Riddles

thumb|upright=1.3|Attic red-figure kylix c. 470 BCE: Oedipus ponders the riddle of the Sphinx, with the fate of Thebes at stake

A sphinx ( ; , ; or sphinges ) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of an eagle.

Nonsense is a form of communication, via speech, writing, or any other formal logic system, that lacks any coherent meaning. In ordinary usage, nonsense is sometimes synonymous with absurdity or the ridiculous. Many poets, novelists and songwriters have used nonsense in their works, often creating entire works using it for reasons ranging from pure comic amusement or satire, to illustrating a point about language or reasoning. In the philosophy of language and philosophy of science, nonsense is distinguished from sense or meaningfulness, and attempts have been made to come up with a coherent a

A '''''' ( ; ; ; ; ) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement from Chinese Chan Buddhist lore, supplemented with commentaries, that is used in Chan, Zen, Seon and Thiền Buddhist practice in different ways. The main goal of practice in Zen is to achieve (Chinese: ), to see or observe one's buddha-nature.

fictional character from the nursery rhyme and derivative works

medieval Catholic manual

Kryptos is a sculpture by the American artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters, the George Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.

Collection of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach

Anglo-Saxon anthology of texts, many of which are riddles

common joke or riddle

fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm

philosophical thought experiment

Indian author

late Latin riddle from Northern Italy

fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm

thumb|Title page of the riddles of Symphosius, from the late tenth- or early eleventh-century London, British Library, Royal MA 12 c xxiii folio 104r Symphosius (sometimes, in older scholarship and less properly, Symposius) was the author of the Aenigmata, an influential collection of 100 Latin riddles, probably from the late antique period. They have been transmitted along with their solutions.

literary form; a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements

folk tale version by the Brothers Grimm

Byzantine author

fairy tale version by the Brothers Grimm

folk song

riddle

Old English poem about a dialogue of riddles between Solomon, the king of Israel, and Saturn, a prince of the Chaldeans

pastoral poem by the ancient Roman poet Virgil

Xiehouyu are a type of Chinese proverb consisting of a former segment that presents a novel scenario, and a latter provides the rationale thereof. One would often only state the first part, expecting the listener to know the second. Xiehouyu are examples of anapodota, a class of rhetorical device found across different languages. Compare English an apple a day (keeps the doctor away) and speak of the devil (and he shall appear).

folk tale by the Brothers Grimm

Persian fairy tale

fairy tale

folk tale version by the Brothers Grimm

traditional song

in the Bible, a riddle that Samson posed to his Philistine wedding guests: “Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet”, about a beehive in a lion carcass

medieval Russian religious ballad