Asking riddles is the world’s oldest quiz game. A riddle is a puzzling statement or question. Sometimes in the form of a rhyme. Riddles also are called conundrums.

Some riddles are based on a pun, or play on words, like this familiar one: “When is a door not a door?” “When it’s a jar.” Other riddles point out a likeness between two very different things. “Why is a pencil like a funny story?” “They both have a point.”

Nobody knows who first began to ask riddles, but the custom is a very ancient one. In fact, long ago people took riddles very seriously. Ancient oracles often answered questions and gave advice in the form of riddle and kings used them to send secret messages to one another. These serious riddles also were called enigmas.

Greeks and Romans held riddle contests at their feasts and gave laurel wreaths to the winners. According to some ancient legends, a man’s life sometimes depended upon his giving the correct answer to a riddle.

Riddles even appear in the Bible. At Samson’s wedding feast a riddle contest was held, and the Queen of Sheba asked King Solomon a number of riddles.

In many parts of the world, riddles are an important part of a child’s upbringing. Some people think that quessing riddles sharpens a child’s wits. There are people who believe that guessing a riddle right helps to make the crops grow.

In one famous Greek myth, Oedipus, the hero, solved a riddle asked by the Sphinx, a monster who was half lion and half woman. Once the riddle of Sphinx was solved, she was destroyed.