MY FAVORITE RIDDLES IV

1. What has a head and tail but no body?

2. The faster you run, the harder it is to catch.

     What is it?

3. What felony is committed by all young children?

4. I'm daily old and daily new,

    Some say I'm false, and some say I'm true;

    In the morning, no miss is more courted than I,

    In the evening, you see me thrown carelessly by.

 

5. I have two legs that touch the ground only when I rest.

    What am I?

 

6. I'm used to describe things sold very cheap,

    If you treat people like me, few friends you will keep.

    I'm often discarded in a careless heap,

    Yet without me, surely all men would weep.

    For I am the mother of all life on earth,

    Though thought of as nothing, I'm of infinite worth.

7. I have a head but no eye.

    I have an eye but no head.

    Who are we?

8. In marble walls as white as milk,

    Lined with skin as soft as silk;

    Within a fountain crystal clear,

    A golden apple doth appear.

    No doors there are to this stronghold, 

    Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.

9. We are little airy creatures,

    All of different voice and features;

    One of us in glass is set,

    One of us you'll find in jet.

   Another you may see in tin,

   And the fourth a box within.

   If the fifth you should pursue,

   It can never fly from you.

   (Jonathan Swift)

10. A word there is of plural number,

      Foe to ease and tranquil slumber.

      With any other word you take,    

      To add an s would plural make.

      But if you add an s this,

      How strange the metamorphosis:

      What plural was, is plural now no more,

      And sweet, what bitter was before.

      (George Canning)

 

      What are the two words?*

 

*This riddle is my personal favorite. For a tribute riddle I wrote, see FOUR RIDDLES IN VERSE, posted 12/15/08 under Rhyming Riddles - beginning "Two friends I have beyond compare".

 

Answers:

 

1. A coin

2. Your breath

3. Resisting arrest (a rest)

4. A newspaper

5. Wheelbarrow

6. Dirt (soil)

7. Pin and needle

8. An egg

9. The five vowels

10. CARES - CARESS