of color changes is always the same: yellow, purple, green, red, and blue.

At 80 ft Kevin’s ball is red.
At 40 ft Larry’s ball is purple.
At 60 ft Charles’ ball is blue
At 100 ft Alex’s ball is purple.

What color ball was left behind?

The remaining ball was blue. Here’s a table of each ball and the color it changes to at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 ft. Kevin’s started out yellow, Larry’s was green, Charles’ was red and Alex began with a purple ball, leaving blue as the one nobody picked.

  20 ft 40 ft 60 ft 80 ft 100 ft
Yellow Green Blue Purple Red Yellow
Purple Red Yellow Green Blue Purple
Green Blue Purple Red Yellow Green
Red Yellow Green Blue Purple Red
Blue Purple Red Yellow Green Blue
Posted in Brain Teasers