Forty Traditional Riddles

Welcome to Thinks.com's collection of free funny and hard riddles. There are difficult riddles to stretch your brain as well as fun riddles for kids. If you give up, you can check the links to the right to get the riddle answer.

I am taken from a mine, and shut up in a wooden case, from which I am never released, and yet I am used by almost everybody.	Answer
What goes round the house and in the house but never touches the house?	Answer
What is it that you can keep after giving it to someone else?	Answer
What walks all day on its head?	Answer
What gets wet when drying?	Answer
What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?	Answer
What is round as a dishpan, deep as a tub, and still the oceans couldn't fill it up?	Answer
There were five men going to church and it started to rain. The four that ran got wet and the one that stood still stayed dry.	Answer
The more you take, the more you leave behind. What are they?	Answer
He who has it doesn't tell it. He who takes it doesn't know it. He who knows it doesn't want it. What is it?	Answer
Brothers and sisters have I none but that man's father is my father's son.	Answer
Who spends the day at the window, goes to the table for meals and hides at night?	Answer
I bind it and it walks. I loose it and it stops.	Answer
What goes round and round the wood but never goes into the wood?	Answer
I went to the city, I stopped there, I never went there, and I came back again.	Answer
I have a little house in which I live all alone. It has no doors or windows, and if I want to go out I must break through the wall.	Answer
Scarcely was the father in this world when the son could be found sitting on the roof.	Answer
There are four brothers in this world that were all born together. The first runs and never wearies. The second eats and is never full. The third drinks and is always thirsty. The fourth sings a song that is never good.	Answer
A cloud was my mother, the wind is my father, my son is the cool stream, and my daughter is the fruit of the land. A rainbow is my bed, the earth my final resting place, and I'm the torment of man.	Answer
Poke your fingers in my eyes and I will open wide my jaws. Linen cloth, quills, or paper, my greedy lust devours them all.	Answer
What is that which goes with a carriage, comes with a carriage, is of no use to a carriage, and yet the carriage cannot go without it?	Answer
It stands on one leg with its heart in its head.	Answer
It's been around for millions of years, but it's no more than a month old. What is it?	Answer
A white dove flew down by the castle. Along came a king and picked it up handless, ate it up toothless, and carried it away wingless.	Answer
As I went across the bridge, I met a man with a load of wood which was neither straight nor crooked. What kind of wood was it?	Answer
What belongs to you but others use it more than you do?	Answer
What goes up the chimney down, but can't go down the chimney up?	Answer
What is is that you will break even when you name it?	Answer
What fastens two people yet touches only one?	Answer
What is it the more you take away the larger it becomes?	Answer
I am the beginning of sorrow, and the end of sickness. You cannot express happiness without me, yet I am in the midst of crosses. I am always in risk, yet never in danger. You may find me in the sun, but I am never out of darkness.	Answer
What is put on a table, cut, but never eaten?	Answer
Who are the two brothers who live on opposite sides of the road yet never see each other?	Answer
What holds water yet is full of holes?	Answer
Though it is not an ox, it has horns; though it is not an ass, it has a pack-saddle; and wherever it goes it leaves silver behind. What is it?	Answer
Lives without a body, hears without ears, speaks without a mouth, to which the air alone gives birth.	Answer
A hundred-year-old man and his head one night old.	Answer
What goes into the water red and comes out black?	Answer
What goes into the water black and comes out red?	Answer
When one does not know what it is, then it is something; but when one knows what it is, then it is nothing.	Answer

Click here to see all the answers