100 Best Story Riddles to Test Your Logic
Are you confident in your ability to tackle some difficult puzzles like story riddles? Well, then today we are going to take you through plenty of story riddles, so brace yourself up!
A good story is composed of strong dramatic content, an immersive setting, enticing beginnings, and knockout endings. Similarly, good story riddles also consist of the same elements except one string left unattached turning, a story into a riddle.
These brief story riddles are fun to solve for youngsters, teenagers, and adults. An excellent story riddle will test and improve your critical thinking and lateral thinking abilities. It’s a brain problem that may be a pleasant way for youngsters to learn.
Whether you are a doctor, math teacher, business analyst, freelancer, social worker, or artist, our story riddles with answers are a perfect fit for you to test your logic.
Now, onto the brain teasers!
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Table of Contents
Best Story Riddles
Are you looking for the best story riddles that are hard and interesting at the same time? Then we, are glad that you have landed at the right place because this page has brought multiple brain teaser stories that are the newest addition to the puzzles world.
1. Two companions Terry and Garry were talking about their families. Terry told some great stories about his courageous grandfather who fought for Britain in “World War I”. Terry told that his grandfather is so brave that he was awarded a bravery honor medal with words “For our Courageous Soldiers In World War I” embedded into it.Garry Knows that his friend is lying? How?
Answer: “World War I” was named after after “World War II”.
2. Jim and Sarah are in a long-distance relationship. Jim buys an engagement ring for Sarah and wants to mail it to her. Unfortunately, the only way to ensure the ring will be received is to place a lock on the package. Jim has locks and Sarah has locks, but neither has keys for each other’s locks. How can they make sure the ring isn’t stolen?
Answer: The ring is sent through the mail multiple times. First, Jim puts a lock on the package and sends it to Sarah. Then, Sarah places one of her locks on the package and sends it back to Jim. Then, Jim removes his lock and sends the package back to Sarah. Finally, Sarah unlocks the package and gets the ring.
3. Once while in his court, King Akbar asked Birbal to write something on a wall that makes one sad when read in good times and makes one happy when read in sad times. He took only a few moment and wrote something that fit the requirements. What did he write?
Answer: He write: The time will pass soon. If you read this line in happy times, you will be sad because you would want the happy time to last forever. If you read it in sad times, you will feel happy, as you will feel optimistic about the future.
4. Maria and Judith went out for drinks together after work one evening. They ordered the same drink. Judith was very thirsty and much more of a drinker than Maria. She finished five drinks in the time it took Maria to finish only one.
Answer: The poison was in the ice. Since Maria’s ice had time to melt, she was poisoned but Judith wasn’t, although she had a terrible hangover the next morning!
5. 100 men are in a room, each wearing either a white or black hat. Nobody knows the color of his own hat, although everyone can see everyone else’s hat. The men are not allowed to communicate with each other at all (and thus nobody will ever be able to figure out the color of his own hat). The men need to line up against the wall such that all the men with black hats are next to each other, and all the men with white hats are next to each other. How can they do this without communicating? You can assume they came up with a shared strategy before coming into the room.
Answer: The men go to stand agains the wall one at a time. If a man goes to stand against the wall and all of the men already against the wall have the same color hat, then he just goes and stands at either end of the line. However, if a man goes to stand against the wall and there are men with both black and white hats already against the wall, he goes and stands between the two men with different colored hats. This will maintain the state that the line contains men with one colored hats on one side, and men with the other colored hats on the other side, and when the last man goes and stands against the wall, we’ll still have the desired outcome.
6. A boy was at a carnival and went to a booth where a man said to the boy, “if I write your exact weight on this piece of paper, you have to give me $50, but if I cannot, I will pay you $50.” The boy looked around and saw no scale, so he agreed, thinking that no matter what was written, he could say more or less. In the end, the boy ended up paying the man $50. How did the man win the bet?
Answer: The man did exactly as he said he would and wrote ‘your exact weight’ on the paper.
7. An old man lived alone in a small cottage. One certain Thursday morning, while the mailman was delivering a letter he found out that the old man is murdered. He immediately calls the cops. When the cops arrive at the scene. They find two bottles of milk, Monday’s newspaper, a catalog, flyers, and unopened mail. The police find the suspect. Who is the suspect and why?
Answer: They suspect the newspaper boy, as Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s newspapers, were missing.
8. A California farmer owns a beautiful pear tree. He supplies the fruit to a nearby grocery store. The store owner calls the farmer to see how much fruit is available for him to buy. The farmer knows the main trunk has 24 branches. Each branch has exactly 12 boughs and each bough has exactly 6 twigs. Since each twig bears one piece of fruit, how many plums will the farmer be able to deliver?
Answer: None—a pear tree doesn’t grow plums.
9. A man is shown a portrait painting. He looks closely, then yells, “Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man’s father is my father’s son!” Who is the man in the portrait?
Answer: The man’s son.
10. A man is found murdered on a Sunday morning. His wife calls the police, who question the wife and the staff, and are given the following alibis: the wife says she was sleeping, the butler was cleaning the closet, the gardener was picking vegetables, the maid was getting the mail, and the cook was preparing breakfast. Immediately, the police arrest the murderer. Who did it and how did the police know?
Answer: Maid. There is no mail on sundays.
Funny Story Riddles
Story based riddles get ten times more entertaining and riveting if they include a fun element in it. Below are a bunch of funny story riddles that are very humorous but need some staid decoding skills to answer them. Utilize your brainpower and crack these now!
1. Your friend tells you about a story he once tried to impress a young lady with, but instead got a slap in the face. He wants you to attempt to see the flaw: It was a hot and windless day, in our bunker, when suddenly one of ours yelled: “Enemy!” We opened fire on them, leaving one hundred of them dead before they retreated. I was checking a dead captain’s glasses when the shout came that they were incoming again, and the CO ordered us to open up on them with our mortars, when I yelled: “Cease fire! They’re Americans!” Later, an American colonel thanked me for my work after I said that I saw their flag, waving back and forth in the wind. What is wrong with this story?
Answer: At the beginning, it was said that “It was a hot and windless day,” yet at the end, it is said that “The flag was waving back and forth”. Had it been windless, the flag would have been limp.
2. Pete called his wife and said that he would be at home at 8. He came at 8:05. They had no special plans but still, the wife was angry because of his being late. Why did she get so mad?
Answer: Pete should have come at 8 p.m., but he came home at 8:05 a.m. the next day.
3. A girl says this to her best friend: “I was born in 1955, and I celebrated my 17th birthday last weekend.” Her best friend thinks she’s lying, but she’s actually correct. How is that possible?
Answer: She was born in room 1955.
4. A man eats dinner, goes up to his bedroom, turns off the lights, and goes to sleep. In the morning, he wakes up and looks outside. Horrified at what he sees, he hurls himself out his window to his death. Why does he do this?
Answer: The man was a lighthouse operator. He wasn’t supposed to turn off his lights. When he wakes up in the morning, he sees a giant ship that has crashed into the land, causing much catastrophe. Unable to go on, he decides to take his own life.
5. There’s a one-story house where everything is yellow. The walls are yellow. The doors are yellow. Even all the furniture is yellow. The house has yellow beds and yellow couches. What color are the stairs? There aren’t any stairs—it’s a one-story house.
Answer: There aren’t any stairs—it’s a one-story house.
6. There is a man in a 4 story building. He jumps out of the window and is unharmed. He used no padding, and had no harm done. How?
Answer: He jumped out of the ground floor.
7. A doctor and a bus driver are both in love with the same woman, an attractive girl named Sarah. The bus driver had to go on a long bus trip that would last a week. Before he left, he gave Sarah seven apples. Why?
Answer: An apple a day keeps the doctor away!
8. Sherry’s father has five daughters- Sasa, Sese, Sisi, Soso. Guess the name of the fifth daughter.
Answer: If you think it is Susu then you are wrong. It is Sherry.
9. Simon Simpleton was born in London, England. His mother was Welsh and his father Scottish. When Simon was eight his mother died. When Simon was ten his father married an Irish women and suddenly Simon had an Irish sister. When Simon was twenty four he graduated as a lawyer and took a job in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is now sixty six. Why can he not be buried on the banks of Loch Lomond in his favorite village of Luss, in Bonnie Scotland?
Answer: Because he is still alive!
10. Grandpa went for a walk, and it started raining. He forgot to bring an umbrella and didn’t have a hat. When he got home, his clothes were soaking wet, but not a hair on his head was wet. How was this possible?
Answer: Grandpa is bald.
Story Riddles with Answers
Our brains are capable of a lot more bigger things than we can imagine, only if we know how to utilize them properly. So if you are a riddle monster and have practiced various brain teasers, prove yourself a smart cookie by deciphering the given story riddles with answers.
1. There was a building with 100 floors. A short man lived on the very top floor, the 100th floor. On sunny days, he would ride the elevator up to the 70th floor, then climb the stairs up the rest of the way. On rainy days, he would ride the elevator straight to his apartment, the 100th floor. Why?
Answer: He is short, so he can’t reach the 100th floor button. On rainy days, he can use his umbrella to poke the button.
2. Sally lives in a place where six months of the year is mild summer and the temperature drops significantly the other six months. She owns a lake where there is a small island. She wants to build a house on the island and needs to get materials there. She doesn’t have a boat, plane, or anything to transport them to the island. How does Sally solve this problem?
Answer: She waits to take the materials over during the colder months because the lake will freeze over, so she can walk over it.
3. There are two arch enemy Dhuryodhan and Bheem.One day two are going together and a god appeared in from of them. The God grant three wishes to Bheem and one to Dhuryodhan. Dhuryodhan replied smartly ‘Give me twice of whatever Bheem ask for’. For 1st wish Bheem asked the god ‘Give me a room full of money’. Soon Dhuryodhan gets two room full of money. For 2nd wish Bheem asked the god ‘give me 100 slaves’. Soon Dhuryodhan gets 200 slaves. What’s should be Bheem third wish?
Answer: He asks the god to beat him half to death.
4. A couple went on holiday for three weeks. They carefully locked their house, and had a neighbor check on the place while they were gone. When they returned, the wife was distressed to learn that, because of a power failure, she had lost all her fine jewelry. She had hidden the jewelry in what she thought was a very safe place. She was not robbed. Her jewelry was lost by accident. Why?
Answer: The wife had hidden her best jewelry inside her freezer in a bag among all the frozen food. Because of a general power failure, the freezer had gone off. A friendly neighbor (who had a key in order to water the plants) had tried to be helpful by throwing out all the bad food and with it went the jewelry.
5. In classic mythology, there is the story of the Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman. The Sphinx lay crouched on the top of a rock along the highroad to the city of Thebes, and stopped all travellers passing by, proposing to them a riddle. Those who failed to answer the riddle correctly were killed. This is the riddle the Sphinx asked the travellers: “What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs during the day, and three legs in the evening?”
Answer: This is part of the story of Oedipus, who replied to the Sphinx, “Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age with the aid of a staff.” Morning, day and night are representative of the stages of life. The Sphinx was so mortified at the solving of her riddle that she cast herself down from the rock and perished.
6. A woman was found dead at the bottom of a 5-story building. There is a suicide note which says she committed suicide by jumping from a window on one of the floors of the building. When the detective arrived, he went to the first floor, opened the window and tossed a coin towards the floor. He repeats this on all the floors of the building. He comes down and tells the police that the woman was murdered. How does the detective know?
Answer: The windows were all closed. He opened the windows to toss the coin.
7. A man was shot to death while in his car. There were no powder marks on his clothing, which indicated that the gunman was outside the car. However, all the windows were up and the doors locked. After a close inspection was made, the only bullet holes discovered were on the man’s body. How was he murdered?
Answer: It was a convertible car.
8. A girl is at the funeral of her mother. She meets a nice guy that she didn’t know who also was at the funeral and they hit it off. She was busy at the funeral and didn’t have time to ask him for his number before he left. She tried really hard to track him down, but no one knew who he was or how to contact him. A few days later her sister dies and the police suspect it to be a murder. Who killed her sister?
Answer: She killed her sister. She was hoping that if someone else in her family died, the man she met at her mother’s funeral would show up again.
9. A guy came around the corner of a square lot and found a coin sitting on the ground, but did not pick it up. He kept walking and came across a penny, but did not pick it up, yet again. He kept walking and found yet again, a penny. He picked it up. He continued his walk a and discovered there were no more pennies, even when he went backwards, why?
Answer: He was walking around a SQUARE lot! It was like a circle.
10. There was a competition where the contestants had to hold something. At the end of the event, the winner was a person who had no hands or feet. What was it that the contestants had to hold?
Answer: Their breath.
Short Story Riddles
The key to achieving greater scores in puzzles and riddles is by beginning with the easy ones only. Try out these short story riddles with answers, take your time, look for hidden clues but make sure you don’t cheat with the right option written below.
1. An owl son and an owl father were flying and they got hit by a car. The son and the father went to the owls padil. They went into different rooms. The doctor said “I can’t work on this boy owl, he’s my son.”Who was the owl doctor?
Answer: The owl’s mom.
2. You walk into an old horror house. It has no power or plumbing. Once inside, you see three doors. Each door has a number on it. Behind each door is a way for you to die. Behind door number one, you die by getting eaten by a lion. Behind door number two, you die by getting murdered. Behind door number three, you die by electric chair. You can’t turn back, so you have to go through a door. Which door do you go through?
Answer: Door number three—the house has no power, which means it doesn’t have electricity. Therefore, the electric chair won’t work.
3. Stan met a stranger whom he’d never seen before. Stan just heard about him and no descriptions of his appearance were ever mentioned. He wasn’t famous. Nevertheless, Stan understood immediately who the guy was. How was this possible?
Answer: He was a twin brother of one of Stan’s friends.
4. Jim and Tom decided to play tennis against each other. They bet $1 on each game they played. Jim won three bets and Tom won $5. How many games did they play?
Answer: Eleven games.
5. A merchant can place 8 large boxes or 10 small boxes into a carton for shipping. In one shipment, he sent a total of 96 boxes. If there are more large boxes than small boxes, how many cartons did he ship?
Answer: 11 cartons total.
6. Melanie lived with her siblings in a small town. One afternoon, Melanie was found dead in the living room. When the police questioned her siblings, they both were in the pool from the morning and hadn’t killed her. But the police arrested Melanie’s siblings for her murder. Why?
Answer: The police checked their hands and found that their hands weren’t wrinkled. If they had been in the pool for a long time their hands would have been wrinkled.
7. A man was shot in his car. There are no gunpowder residues on his clothing, no bullet holes in the windows of the car, and the doors and windows are all locked. How was he shot?
Answer: The car was a convertible – the murderer popped the top and then popped it back on again.
8. A man is marooned on a desert island. One day, the wind starts blowing from the west, and lightning causes a fire to start in the forest. Cliffs surround the island, so the man can’t escape. What does he do?
Answer: He starts a fire in the east of the island and shelters there once it has burnt out.
9. A famous chemist was found murdered. The police knew that two people were involved in the murder. They found a note that written by the chemist which read – ‘26-3-58/28-27-57-16’. After reading the note the police immediately caught the murderers. How?
Answer: The numbers correspond to atomic numbers on the periodic table of elements: ‘Fe-Li-Ce/Ni-Co-La-S’. Therefore, the name of the suspects was Felice and Nicolas.
10. There once were seven dwarfs who were all brothers. They were all born two years apart. The youngest dwarf is seven years old. How old is his oldest brother?
Answer: 19 years old—if you thought the oldest was 21, you likely didn’t count the seven-year-old dwarf as one of the seven brothers.
Long Story Riddles
When it comes to brain teasers, enigmas, and puzzles, long story riddles with answers can really tick you off because of a lot of drama and loopholes. But with these long riddles, you can never go wrong as they are super interesting and will keep you engaged for a longer period without making you feel bored or tired.
1. Before dying, a father left a will to his two sons telling of a gold-panning stream that had supported his father’s family long and hard. The will said that the two sons could make one, only one trip to the stream to pan for gold, but for as long as they wanted, and that whoever carried the gold back got it. On their way to the stream, the two sons lost a big fraction of their supplies, reducing their stay to two months. All they had now were some food, a mule, and panning supplies. During their stay, they managed to pan and smelt a gold bar 5 inches in diameter and 5 inches in height. Back in their hometown, the two sons disputed long and hard in court over who should get the gold bar. Now, the judge was a wise one. Who did he say got the gold bar?
Answer: The mule. A gold bar 5 inches in diameter and 5 inches in height would have weighed far too much for either of the sons to carry, only the mule could have.
2. A Japanese ship was leaving the port and on its way to open sea. The captain went to go oil some parts of the ship and took his ring off so it wouldn’t get damaged. He left it on the table next to his bunk. When he returned, it was missing. He had suspected three crew members could be guilty and asked them what they had been doing for the ten minutes that he had been gone. The cook said, “I was in the kitchen preparing tonight’s dinner.” The engineer said, “I was working in the engine room making sure everything was running smoothly.” The seaman said, “I was on the mast correcting the flag because someone had attached it upside down by mistake.” The captain immediately knew who it was. How?
Answer: It was clearly the seaman. It was a Japanese ship and a Japanese flag is white with a single red dot in the middle. It can’t be hung upside down.
3. John was alone at home and heard that something had fallen in his wife’s room. He entered and saw that her favorite statuette was broken. At that moment someone ran out of the room. John tried to catch up with the stranger. But in the street the lenses on his eyeglasses fogged up because of cold weather. He could see nothing, giving the stranger the opportunity to disappear. John told this story to a policeman but he refused to investigate the case. The cop asked him to stop lying and admit that it was he who had broken the statuette. Was John’s story actually fake?
Answer: Yes, it was. John ran out into the street while chasing a stranger. But eyeglass lenses don’t fog up when a person comes out of a warm room and into the cold. He was just afraid to confess to his wife that he had broken her favorite statuette.
4. A king wants his daughter to marry the smartest of three extremely intelligent young princes, and so the king’s wise men devise an intelligence test. The princes are gathered into a room and seated, facing one another. They are shown two black hats and three white hats. They are blindfolded, and one hat is placed on each of their heads. The remaining hats hidden in a different room. The king tells the three princes that the first prince to deduce the color of his hat without removing it or looking at it will marry his daughter. A wrong guess will mean death. The blindfolds are removed. You are one of the princes. You see two white hats on the other prince’s heads. After some time, you realize that the other princes are confused about the color of their hat, or are afraid to guess. After some thought, you tell the king the color of your hat. What is it?
Answer: You guess your hat is white and are correct. The king would not select two white hats and one black hat. This would mean two princes would see one black hat and one white hat. You would be at a disadvantage if you were the only prince wearing a black hat. If you were wearing the black hat, it would not take long for one of the other princes to deduce he was wearing a white hat. If an intelligent prince saw a white hat and a black hat, he would eventually realize that the king would never select two black hats and one white hat. Any prince seeing two black hats would instantly know he was wearing a white hat. If a prince can see one black hat, he can work out he is wearing white. Therefore, the only fair test is for all three princes to be wearing white hats.
5. A fancy restaurant in New York was offering a promotional deal. A married couple could eat at the restaurant for half-price on their anniversary. To prevent scams, the couple would need proof of their wedding date. One Thursday evening, a couple claimed it was their anniversary, but didn’t bring any proof. The restaurant manager was called to speak with the couple. When the manager asked to hear about the wedding day, the wife replied with the following: “Oh, it was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, birds were chirping, and flowers were in full bloom.” After nearly 10 minutes of ranting, she comes to tell him that today was their 28th wedding anniversary.”How lovely”, the manager said, “However, you do not qualify for the discount. Today is not your anniversary, you are a liar”. How did the manager know that it wasn’t their anniversary?
Answer: The calendar repeats itself every 28 years. So, if they were married on a Sunday 28 years ago, the day they were at the restaurant would also have to be a Sunday. Since it was a Thursday, the manager knew they were lying, and abruptly kicked them out of his restaurant.
6. King Nupe of the kingdom Catan dotes on his two daughters so much that he decides the kingdom would be better off with more girls than boys, and he makes the following decree: All child-bearing couples must continue to bear children until they have a daughter! But to avoid overpopulation, he makes an additional decree: All child-bearing couples will stop having children once they have a daughter! His subjects immediately begin following his orders. After many years, what’s the expected ratio of girls to boys in Catan?
Answer: Don’t overthink this. Each baby born is as equally likely to be a boy as a girl. Therefore, the ratio of girls to boys must be 1:1. It’s as simple as that—honestly. You might be tempted to solve this problem in a more complicated way. Suppose there are N child-bearing couples. Half of them will have only 1 child: a girl. Half of the other half (or N/4) of them will have two children: one boy and one girl. Half of the remaining quarter (or N/8) will have three children: two boys and one girl. And so on…
7. A farmer went to a market and bought a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage. On his way home, the farmer came to the bank of a river and rented a boat. But crossing the river by boat, the farmer could carry only himself and a single one of his purchases: the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage. If left unattended together, the wolf would eat the goat, or the goat would eat the cabbage. The farmer’s challenge was to carry himself and his purchases to the far bank of the river, leaving each purchase intact. How did he do it?
Answer: The farmer takes seven trips over—here are his steps: Take the goat over. Return.Take the wolf or cabbage over. Return with the goat. Take the cabbage or wolf over. Return. Take goat over.
8. 4 friends were walking home when they decided to take a shortcut through the woods. It begins to rain and they cannot find their way out of the woods since it becomes dark out. So they find a cabin and decide to stay in it till Morning. The cabin has no lights and no windows so it is pitch black. Scared, the 4 friends huddle together in the middle and decide to do the whole: 1 person stays awake to keep watch while everyone sleeps and they’d switch off every hour. But this plan didn’t work as everyone was too scared to sleep. So they decided to play a game until sunrise. Each of the friends went into one of the four corners of cabin and played a game. one person would run out of their corner along the side of the cabin and tag the next person on their back and take their place. That person would then do the same as the last person and they would keep going at this till morning. They kept playing the game over and over till one of the friends realized something wrong and screamed. What did that person realize?
Answer: As soon as the 3rd person was tagged they’d run to a corner where no one is standing since person 1 is at corner 2, person 2 is corner 3 person 3 is corner 4. Since they can’t find a person there they screamed.
9. A man was found dead in his study. He was slumped over his desk and a gun was in his hand. There was a cassette recorder on his desk. When the police entered the room and pressed the play button on the tape recorder they heard: “I can’t go on. I have nothing to live for.” Then there was the sound of a gunshot. How did the detective immediately know that the man had been murdered and it wasn’t a suicide?
Answer: The suicide tape was rewound by themurderer.
10. The great emperor Akbar once ruled India. He was well known for his intelligence. But along with that, he was known for the Nine Gems in his court. One of the nine gems was Birbal, a quick witted and extremely intelligent man. The stories of his wit were widely popular. Once a king ruling in a distant land heard of Birbal. To check his wit, he sent an invitation and called him to visit his land. Akbar allowed Birbal to go and he took off on the journey. Upon reaching that kings kingdom, he was welcomed with flowers. He was then escorted to the palace of the king. Upon entering the palace, Birbal found that there were six people sitting in front of him adorning the same robe. They were also lookalike and it was hard to judge who the real king was. After a couple of minutes, Birbal approached one of them and bowed in front of him greeting him. That was the real king. How did Birbal know who was the real king?
Answer: When the king asked Birbal, he replied, “Your Majesty, all the other people were looking at you closely to imitate you adequately. While, you were calmly sitting with your composed demeanor. This is because you did not need to look for any support however the commoners always look for their kings support.” This impressed the King a lot. He was showered with gifts and jewels. When Birbal returned back to his kingdom, he made Akbar proud.
Hard Story Riddles
If you really want to put your talents to the test, we’ve included the world’s toughest long riddle, so if you think you’re a master of long riddles and hard story riddles, attempt to solve this one to earn the title of riddle-master.
1. There is a story that a man and not a man saw and did not see a bird and not a bird perched on a branch and not a branch and hit him and did not hit him with a rock and not a rock. How is this possible?
Answer: A eunuch who did not see well saw a bat perched on a reed and threw a pumice stone at him which missed.
2. There is a basket full of hats. Three are white and two are black. Three men, Tom, Tim, and Jim, each take a hat out of the basket and put it on their heads without seeing the hat they selected or the hats the other men selected. The men arrange themselves so Tom can see Tim and Jim’s hats, Tim can see Jim’s hat, and Jim can’t see anyone’s hat. Tom is asked what color his hat is and he says he doesn’t know. Tim is asked the same question, and he also doesn’t know. Finally, Jim is asked the question, and he does know. What color is his hat?
Answer: The hat is white. If Tom doesn’t know his hat color then the other two men’s hats cannot be both black otherwise he would know his hat is white. When Tim doesn’t know his hat color either, that means Jim’s hat could not be black otherwise Tim would have to know his hat was white based on Tom’s answer.
3. Andy is put in a cell with a dirt floor and only one window. The window is too high for him to reach. The only thing in the cell is a shovel. He won’t be able to get any food or water and only has two days to escape or he’ll die. Andy can’t dig a tunnel because it will take him much longer than two days to do it. How will Andy escape from the cell?
Answer: Andy has to use the shovel to create a pile of dirt under the window so he can climb up onto it and escape from the cell.
4. According to an old story, once there was a father and his three loving sons. One day dad met a serious accident, death approached to take the father. Oldest son beg to the death to allow his father to live for some more years. Death was kind and agreed. After 2 years death return to take the father with him, now the second son beg for some more time. Death agreed. After a year death returned again to take the father. Now the youngest son request to allow his father to live till the candle wick of the candle on his hand burned out. Death agreed. Now as the youngest son thought, the death never returned back. How come?
Answer: The youngest son went over and blew out the candle after Death left because the son said ’till the candle wick burns out’, not ’till the candle burns out’.
5. One day a really rich old man with two sons died. In his will he said that he would give one of his sons all of his fortune. He gave each of his sons a horse and said they would compete in a horse race from Los Angeles to Sacramento, but the son whose horse came in second would get the money. So one day they started the race. After one whole day they had only ridden one mile. At night they decided they should stop at a hotel. While they were booking in they told their problem to the wise old clerk, who made a suggestion. The next day the two brothers rode as fast as they could. What did the clerk suggest that they do?
Answer: The clerk told them to swap horses. The father said that whoever’s horse crossed the finish line second would get the money. He didn’t say that the owner of the horse had to be on it.
6. Jesse’s two grandmothers want to see him every weekend, but they live on opposite sides of town. As a compromise, he tells them that every Sunday, he’ll head to the subway station nearest to his apartment at a random time of the day and will hop on the next train that arrives. If it happens to be the train traveling north, he’ll visit his Grandma Erica uptown, and if it happens to be the train traveling south, he’ll visit his Grandma Cara downtown. Both of his grandmothers are okay with this plan, since they know both the northbound and southbound trains run every 20 minutes. But after a few months of doing this, Grandma Cara complains that she sees him only one out of five Sundays. Jesse promises he’s indeed heading to the station at a random time each day. How can this be?
Answer: Although both trains come exactly every 20 minutes, the timing still matters: Suppose the northbound train comes on the hour, on the 20, and on the 40, so at 9:00, 9:20, 9:40, 10:00, etc., but the southbound train comes on the 4, 24, and 44, so 9:04, 9:24, 9:44, 10:04, etc. This means in any hour, there will be only 12 minutes in which the southbound train will be the next train to arrive. That is, if Jesse arrives between 9:00-9:04, between 9:20-9:24, or between 9:40-9:44, he’ll get on the southbound train. Otherwise, he’ll get on the northbound train. Since Jesse arrives at a random point every day (or equivalently at a random point in each hour), his chance of getting on the southbound train will be 12 out of 60, or one-fifth. And so that’s the answer: Both the northbound and the southbound trains arrive at the station every 20 minutes, but the southbound train always arrives 4 minutes after the northbound train. Grandma Cara may be lucky, though. If the southbound train was scheduled to arrive only 1 minute after the northbound train, Jesse would only visit two to three times per year!
7. Mrs. Jones was very proud of her apple tree. One autumn, after harvesting her apples, she called her 3 sons together. “Here are 150 apples,” she said. I want you to take them to the market tomorrow and sell them for me. She gave Paul 15 apples, Nick 50, and Ben 85. “Your job,” added Mrs. Jones, “is to sell the apples in such a way that each of you brings home the same amount of money.” How do they do it?
Answer: The first buyer purchases 12 dozen apples at $1 per dozen. Paul sells him one dozen and has three apples left; Nick sells him four-dozen and has two apples left, and Ben sells him seven-dozen and has one apple left. Then, a second buyer comes along and buys all their remaining apples for $3 a piece. The 3 brothers head home with $10 each.
8. Marta visits her friend Elisa but finds her dead in her house. The police question Marta as to why she thinks Elisa is dead, and how she found out, and she says that she knocked on the door and the window, and when she saw a light on, she breathed on the iced glass to see in. The police arrest Marta for murder. Why?
Answer: Both sides of the glass would have been frozen, so she wouldn’t have been able to see in at all.
9. Portia’s father devises a riddle that her suitors must solve in order to win her hand in marriage. He arranges three caskets, a golden, a silver, and a leaden, asking them to choose the casket of their liking. The golden casket reads, “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.” The silver: “who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” The leaden: “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”
Answer: The golden casket contains a skull, and a note warning against judging a book by its cover, and the silver casket represents chasing elusive goals. But the leaden casket contains a note that reads, “You that choose not by the view, chance as fair and choose as true.”
10. You are a junior detective investigating a case. Boys at an apartment complain that every day, they have an egg spinning competition with only raw eggs, and every day one particular boy wins. The boys want you to find out how. You are observing the boy spinning an egg when suddenly it drops to the floor. The apartment clerk casually hands him a broom to clean it up, as if it happens every day. You now know why the boy always wins the daily competition. How?
Answer: The clerk handed the boy a broom, so the egg the boy was spinning must have been hard-boiled. If the egg was raw, the clerk would have handed the boy a mop.
Detective Story Riddles
Everyone has that inherited innate curiosity that gets activatedwhenever we listen to a murder mystery. Get your hands on these detective riddles now if you want to test your detective skills and put your mind to the test.
1. A man is found dead one Saturday morning. He was killed while his wife was sleeping. The wife tells the police all that she knows. She tells them that the cook was cooking breakfast, the maid was cleaning and the butler was getting the mail. The police immediately arrest the person who is responsible. Who is responsible and why?
Answer: The wife is responsible. The reason is simple – she was supposed to be sleeping but she knew all that had happened!
2. A woman named Maria was at the funeral of her mother. She met a nice young man that she had never seen before and after the service, they spent a bit of time together. Then she got busy and didn’t get his name or phone number before he left. She tried to find him, but no one knew who he was or how to contact him. A few weeks later, Maria’s older sister dies and the police suspect murder. Who killed the sister?
Answer: Maria—she hoped the man would show up at her sister’s funeral just as he had for her mother’s funeral.
3. A dead female body lies at the bottom of a multistory building. It looks as though she committed suicide by jumping from one of the floors. When the detective arrives, he goes to the first floor of the building, opens the closed window, and flips a coin towards the floor. He goes to the second floor and does the exact same thing. He continues to do this until he gets to the top floor of the building. When he comes back down, he states that it was a murder and not a suicide. How does he know that?
Answer: She couldn’t have jumped from any of the floors because when the detective went to each floor, all of the windows were closed.
4. 4 friends regularly visited the sauna together. They always brought something with them. Jack, a musician, took an iPod with him to listen to music. Steve, a banker, took a thermos to drink out of. Patrick and Michael were lawyers and took documents to read. One day, Patrick was found dead. He was killed by a sharp object. Policemen came immediately and conducted an investigation. They found nothing. How could this have happened?
Answer: Patrick was killed by Steve who brought an ice shard in his thermos. The murder weapon had melted away by the time the cops arrived.
5. A homicide team enters a crime scene where a dead body of a fat old man lies there on the floor with blood oozing out of his head. The victim is holding a gun and a tape recorder lies there by his side. One of the detective picks up the recorder and plays it “I am tired of this life and hence I have decided to relieve myself from the worldly pains”. A gunshot follows the message. The teams start investigating a murder investigation. Why?
Answer: If the man killed himself, he would not have been able to rewind the cassette. Thus it is clear someone else killed him.
6. A woman is sitting in her hotel room and hears a knock at the door. She opens the door to see a man whom she’s never met before. He says, “I’m sorry, I have made a mistake, I thought this was my room.” He then goes down the corridor and into the elevator. The woman goes back into her room and calls security. What made the woman so suspicious of the man?
Answer: If he really thought it was his hotel room, he would have tried to open the door – not knock on it first.
7. Bianca called the police to report that her vintage ring was stolen. When the police reached the crime scene, they found that the window was broken. It was a total mess inside the house and there were dirty footprints on the carpet. But there were no other signs of a break-in. The police arrested Bianca for fraud, why?
Answer: The police found the shattered glass from the broken window outside Bianca’s house. This meant that the glass was broken from the inside, so Bianca had most likely staged the break-in.
8. 2 pills, one which was safe and one which was poisoned, were given to a group of people to take with some water. All of them died. How did they die?
Answer: The water was poisoned.
9. A serial killer invited a prospective victim to her place. They ate together and after the meal. She offered her an apple. When she refused, she insisted that they share the apple. So, she took the apple and cut into two halves. Both of them started eating the apple. As soon as her guest ate the apple she died. If both of them had the same apple, how come one died and one survived?
Answer: She used a knife coated with just on one edge with cyanide poison. When she sliced the apple in two, only the victim’s half was poisoned.
10. A woman calls up the police to say that her grandmother’s ring had been stolen. When they visit her house, they see broken glass on the lawn and dirty footprints. They arrest the woman. Why?
Answer: If someone had broken into the house, they would have left broken glass inside the house – the window was broken from the inside.
Good Story Riddles
Story riddles use a story to lead listeners or readers to the solution to a problem using limited data. Here are a few good story riddles for you to solve and fritter away time in the best possible way. Take a look!
1. A wealthy family lived in a big circular house. They had a maid, a butler, and a gardener. The parents were going to a party, so they tucked the younger kids into bed and kissed them goodnight and said goodbye, and kissed the older kids goodnight. When the parents came home, all the kids were gone—they had been kidnapped. The authorities ask the butler, maid, and gardener what they were doing at the time of the kidnapping. The butler says he was organizing the library, the maid says she was dusting the corners, and the gardener says he was watering the plants. Who’s lying and actually kidnapped the kids?
Answer: The maid-she said she was dusting the corners, but the family lives in a circular house, so there are no corners.
2. The captain of a ship told an interesting story. “I have traveled the oceans far and wide. One time, two of my sailors were standing on opposite sides of the ship. One was looking west and the other one east. And at the same time, they could see each other clearly.” Can you tell me how that was possible?
Answer: The sailors were standing back against the sides of the ship so they were looking at each other.
3. Jack and Joe were on vacation and driving along a deserted country road from the town of Kaysville to the town of Lynnsville. They came to a multiple fork in the road. The sign post had been knocked down and they were faced with choosing one of five different directions. Since they had left their map at the last gas station and there was no one around to ask, how could Jack and Joe find their way to Lynnsville?
Answer: They need to stand the signpost up so that the arm reading Kaysville points in the direction of Kaysville, the town they had just come from. With one arm pointing the correct way, the other arms will also point in the right directions.
4. An old man dies, leaving behind two sons. In his will, he orders his sons to race with their horses, and the one with the slower horse will receive his inheritance. The two sons race, but since they’re both holding their horses back, they go to a wise man and ask him what they should do. The brothers race again, this time at full speed. What did the wise man tell them?
Answer: To switch horses.
5. A man crossed the border every day on a motorbike with two bags of sand. The police suspected that he was smuggling illegal goods into the country. However, the detective couldn’t find anything when he checked the bags. Yet, the man was arrested. Why?
Answer: The man was smuggling stolen motorbikes every day.
6. An adventurer finds a chest of treasure guarded by a pirate who offers him a red key, a blue key, and a gold key. Only one of them can open the treasure chest, and he only has one chance to choose the right key. Behind the pirate, he sees a ciper reading ‘TGK HOE ELY DEN.’ Which key does he choose?
Answer: The gold key – rearrange the letters in the cipher, and it says ‘the golden key’.
7. There is a small town on the East Coast that has 2 barbershops each with a single barber, and on opposite sides of town. The barbershop in the good part of town is immaculate. The floors and windows are washed and the air is fresh. The barber is very friendly, always smiling, he has shined shoes, a nice head of hair, and a clean dress shirt. The barbershop in the bad part of town is a mess. The entire barbershop is covered with a layer of dirt, and the air smells of trash. The barber always has a frown on his face. His skin is oily, his hair is ragged, and there are always stains visible on his shirt. A man comes into town and hears of both barbershops and the man decides to go to the dirty barbershop in the bad part of town. Why does he do this?
Answer: The clean-cut barber must have his hair cut by the dirty barber and the dirty barber by the clean-cut barber. So its obvious that the dirty barber gives a better haircut.
8. You stand in front of two doors. A guard stands next to each door. You know the following things: one path leads to paradise, the other leads to death. You cannot distinguish between the two doors. You also know that one of the two guards always tells the truth and the other always lies. You have permission to ask one guard one question to discover which door leads to paradise. What one question would you ask to guarantee you enter the door to paradise?
Answer: Ask, “Which door would the other guard say leads to paradise?”
9. The owner of a popular clothing store comes up with his own method of pricing items. A vest costs $8, socks cost $10, a tie costs $6, and a blouse costs $12. Using the owner’s method, how much would a pair of underwear cost?
Answer: $18—the method is charging $2 for each letter needed to spell out the clothing item.
10. Dee Septor, the famous magician, claimed to be able to throw a ping-pong ball so that it would go a short distance, come to a complete stop, and then reverse itself. He also added that he would not bounce the ball off any object, or tie anything to it. How could he perform this trick?
Answer: He would throw the ball straight up into the air.
Story Riddles for Adults
Riddles are entertaining as well as practical for individuals of all ages. They can assist with everything from improving a child’s vocabulary to preventing dementia in the elderly. Therefore, if you are a grown-up, don’t shy away from given story riddles for adults to keep your mind healthy and functional.
1. A man is found unconscious in front of a store at two in the morning. His head is bleeding and there’s a brick laying next to him. When the police arrive, they carry the man to jail. Why did they arrest him?
Answer: The man was trying to rob the store. He threw a brick at the store’s bullet-proof window and it bounced back and hit him.
2. A serial killer kidnapped five different people and sat them down each with two pills in their hand and a glass of water. He told them each to take one pill but warned them that one was poisonous and the other was harmless. Whichever pill the victim didn’t take, the serial killer would take. Every victim somehow chose the poisonous pill and died. How did the serial killer get them all to take the poisonous pill?
Answer: Neither of the pills was poisonous. The poison was in the water that all the victims used to swallow their pill.
3. Two world’s famous prisoners ‘Colditz’ and ‘Pascal’ are locked in a cell. They plan to escape from the cell. They noticed there is an open window at 40 feet above the ground level. Both of them tried very hard but are never able to reach there. Then both of them decided to plan to escape by a tunnel and they start digging out. After digging for just 5 days, Colditz and Pascal comes out with the much easier plan than tunneling and they escaped. What was the plan?
Answer: They use the bricks and dirt from the tunnel to stand on it.
4. Once upon a time, in the West Lake village, a servant lived with his master. After service of about 30 years, his master became ill and was going to die. One day, the master called his servant and asked him for a wish. It could be any wish but just one. The master gave him one day to think about it. The servant became very happy and went to his mother for discussion about the wish. His mother was blind and she asked her son for making a wish for her eye-sight to come back. Then the servant went to his wife. She became very excited and asked for a son as they were childless for many years. After that, the servant went to his father who wanted to be rich and so he asked his son to wish for a lot of money. The next day he went to his master and made one wish through which all the three (mother, father, wife) got what they wanted. You have to tell what the servant asked the master.
Answer: The servant said, “My mother wants to see her grandson swinging on a swing of gold.”
5. A drunk man comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man. He goes and grabs his gun out of the closet! What was opened first?
Answer: A bottle.
6. A German spy was in Canada trying to steal insider information on how to set up new Maple Syrup factories in Germany. He was being introduced to the operations manager of the biggest factory in Canada. However the manager was suspicious and decided to test him with a question before he trusted him. So he asked, what would you be sure to find in the middle of Toronto? The spy thought fast and came up with an answer for the manager. What did he say?
Answer: An “o” of course. (as in toronto).
7. Andrew’s doctor gives him three pills and tells him to take one every half hour. How much time will have passed by the time Andrew’s taken all three pills?
Answer: One hour. Andrew will take one right away, then take one a half-hour later, then take the final one a half-hour after that.
8. Adam and his wife were living in a rural place. On a certain day, Adam wife fell ill and he called the local doctor. When the doctor picked up, he said, “Doctor, my wife is ill. She might have appendicitis.” “This can’t be possible! I took out her appendix two years ago myself,” the doctor explained. When diagnosed, Adam wife was found to have appendicitis. How can this be possible?
Answer: This is possible because Adam had remarried.
9. A window cleaner is cleaning a window on the 25th floor of a skyscraper when, suddenly, he slips and falls. He has no safety equipment and nothing to soften his fall, and yet he is not hurt. How can this be?
Answer: He was inside cleaning windows.
10. A man has to get a fox, a chicken, and a sack of corn across a river. He has a rowboat, and it can only carry him and one other thing. If the fox and the chicken are left to gether, the fox will eat the chicken. If the chicken and the corn are left to gether, the chicken will eat the corn. How does he do it?
Answer: Man carries chicken to the other side, man carries fox to the other side and returns with chicken, man leaves the chicken on the original side and car ries the corn to the other side, man carries the chicken to the other side.
Story Riddles for Kids
It’s no secret that laughing and being happy is good for the soul, and these tough riddleswill entertain and educate children as they attempt to solve them. We’ve hand-picked some of the greatest extra-long story riddles for kids and, dare we say, a little bit perplexing for the ultimate brain workout that will keep kids occupied for hours.
1. I am beautiful, up in the sky. I am magical, yet I cannot fly. To people I bring luck, and to some people, riches. The boy at my end does whatever he wishes. What am I?
Answer: A rainbow.
2. Trying to tease Birbal, Akbar gave him one gold coin and ask him to buy something for him to eat, something for him to drink, something to feed the cows, something to plant in the garden and most important you need to buy only one thing. What must birbal buy to silence Akbar?
Answer: Watermelon – Something for him to eat – watermelon, something for him to drink – juice of watermelon, something to feed the cows – Watermelon rinds, something to plant in the garden – the seeds of watermelon.
3. A pet shop owner had a parrot with a sign on its cage that said Parrot repeats everything it hears. Davey bought the parrot and for two weeks he spoke to it and it didn’t say a word. He returned the parrot but the shopkeeper said he never lied about the parrot. How can this be?
Answer: The parrot was deaf.
4. A famous killer told the police that he plans to kill someone in the one place you can’t see the Eiffel Tower from in Paris. How did the police catch the killer?
Answer: The police caught him inside the Eiffel Tower.
5. On the first day of school, the history teacher is found dead in his classroom. There were four suspects, but they all had alibis – the gardener said he was mowing the lawn, the soccer coach said she was doing practice drills with the first years, the math teacher said she was holding mid-year tests, and the principal said she was meeting with two parents. Immediately the math teacher is arrested. Why?
Answer: It was the first day of school – so there couldn’t have been any mid-year tests.
6. Sam and Angela were on a camping trip. When making dinner, they discovered that neither of them had brought a clock or a watch. Dinner required cooking for 45 minutes. All Sam could dig up was a couple of mosquito coils that would each burn for one hour. They didn’t have any method to measure the coils in any way. Angela figured out a way to measure 45 minutes using the two coils (and fight off mosquitoes at the same time). How did she accomplish this task?
Answer: Angela first lit one mosquito coil at both ends and then lit the other on only one side. The coil which had been lit on both ends finished burning in one-half hour. At that point the second mosquito coil had one-half hour left to burn. Angela lit the second coil at the other end, and it finished burning fifteen minutes later. (45 minutes total).
7. You walk into a room and see a bed. On the bed, there are two dogs, five cats, a giraffe, six cows, and a goose. There are also three doves flying above the bed. How many legs are on the floor?
Answer: Six—the bed’s four legs, plus your two legs.
8. If you paint a brown house white it will become a white house. If the stoplight changes from red to green, then the light is green. So, if you throw a white shirt into the Red Sea, what will it become?
Answer: Wet—the shirt won’t change color because the Red Sea isn’t actually red.
9. A thief enters a store and threatens the clerk, forcing her to open the safe. The clerk says, “The code for the safe is different every day, and if you hurt me you’ll never get the code.” But the thief manages to guess the code on his own. How did he do it?
Answer: The clerk already told him the code—she said it’s “different” every day.
10. A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose between three rooms. The first is full of raging fires; the second, assassins with loaded guns; and the third, lions who haven’t eaten in years. Which room is the safest?
Answer: The poor lions died of starvation.
Final Thoughts on Story Riddles
Story riddles are brain boosters that push our minds to think in new ways beyond the horizon. It not only distinguishes us from the herd but also challenges us to acquire a different approach.
Therefore, if you want to become an expert at solving puzzles, you must have the following skills; to think differently andalways attempt to obtain deeper knowledge, even if it’s just a tiny bit.
Nobody can be perfect at solving story riddles with answers, but if you attempt with patience, you can get quite close. The more you practice, the better and quicker you will get the hang of it.
So, now that you have been through a bunch of story riddles and answers, it’s time to sit one-on-one with your friends and figure them out. Also, do mention in the comment which riddle out of all story riddles took you the longest to solve. Enjoy!
