Long Riddles

Five long riddles, each with its answer and the reasoning under a cover.

Long Riddles

  1. A collector was offered the diary of a sea captain. The seller turned the pages for her. "June 28: fair wind, all sails set. June 29: sighted land. June 30: took on fresh water. June 31: sailed at dawn with the tide. July 1: becalmed." The handwriting was old-fashioned, the ink was brown and the paper smelled of salt. The collector closed the diary and said she would not buy it at any price. Which entry told her the diary was a fake?
  2. I am very long, and I bend around corners. / I run on two lines that never meet. / I stop only where a platform waits. / Hundreds ride inside me and face the windows. / A whistle announces me before I arrive. / I am pulled or pushed from one end. / Gates come down and cars wait while I pass. / My last piece used to be painted red. What am I?
  3. I am a house with no kitchen and no beds. / Thousands live in me, standing shoulder to shoulder. / Each one wears a number on its back. / They leave with strangers and come home in three weeks. / My rule is one word, and the word is hush. / A card with your name opens all my doors. / You may take a world away under your arm. / I ask only that you bring it back. What am I?
  4. A hiker came down to the ranger station at midday, tired and proud. "I started at first light and walked due east all morning, straight into the sunrise," he said, "and the whole way up the ridge I felt the morning sun warm on the back of my neck." The ranger, who was deciding whether to believe the rest of his report about the washed-out trail, put down her pencil. What in his story could not be right?
  5. The family planned a surprise party for Grandpa's seventieth birthday, and nobody said a word to him. On the day, he came home from his walk, hung up his cap and said: "Well, where is everybody hiding?" Nobody had told him. But on his way past the driveway he had glanced into the back seat of his daughter's car, where a white bakery box sat with its window lid up, and through the window, in blue icing, were the words HAPPY 70TH, GRANDPA. How did he know about the party?

Next step Story riddles solved by asking a host

How it works

Each of these long riddles runs from 40 to 120 words and has one answer that can be reasoned out from its own text. The page shows five at a time, because one fills most of a phone screen.

Read the full guide

Long story riddles

Story riddles are short tales that end in a question: who is making it up, what was in the box, how did she know? Everything needed is in the text, so nobody has to ask a host for more. Long what am I riddles are verses of eight lines, one clue to a line.

Long hard riddles

Long logic gives four or five facts to hold at once. The menu under the button keeps one kind, and More filters in that menu has Level, for Hard only. Under Show answer the reasoning is set out step by step.

Tips
  • Read a long riddle aloud twice. The second time, listeners know which details to catch.

Questions and answers

How long is a long riddle?

On this page, from 40 to 120 words, counted by a script. That is about the length of a short paragraph: long enough for a verse of eight lines, a small story, or a logic problem with five facts.

How do you solve a long riddle?

For a verse, find the one thing every line fits, not just the first two. For a story, look for the detail that disagrees with something said earlier. For logic, start with the fact that fixes a place and build on it.

Are long riddles harder than short ones?

Not always. A long riddle gives more clues, which can make it easier than a one-line trick. About a third here are marked Easy, and each of the three sets has Hard ones too. Levels are the editors' judgment.

Can I read these long riddles to a group?

Yes. Read one out, let people talk it over, then tap Show answer under it for the answer and the reasoning. The main button brings five new riddles.

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All 45 riddles

Long what am I 15

  • Children build me and never use a nail. / My walls are made of what the sea ground small. / A bucket turned upside down is my tower. / A ditch dug by hand is my moat. / A shell is my front door, and a feather is my flag. / I stand only as long as I stay damp. / I never last the night. / The tide comes in and takes me back. What am I? Answer: A sandcastle. Wet sand shaped with a bucket, a moat dug around it, a shell and a feather for decoration, and the rising tide to wash it away.
  • I am a giant bag with a fire in my throat. / I carry people in a basket. / Hot air is all that holds me up. / I have nothing to steer with: I go where the wind goes. / A roar of flame sends me higher. / Let me cool, and I sink. / Between the roars I make no sound at all. / A truck follows me across the fields to see where I come down. What am I? Answer: A hot-air balloon. A burner heats the air in the bag, the basket hangs below, and the balloon drifts with the wind.
  • I am a house with no kitchen and no beds. / Thousands live in me, standing shoulder to shoulder. / Each one wears a number on its back. / They leave with strangers and come home in three weeks. / My rule is one word, and the word is hush. / A card with your name opens all my doors. / You may take a world away under your arm. / I ask only that you bring it back. What am I? Answer: A library. The thousands are books with numbers on their spines, lent with a card and due back in three weeks.
  • I am a mountain that floats. / I was born when I broke away from a river of ice. / I am made of fresh water and I drift in the salty sea. / What you see of me is only my hat. / Most of me hangs out of sight below the waves. / Ships give me plenty of room. / I travel with no sail and no engine. / Warm water is slowly the end of me. What am I? Answer: An iceberg. An iceberg breaks off a glacier, floats in the sea and keeps most of its ice under water.
  • I am a wheel that goes nowhere. / I stand on my edge, taller than the trees around me. / My seats hang free, so they always sit level. / I lift you slowly, backward, into the sky. / From my top the whole fair is a toy below you. / I stop again and again to let riders on and off. / At night I am a ring of colored lights. / You wait in a long line for one slow turn. What am I? Answer: A Ferris wheel. A giant upright wheel at a fair: hanging seats carry the riders up, over the top and down again in a slow circle.
  • I am very long, and I bend around corners. / I run on two lines that never meet. / I stop only where a platform waits. / Hundreds ride inside me and face the windows. / A whistle announces me before I arrive. / I am pulled or pushed from one end. / Gates come down and cars wait while I pass. / My last piece used to be painted red. What am I? Answer: A train. Two rails that never meet, platforms, a whistle, crossing gates and a caboose at the end.
  • I begin as dust that was once a field of grain. / Water and a pinch of salt wake me up. / Something tiny and alive makes me swell. / Strong hands fold me and push me and fold me again. / I rest under a cloth and grow to twice my size. / A hot box turns my skin to gold. / Tap my underside, and I sound hollow when I am done. / A knife, some butter, and I am breakfast. What am I? Answer: A loaf of bread. Flour, water, salt and yeast are kneaded, left to rise and baked.
  • I have a white wing, and I cannot fly. / The wind is my engine, and it costs nothing. / I lean over when I hurry. / A stick at my back tells me where to go. / A rope is called a line once it is aboard me. / I zigzag to travel against the wind. / A heavy fin under my belly keeps me upright. / When the air is still, I sit and wait. What am I? Answer: A sailboat. The white wing is the sail, the stick is the tiller, the zigzag is tacking and the heavy fin is the keel.
  • I have no shape of my own for long. / The wind is my sheepdog and herds me along. / I am made of water, and I float in the air. / At dawn and at dusk I blush pink and gold. / I can hide the sun in the middle of the day. / When I grow heavy and gray, people look for cover. / I can throw light and noise at the ground. / Lie on your back, and you will find animals in me. What am I? Answer: A cloud. Clouds are water in the air, driven by wind, colored at sunrise and sunset, and the home of rain and lightning.
  • I have one glass eye and I never blink until told. / A click, and I keep what I have seen. / I stop a running child in the middle of a step. / I make no drawing, yet I make a picture. / People in front of me say a word for cheese. / Weddings and birthdays invite me every time. / I bring back faces that are far away now. / Long ago I needed a dark room to finish my work. What am I? Answer: A camera. The glass eye is the lens, the click is the shutter, and film was once developed in a darkroom.
  • I let you cross and never get wet. / I have two feet, one on each shore. / Water hurries under me and I stay. / Trucks rumble over my back all day. / Some of my kind hang from steel ropes. / Some of my kind lift their arms for tall ships. / Rope and plank or stone and arch, I am the same idea. / Burn me behind you, the saying goes, and you cannot go back. What am I? Answer: A bridge. A bridge stands on both banks; some hang from cables, some lift for ships, and to burn your bridges is to leave no way back.
  • I stand on a hill and wave four arms. / I wave at nobody, and I never get tired. / The harder the weather pushes, the faster I work. / On a still day I have the day off. / My arms are wood and cloth, and all they do is go around. / Inside me, heavy stones turn because my arms do. / Grain goes in at my top. / Flour comes out at my feet. What am I? Answer: A windmill. The wind turns the sails, the sails turn the millstones, and the stones grind grain into flour.
  • I stand where the land runs out of road. / I have one eye, and it never closes at night. / I sweep the dark in a slow, bright circle. / I say nothing, yet captains listen to me. / Storms hit me first, and I do not step back. / A keeper once climbed my spiral stairs each evening. / I guard rocks I have never touched. / Ships thank me by staying far away. What am I? Answer: A lighthouse. The one eye is the lamp, the circle is its turning beam, and the best thanks a ship can give is to keep clear of the rocks.
  • I was born when the ground folded and rose. / My head is white when the valley is green. / Rivers begin as trickles on my shoulders. / Trees climb my sides and give up halfway. / Goats find roads on me where you see none. / The air gets thinner the nearer you come to my top. / I look small from far away and endless from below. / People leave a flag on me and go home tired. What am I? Answer: A mountain. A snowy peak, a tree line, thin air and a flag at the summit all belong to a mountain.
  • I wear a striped coat of yellow and brown. / I have six legs and four thin wings. / I visit a thousand flowers and pick none. / I carry yellow dust home on my knees. / My house has rooms with six walls each. / The walls are wax that my sisters made. / I can sting, though I would rather not. / What I store for winter ends up on your toast. What am I? Answer: A honeybee. Six legs, four wings, pollen, a comb of six-sided wax cells and honey.

Story riddles 15

  • A collector was offered the diary of a sea captain. The seller turned the pages for her. "June 28: fair wind, all sails set. June 29: sighted land. June 30: took on fresh water. June 31: sailed at dawn with the tide. July 1: becalmed." The handwriting was old-fashioned, the ink was brown and the paper smelled of salt. The collector closed the diary and said she would not buy it at any price. Which entry told her the diary was a fake? Answer: June 31. June has thirty days. A real captain keeping a daily log would never have written the thirty-first of June.
  • A grandmother's will said that her farm would go to whichever of her two granddaughters owned the pony that reached the old oak last. So the sisters set out and dawdled. For three days they crept along the lane, each waiting for the other to go ahead. On the fourth day a traveler heard their trouble and said just two words. The sisters looked at each other, jumped into the saddles and raced for the oak as fast as the ponies could gallop. What were the two words? Answer: Swap ponies. The farm goes to the owner of the pony that arrives last. Riding her sister's pony, each girl wants that pony to arrive first, so that her own comes in last.
  • A hiker came down to the ranger station at midday, tired and proud. "I started at first light and walked due east all morning, straight into the sunrise," he said, "and the whole way up the ridge I felt the morning sun warm on the back of my neck." The ranger, who was deciding whether to believe the rest of his report about the washed-out trail, put down her pencil. What in his story could not be right? Answer: The sun cannot have been on the back of his neck. He says he walked into the sunrise, which puts the sun in front of him all morning. The same sun cannot have been warming the back of his neck on the same walk.
  • A man brought an old poetry book to a shop and asked a high price. "It has been in my family for a century," he said, "and my great-grandmother pressed a four-leaf clover in it for luck. You will find it still lying between page 57 and page 58, exactly where she put it." The bookseller did not even open the book. "Then your great-grandmother could do something no one else can," she said, and handed it back. What had she noticed? Answer: Nothing can lie between pages 57 and 58. In a book, an odd page and the even page after it are the front and the back of the same sheet of paper. Page 57 and page 58 are one leaf, with no gap between them.
  • A silver spoon vanished from a farmhouse, and five farmhands all denied taking it. The farmer's wife took her old rooster into a dark shed. Before anyone came, she rubbed lamp soot into the feathers on its back. Then she told the five: "This bird crows when a thief strokes its back. Go in one at a time and stroke it." Each went in and came out, and the rooster never made a sound. Then she asked to see their hands. Four palms were black with soot. One was clean. Whom did she accuse, and why? Answer: The one with the clean hand. An honest farmhand had nothing to fear and stroked the bird, picking up soot. The thief was afraid it would crow and only pretended to touch it.
  • A storm cut the power on Elm Street from six in the evening until midnight. In the morning Mrs. Park found that someone had eaten the pie she had left to cool on the porch. She asked her three lodgers where they had been at nine. Ray said he had been asleep. Sue said she had been reading by a candle in the kitchen and had heard nothing. Tom said he had been in his room, watching the late movie on television, and had never left his chair. Whom did Mrs. Park doubt, and why? Answer: Tom. There was no electricity at nine, so no television could have been showing a movie. A candle and sleep need no power.
  • An old innkeeper wanted to leave her inn to the cleverest of her three nieces. She gave each a single copper coin and said: "Buy something that will fill the great hall from wall to wall." The first bought a cartload of hay, and it covered half the floor. The second bought sacks of feathers, and they covered a little more. The third came back at dusk with something small enough to carry in one hand, and a moment later the hall was full to every corner. What had she bought? Answer: A candle. She lit it, and its light filled the whole hall. Light reaches every corner, which hay and feathers could not.
  • At breakfast Ines lent her only watch to her brother Juan, because his had stopped, and he wore it to work. At three that afternoon there was a crash in the hall, and the blue vase lay in pieces. Their mother asked Ines about it when she came in from the garden. "It was not me," Ines said. "I was weeding by the gate. I looked at my watch the moment I heard the crash, and it said three exactly." Her mother sighed and held out the dustpan. What was wrong with Ines's story? Answer: She had no watch to look at. She had lent her only watch to Juan at breakfast, and he had taken it to work. She could not have looked at it in the garden at three.
  • At the dock, three friends compare the fish they caught. Nell says she landed her trout at dawn, in the first gray light. Otis says he hooked his bass at noon, with the sun straight overhead and his shadow tucked under his boots. Pru says she pulled in her pike at noon as well, and that the full moon was so bright on the water that she could count the fish's scales by it. One of the three is making the story up. Who is it, and what gives it away? Answer: Pru. She says it was noon, and in the same breath that bright moonlight lit the water. At noon the sun does the lighting. The other two stories hold together.
  • The family planned a surprise party for Grandpa's seventieth birthday, and nobody said a word to him. On the day, he came home from his walk, hung up his cap and said: "Well, where is everybody hiding?" Nobody had told him. But on his way past the driveway he had glanced into the back seat of his daughter's car, where a white bakery box sat with its window lid up, and through the window, in blue icing, were the words HAPPY 70TH, GRANDPA. How did he know about the party? Answer: He read the cake. The cake in the car carried the message in icing, and he saw it through the window of the box. Nobody had to tell him.
  • The harbor museum took its famous painting of a sunrise down on Monday to be cleaned, and for the rest of the week the wall where it hangs was bare. On Thursday a silver model ship went missing from the next room. The guard asked three visitors what they had been doing. One had been reading the labels on the anchors. One had been sketching the old diving suit. The third said he had stood for an hour in front of the sunrise painting, admiring its colors. Whose account did the guard doubt? Answer: The third visitor's. The painting had been away for cleaning since Monday, so on Thursday there was only a bare wall to stand in front of.
  • It rained all morning. At noon Dad mopped the kitchen floor until it shone, and then went to the garage. At one o'clock he found small muddy prints leading from the back door to the cookie jar and back again. Lou said she had been upstairs since breakfast, and her socks were clean and dry. Mel said he had been upstairs all day too. His rain boots stood by the back door in a brown puddle, and his socks were damp at the toes. Who had visited the cookie jar? Answer: Mel. The prints came in from outside after noon. Mel's boots were wet and muddy by the door and his socks were damp, which does not fit a day spent upstairs. Lou's dry socks fit her story.
  • Ms. Okafor left three students in her room at lunch. Ada was wiping the chalkboard clean, Bo was sorting the bookshelf and Cy was watering the plants. When she came back, the answer key was gone from her desk drawer, and on the dark handle of the drawer was a smudge of white dust. All three said they had not touched the desk. Ms. Okafor looked at the handle, then at the three of them, and asked one student to stay behind. Which one, and how did she choose? Answer: Ada. The white dust on the handle was chalk, and the only one handling chalk dust was the student wiping the board. Books and a watering can leave no white powder.
  • On her tenth birthday Wren got a small wooden box from her great-uncle, with a note. "What is in this box weighs so little that the kitchen scale will not notice it," the note said, "yet it fills the box from corner to corner. You cannot see it, and you cannot pour it out on the table. But push the open box upside down into a full bathtub and tip it, and you will watch what I gave you leave in bubbles." What was in the box? Answer: Air. Air weighs almost nothing, fills any open space, cannot be seen, and rises through water as bubbles.
  • The town of Dustwell had gone forty days without a drop of rain, and a notice on the bakery door asked customers to save water. That afternoon a stranger came in, shook out a dripping umbrella and said: "What a downpour on Main Street just now! I ran all the way here from the fountain." The baker served him politely and then sent her boy to fetch the constable. What made her doubt the stranger? Answer: There had been no downpour. The story says no rain had fallen for forty days. The stranger's umbrella was wet, so he had wetted it some other way, most likely at the fountain he mentioned, and his tale about the rain was invented.

Long logic 15

  • A bag of marshmallows vanished from a campsite, and one of four campers took it. Remy says: "Tess took it." Sol says: "It was not Remy." Tess says: "It was Sol or Uri." Uri says: "Tess is telling the truth." The camp leader knows these four well enough to be certain that exactly two of them are telling the truth tonight. Who took the marshmallows? Answer: Tess. Uri only backs Tess up, so those two are truthful together or not at all. If both were truthful, Sol's line would be true as well, which makes three. So both are fibbing, and it was not Sol or Uri. The two truthful campers are then Remy and Sol: Remy names Tess, and Sol's line agrees.
  • A door code has four digits, all different. The first digit is three times the last digit. The second digit is the first digit minus the last. The third digit is one more than the second. The whole code is an even number. What is the code? Answer: 6452. Try the last digit. With 1, the code would start 3, 2, 3, and a digit repeats. With 2 it is 6, 4, 5, 2. With 3 it is 9, 6, 7, 3, which is odd. A last digit of 4 or more would need a first digit above 9. Only 6452 is left.
  • The first day of a certain month is a Wednesday. A club meets every Tuesday of that month. Kai's birthday falls on the day right after the club's third meeting. What is the date of Kai's birthday, and what day of the week is it? Answer: The 22nd, a Wednesday. If the 1st is a Wednesday, the first Tuesday is the 7th. The meetings fall on the 7th, the 14th and the 21st. The day after the third meeting is the 22nd, a Wednesday.
  • Five books stand in a row on a shelf: an almanac, a cookbook, a dictionary, a novel and a book of poems. The dictionary is exactly in the middle. The cookbook is somewhere to the left of the dictionary. The novel is at one end of the row. The almanac is right next to the novel. The poems are not next to the dictionary. Which book is at the left-hand end? Answer: The book of poems. The poems cannot be second or fourth, beside the dictionary, so they are at an end, and the novel is at the other. If the novel were on the left, the almanac would be second and the cookbook would have no place left of the middle. So the novel is on the right with the almanac beside it, the cookbook is second, and the poems are first.
  • Five lamps stand in a row, numbered 1 to 5 from the left, and all of them are off. Each lamp has a button. Pressing a button changes that lamp and the lamp on each side of it: an off lamp goes on, and an on lamp goes off. You press the button of lamp 2, and then the button of lamp 4. Which lamp is off at the end? Answer: Lamp 3. The first press turns on lamps 1, 2 and 3. The second press changes lamps 3, 4 and 5: lamp 3 goes off again, and lamps 4 and 5 come on. Lamps 1, 2, 4 and 5 are on, and lamp 3 is off.
  • Five runners, Ada, Ben, Cho, Dev and Eve, finish a race with no ties. Ada finishes exactly two places ahead of Ben. Cho finishes right behind Dev. Eve is neither first nor last. Ben is not last. Dev does not win. Who finishes second? Answer: Eve. Ada and Ben are first and third, or second and fourth, since Ben is not last. Second and fourth would leave first, third and fifth, with no two places in a row for Dev and Cho. So Ada is first and Ben third. Dev and Cho need two places in a row: fourth and fifth. Second is left for Eve.
  • Five students, Omar, Pia, Quin, Rosa and Stan, give their book reports one after another on Friday afternoon. Pia speaks right after Omar. Rosa speaks third. Stan speaks some time before Quin, but Stan is not first. Who gives the last report? Answer: Quin. Rosa is third. Omar and Pia need two places in a row: first and second, or fourth and fifth. If they took fourth and fifth, Stan and Quin would have first and second, and Stan, who is not first, would be after Quin. So Omar and Pia are first and second, Stan is fourth and Quin is last.
  • Four neighbors, Avery, Blake, Casey and Devon, share a garden of four plots in a row, one plot each, and each grows one crop: beans, carrots, peas or squash. Avery has the plot at the right-hand end and grows squash. Carrots grow in the second plot from the left. Blake grows peas. Casey's plot is somewhere to the right of Blake's, but it does not touch Avery's. Who grows the beans, and in which plot? Answer: Devon, in the third plot from the left. Avery is fourth. Casey cannot be third, beside Avery, and must have someone to the left, so Casey is second and grows the carrots. Blake is to Casey's left, in the first plot, with the peas. Devon has the third plot, and beans are the only crop left.
  • Four parcels, A, B, C and D, weigh 1, 2, 3 and 4 pounds, each a different weight. On a balance, A and B together weigh exactly the same as C and D together. Parcel A is heavier than parcel C. Parcel B is not the lightest of the four. How much does parcel D weigh? Answer: 4 pounds. The four weights add up to 10, so each pan holds 5: the pairs are 1 with 4 and 2 with 3. If A and B were 1 and 4, B would be 4, since it is not the lightest, and A would be 1, which is not heavier than anything. So A and B are 2 and 3, C and D are 1 and 4, and A can only be heavier than C if C is 1. D is 4.
  • Four teams, the Ants, the Bees, the Crows and the Deer, play a small tournament in which every team meets every other team once, and no game ends in a tie. The Ants win every game they play. The Deer lose every game they play. The Bees beat the Crows. How many games do the Crows win? Answer: One. Each team plays three games. The Crows lose to the Ants, who beat everybody, and to the Bees. Their third game is against the Deer, who lose to everybody. So the Crows win exactly one game.
  • Gus, Hana, Ivo and June each own one pet, a cat, a dog, a fish or a parrot, and each helps at the shelter on a different day from Monday to Thursday. Hana helps on Thursday. Ivo owns the fish and does not help on Monday. June helps earlier in the week than Gus. The parrot's owner helps on Monday. The dog's owner helps on the day just before the cat's owner. Who owns the dog, and on which day does that person help? Answer: Gus, on Wednesday. Monday is not Hana's or Ivo's, and June comes before Gus, so June has Monday and the parrot. The dog and the cat belong to Gus and Hana. The dog's owner helps the day before the cat's owner, and nobody helps after Thursday, so Hana has the cat and Gus has the dog on Wednesday. Ivo is left with Tuesday.
  • On Saturday morning Kai, Lea and Max each did one chore, the dishes, the laundry or the trash, starting at 8, 9 and 10 o'clock, one after another. The laundry was the last chore to be done. Kai worked in the hour right before Lea. Max did not take out the trash. Kai did the dishes. Who took out the trash, and at what time? Answer: Lea, at 9 o'clock. Kai and Lea worked at 8 and 9, or at 9 and 10. If Lea had worked at 10 she would have done the laundry, Max at 8 could not have had the trash, and Kai would have been left with it, but Kai did the dishes. So Kai did the dishes at 8, Lea took out the trash at 9, and Max did the laundry at 10.
  • Three after-school clubs, chess, choir and robotics, meet on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, one club a day. Choir meets earlier in the week than robotics. Chess does not meet on Monday. Robotics is the last meeting of the week. Lin, Mo and Nia each belong to one club, all different. Lin's club meets on Monday, and Mo builds robots. Which club is Nia in, and on which day does it meet? Answer: Chess, on Wednesday. Robotics is on Friday. Chess is not on Monday, so chess is Wednesday and choir is Monday. Lin's Monday club is choir, Mo has robotics, and chess on Wednesday is left for Nia.
  • Three students stand in a line, all facing forward. A teacher takes three hats from a bag that holds three blue hats and two red ones and puts one on each head. The student at the back can see the two hats ahead, the middle student can see one, and the front student can see none. The back student says: "I cannot tell what color mine is." The middle student says: "Neither can I." The front student then names the color of her own hat. What color is it, and how does she know? Answer: Blue. If the back student saw two red hats, hers would have to be blue, and she would know. She does not, so the two in front are not both red. The middle student knows that. If he saw red on the front student, his own would have to be blue, and he would know. He does not, so the front hat is blue.
  • Vera, Will and Xena each bought one thing at a winter fair: a hat, a scarf or a pair of gloves. The three prices were 5, 8 and 12 dollars. Will bought the hat. The scarf cost more than the hat. Vera paid more than whoever bought the gloves. The gloves cost less than the hat. How much did Will pay? Answer: 8 dollars. Vera paid more than the buyer of the gloves, so she did not buy the gloves herself: she bought the scarf, and Xena bought the gloves. The scarf cost more than the hat, and the hat more than the gloves, so the prices run gloves 5, hat 8, scarf 12. Will's hat cost 8 dollars.
How this list was compiled

Written by the Game Night Generator editors on October 3, 2026: 45 long riddles in three sets of 15. A script counted every one: each runs from 40 to 120 words. The riddles in verse are the editors' own, eight lines each with one clue to a line (the lines are set off by slashes). The story riddles are the editors' own tales, each with its evidence inside the text; three of them retell folk puzzles that are far older than anyone's copyright (the hall filled for a copper coin, the pony that must arrive last, the sooty rooster) in new words. Every long logic riddle was solved by computer on the day it was written, by trying every arrangement the riddle allows, and has exactly one answer; its reasoning is printed step by step under the answer. Nothing was copied from a book or a site. The three levels are the editors' judgment. Licence: own work