To all of you who read my blog, I wanted to give you a holiday gift for each of the next four posts.

My husband and I spent a weekend in Baxter State Park in Maine a year ago, and we made up riddles on our hikes based on well-known proverbs and aphorisms. It was a lot of fun, and for his birthday I put them together in a little book. Now I’d like to share them with you. I hope you enjoy them! (The answer to each post’s riddle will be at the beginning of the next post.)

How to solve these riddles

Every answer rhymes with a well-known aphorism, saying, or proverb. The clues to the rhyming words are indicated by italics. Each new aphorism will have at least two changed words.

The underlining at the end of each riddle also provides clues. They indicate the number of words in each answer, as well as the number of letters in each word. One more hint: if you have figured out a word or two that’s likely part of the answer, think about what these words rhyme with. This will help you figure out the original aphorism, and then the answer should come fairly easily.

Riddle #1

One day there was an outdoor event in which people brought objects that they held with string to fly in the wind in the park. One tarty gal wanted to fly one, too, but she didn’t have any idea how to make such a thing. Being a bit provocative, she decided to use a couple of pairs of her very minimal underwear and string these to fly.  But her creation failed to take flight. An observant man standing nearby said her problem was simply that:

___ ______ ___ ____ _ ____

~ Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education

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Filed under: critical thinking, MOGO (Most Good) Tagged: | aphorisms, creativity, critical thinking, gifts, holidays, MOGO, rhymes, riddles