a riddle to be solved
I received the following e-mail from Nathan (he asked that I not use his last name), asking me to help solve a riddle he came across.
solving the riddle of life,
takes more than a man and his wide
look towards the east
there, you will find the beast
if a child can give birth to a child
can man give birth to mankind?
solutions are found far underground
on walls yet to be uncovered
where water flowed
there is now sand
you dont have to go
it can come to you
its not what
but its where . . .
I tried to figure it out, but didn’t have much luck. I thought it might have to do with coal mines or oil digs off the top of my head, but I e-mailed back because I was curious how he came across the riddle and why it could be important.
He replied.
important to alot of people , just my work entails i search for evidence of
anything paranormal , and the riddle that i sent to you , was translated
from something we had found , the other department i work with are a tv
programme who do the more entertainment side of things , while i and seven
others do the actual real work of tracking things down and doing all the
translating and evidence finding.
We found the object four days ago and are waiting on the results of ageing
tests etc , but we had under a certain light been able to copy down and take
pictures of “words” that were later translated into what the riddle says.
Riddle solving being something i have never been good at because of the open
ended possibilities to what the answer could be.
Anyway thank you for the reply
Nathan
Then I had an idea; maybe I could post about it on my blog to give others a chance to figure it out. I e-mailed him back asking if that would be okay, and this was his response.
for money reasons .. i give an update of news etc every two days or each day
if it is very important , or viewed that way .
If it turns out there is a great help from your site then i/we will seek a
way to compensate you , we sent it to several people in all different fields
, from traditional riddle solvers , to scientists , geographic experts etc ,
and waiting on answers.. hoping that somehow what we collect can cross
reference each other and pull up a few definitive answers.. the first night
we had the translation we run it through some web pages , articles etc .. .
a few results came back , as we expected most were to do with the paranormal
, but of course until we have confermation on the date of the soil it was
dug up in , and the date of the material itself . Then if its proven to be
amazingly old we can take it more seriously , and not be worried about
peoples responses.
But yes thank you for asking first , the best we have come up with , is
pretty obvious answers , like the part about where water once flowed there
is now sand.. well the two most popular answers , obviously the desert which
ties in , look to the east there you will find the beast alot of deserts lie
to the east from where we found it and possibly the sphynx but thats a big
leap and nothing proven yet.. it is all circumstantial as to the east , it
is open ended , it could be to the east of where it was found .. to the east
of where it was made.. we just dont know. at the moment though we just are
not getting our hopes up as it will be near impossible to get one definitive
answer that proves right.
But i will thank you for all help and efforts you do , alot of work we do we
have to ask others for help and not all are polite about it , so thank you
once more.
Nathan
If anyone has any ideas please comment. Perhaps together we can collaboratively figure out the answer that makes the most sense. I will gladly share any sort of compensation if we were to reach that point. My interest is in the adventure of solving a riddle that is (as far as we know) unsolved as of yet.
One of my first thoughts was that the line ‘takes more than a man and his wide’ is supposed to be wife. I checked on answers.com where I learned that a wide is the cricket equivalent of a ball (versus a strike) in baseball, but that still doesn’t make much sense.
Dan, this is the *weirdest* post I’ve ever seen on your page — are you sure Nathan’s not pulling your leg? It is odd to me that something translated from another language would rhyme, like this riddle does — usually, it takes a skilled linguist to manipulate a script back into a rhyme or meter (and this has both) after it has been translated. Also, there are typos in Nathan’s messages to you — are there typos in this riddle, too? Seems weird. And what’s with the ellipsis at the end? Is there more to the riddle? Or is that actually part of the original text? Or is that Nathan’s doing? Like I said, weird . . . .
That said, I admit I wasted a few minutes giving this some thought (after all, I do enjoy a good riddle) and the only idea I came up with is global warming — look to the east, there’s the beast (sun, obviously — rises in the east, warms the planet); where once there was water, there is now sand — could refer to the changes on the planet after the ice age, but could also mean global warming; the whole man-giving-birth-to-mankind thing is odd (and, because it would be unlike me to not point it out, sexist — apparently even paranormal beings are sexist linguists — I have yet to hear of a man giving birth to anything) but it could have to do with the origins of a species — long, long ago, in high school, my hippie, surf-loving biology teacher told us we all came from Mars — a planet theoretcially destroyed by global warming. Odd, odd, odd — I know — but it seemed to tie in to this strange little writing — maybe whoever invented this “riddle” was smoking whatever Mr. Biology Teacher was on. FWIW, though, I think this is a total prank.
It also occurred to me that this seems a lot like what’s going on in the “Smallville” TV show — which I don’t watch much, but my husband does. Just weird stuff about aliens tying into cave wall writings and the imminent end of the world — that sort of thing.
::shrug:: I just don’t know, Dan, but I think you’ve been tricked. Or you’re tricking us — I dunno. ;)
Karalyn: I admit it’s a weird post and it may be a trick, but I can assure you I’m not in on it. If I’ve been tricked, at least it didn’t cost me any money :)
That’s a good point about the fact that it rhymes. I hadn’t thought about that. I noticed the typos as well, and I agree it probably means there are typos in the riddle. If it is a trick and I’ve been hoodswangled (I believe I just made that word up), then we shan’t spend any more time on it. The problem is, how do we know for sure. I guess I could e-mail Nathan back and ask him to explain the issues you brought up.
I used to watch Smallville and they had a few episodes about the underground cave drawings. Maybe Nathan is following Smallville a little too closely.
“hoodswangled” — good word. Or non-word, as it were. But I was even more amused by your use of “shan’t.”
If you do get more details from Nathan, I would be interested to hear more about this — the hush-hush-super-secret way in which he passed it along to you is really suspicious, as is his comment about it possibly being paranormal in nature — ? I’m beginning to wonder if there really *is* a Nathan, or if you’re just toying with your readers, testing the limits of our gullibility.
Just kidding. Mostly.
Either way, at least it doesn’t involve math.
I don’t think I could have ever come up with those e-mails – I wouldn’t have been able to let so many typos, lack of capitalization and grammatical errors get by without fixing them.
I’m going to e-mail Nathan to see if there’s any way he can demonstrate the authenticity of his claims.
The riddle, if you can call it that, seems to be religious and philosophical.
1) “solving the riddle of life, takes more than a man and his wide (wife)” – This implies that the questions of life are not simply answered by conceiving children.
2) “look towards the east there, you will find the beast” – If you have ever read the bible or been in bible study groups you would know that the beast or antichrist will come from the east before Jesus’ second coming.
3) “if a child can give birth to a child can man give birth to mankind?” This doesn’t really make sense.
The rest of the riddle doesn’t make much sense either except that it is saying that solutions to the riddle of life are found far underground yet to be discovered.
The age of the riddle and where it was found would help out a lot. How does this person even know that this is a riddle? Just because the writing mentions the word “riddle” doesn’t mean that it is a riddle. Plus, as someone said above, it’s difficult to rhyme translated words. So my conclusion is that because of the misspellings, improper language construction, rhyming translated words and the ironic replies from Nathan… I say that you are probably being “hoodswagged”. :) If not, then this is def not a riddle but some ancient writing from someone very insightful on life.
Well, that’s two of you now that think I’ve been hoodswangled (by the way, if you search on Google right now, there are 0 results for that word, so I believe it is new. There won’t be 0 results for much longer).
Chad: Thanks for your insight on the riddle (if it is in fact a riddle at all).
I’ve e-mailed Nathan to see if he really is hoodswangling me or not, requesting he provide some way of verifying the authenticity of his claims. I’ll let you know what he says.
I think I know where he got the riddle from. I am in the UK, and watch a prgramme called Most Haunted on Living TV. One of the Mediums David Wells was seen writing this riddle down, from a person he was talking to called Balthazar. If you look on http://www.livingtv.co.uk/mosthaunted then click on this week, you will see the riddle. They are asking for people to help them find what it means.
Insane. Yes, we have all been hoodswangled. I checked out the discussion forums on the site Bex referred to and eee gads — this is all a publicity ploy for the show — and it’s working! Quite the lively discussion going on there, complete with virutal streakers running through the thread. Nathan deserves a good wallop for not being more upfront about his “sources” — fooled once, shame on us. Oh, and it is supposed to be “wife,” not “wide” — Nathan, Nathan, Nathan . . . .
Bex: Thank you for solving our little mystery as to the source of the riddle.
I feel used :(
Karalyn: You were right – it was a fake and I’ve been thoroughly hoodswangled. Next time I’ll have to run it by you before posting it.
Well until I saw that this was a ploy or whatever, I had this idea:
solving the riddle of life, (its important to everyone and it means our eternal life)
takes more than a man and his wife (adam and eve maybe iunno)
look towards the east (east: middle east where the biblical stuff is)
there, you will find the beast (antichrist)
if a child can give birth to a child (child of god -> another child of god)
can man give birth to mankind? (god -> his children, or god -> his living son)
solutions are found far underground (? lots of the passages from the bible were found underground)
on walls yet to be uncovered (^—–)
where water flowed
there is now sand (in the book of revelations it talks about the sea of galilee becoming sand (i think thats the water body.. they do talk about a body of water becoming sand)
you dont have to go (there)
it can come to you (jesus voice in his coming)
its not what
but its where . . .
Phillip: Thanks for your thoughts on the riddle. I must admit I’m much less excited about it now, but you may be on to something.
Here’s the reply from Nathan.
Well thank you for being respectful enough to mail me to ask instead of verge on the sceptical (insulting side) like others , but thats not important . i see that you point out many of my typos and insinuate that somehow as i am not a skilled typeist that it cant be because i hardly spend time on these computers but it is down to my obviously low level of i.q , oh and for what it is worth yes i do watch smallville, but luckily enough i dont incourpurate television programmes into my real life, otherwise after watching prisoner many years ago i could have got myself into a lot of trouble trying to not be ” just a number ” Anyway to the point in question , from reading the “replies” i have to agree when writing to you for the first time i should’ve been more careful about describing this as a classic riddle , seeing as how normal riddles actualy have one definitive answer that the person who made that perticular one up can verify . Without being in contact with anyone who claims to know much about it that would be a downfall into trying to gain the “right” answer in this case.
As for prove due to the seemlessy open ended answers that could be given , my employer has got the company to put it up on the website for the
programme so people can have a think and mail in any thoughts they might have. If you ask how is this prove , well unless something else is going on , another agenda i am not aware of , then the fact the company put it up is prove enough to say it is serious. To the last point now ,
about the translation , the translation we got was the closest we could get and i have full trust in the people who worked on that side of it , the little points like spelling mistakes were largely down to as you pointed out my illiterate typing skills , but some were from the translating , and at the end it is left with , … , due to the fact there could have been more but the insitute which we sent it to like we have other materials we have found ( no not the mental intsitute) said it does look like it was deliberatly shaped that way by means of shaving, rather than effects of erosion and time.
We would like to thank you for the time you have shared in answering the e-mails and putting it up on your web-site.
Uh-oh . . . we’ve touched a nerve here, it sounds like. I’m not sure if Nathan’s going to read this or not, but Nathan, you weren’t very upfront about the “riddle” in the first place — if you had said, point blank, “This is from the TV show ‘Most Haunted'” instead of alluding to some unnamed source, then I, for one, wouldn’t feel like you were trying to fool people. Also, why bring up compensation? It states on the Web site that the prize (or whatever) for solving the riddle is that the producers might use the winner’s idea in a future show — not exactly the same as cold, hard cash. And you didn’t answer the rhyming question, or suggest an answer to it. I don’t doubt your sincerity in wanting to figure out what these writings mean, and I don’t mean to sound harsh or overly simple, but do you think maybe the company is just putting this up online to gain publicity for the show? I don’t think that the fact it is on the Web site indicates any sort of seriousness on the part of your employer — except it seriousness about profits, which is both understandable and expected.
Also, I sincerely apologize if any of my remarks have offended you; that was certainly never my intent.
Dan: Your remark made me laugh — if I had a nickel for every time I had been hoodswangled myself (man, that’s just the perfect word for it, ain’t it?), then I would have . . . $43.30 . . . give or take . . . so maybe running things past me isn’t the best meter of merit. ;)
Karalyn, your response reminded me that I failed to include my reply to Nathan. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has been hoodswangled, but you caught this one before me, so it’s still probably a good idea. Besides, 866 times to be hoodswangled isn’t all that bad.
Thanks for your reply. I didn’t mean any disrespect in talking about the errors in your e-mails, but it has nothing to do with typing. Even the worst typist can use a spell checker, but that’s neither here nor there.
Your explanation doesn’t address David Wells, one of the mediums, writing this down in the show while communicating with Balthazar. It
doesn’t sound like your boss got the show to do anything. It sounds like the show is trying to get publicity, and I don’t appreciate being used for that.
Dan: I feel awful for you feeling used :(
I had watched the show on Tuesday, and since then have tried to find the answer to the riddle, by searching through books and looking on the internet. When I saw what Nathan had put up I was confused, because I had watched David Wells write it down, so when Nathan wrote “we found the object four days ago, and are waiting on the results of ageing”..you can imagine I was scraching my head. As far as I saw, the riddle was written on A4 paper with a black felt pen, while sitting at the Black Bull Inn.
The Parapsychologist and Medium are hoping to go through and translate, but it was open for the fans of Most Haunted to see what they could come up with.
As yet all I have come up with is a headache!
It is so mean that you have been hoodswangled (fantastic word by the way!)
Bex: Thanks for your comments. It’s certainly not your fault for my feeling used, and I’m very glad you were able to set the record straight.
The one good thing from all this is that now we have a new word – hoodswangled!
A friend of mine whom watched the television show in question posed me this very same riddle. I Googled the first line of it and stumbled upon this site. I do not claim to be MENSA material by a very long shot, but I do love a riddle challenge. In reading the comments here I concluded your collective I.Q is quite sufficient to examine and scrutinize my deductions. I welcome your input and discussion on this particular riddle, farce that it may be. Let me begin by saying that I believe this so called “medium†to be a complete joke and should not be given the publicity earned thus far. I Googled the name “Balthazar†because I knew that I had heard it somewhere before but could not recall it’s origins. Several thousand interesting results were given including the following references. The Wikipedia gives several results one of which is a name “given†to one of the supposed “three kings†or “three wise men†as described in the bible. I say “given†because their actual names or exact number are not known to this date. It is a common belief, not a fact. Humans have a tendency to name or label unknown things instead of searching for its true origin. In other words, we make it up as we go. (I know big surprise right) Another result was a restaurant in So Ho, New York (he may get a discount for mentioning the name indirectly [laugh]). I personally believe the “medium†chose the name because it sounds “mystical†or “biblical†giving it the desired ancient effect for the show. (Insert big surprise here) With all that being said, I offer you my opinion of what the riddle asks, for the sake of the riddle itself.
1.) Solving the riddle of life, takes more than a man and his wide (wife)
Humans have always sought to explain the origins of life, many theories exist, however, the fact remains we do not know. It will take a broadened mind to fathom more than the Adam and Eve explanation we are given by religions. A narrowed view it is at best, clinging to what we can comprehend.
2.) Look towards the East, there you will find the beast
This could mean the Antichrist yes, but the sun rising in the east makes a huge impact on our lives also. It warms our planet, makes plants grow, affects our weather, without it where would we be?
3.) If a child can give birth to a child, can man (in general) give birth to mankind?
I believe this question is alluding to the â€can one person really make a difference†perspective. It is rhetorical in nature; the answer to both parts is yes. Can one-person influence and change the way humans think and act as a collective whole? History tells us many leaders, philosophers, and even religions have done so already. If you look at some of the leaps and bounds of our predecessors, we have been in a bit of a complacent lull in moving forward.
4.) Solutions are found far underground, on walls yet to be uncovered
Many ancient civilizations have been covered by natural disasters and their history lost to us. Researches uncover new clues to our past all the time. It could be that some of these ancestors were closer to the real truth than we currently are. History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Solutions or enlightenment to the problems in our future could lie beneath our very feet waiting to be discovered.
5.) Where water once flowed, there is now sand
It is a common belief that the world was once covered by water. Sunlight, evaporation, etc. has affected much of the earths surface, man has accelerated the natural pace in many aspects. If we continue, the repercussions could be very dramatic.
6.) You don’t have to go, it can come to you
Light can come to you; you don’t have to seek it out. Enlightenment can also be reached without seeking it, just quiet your mind and listen instead of trying to make up the answers.
7.) It’s not what, it’s where
Light is all around us; it shapes our world, penetrates us, binds us, and gives us a new day to look forward to. It is the single most important common need of all mankind. Without it the world as we know it would cease to exist… period. For those of you that still may require a biblical/religious reference to this fact, I offer you this: Jesus said: I am the way the truth and the light, no one may enter unto my father except by me.
My conclusion/answer to this riddle is light because it seems more profound than what they originally intended it to be. These are my personal thoughts please do not copy, add to, distort, or otherwise steal my work. I would not do the same to you. Thanks in advance for reviewing my ideas.
Anthony, AKA: Dragon
Thanks for your comments Anthony.
i think that it is related egypt i am a decendant of the family which founded the riddle in 1736 and the beast is the phynx and that the document is the meaning of life!!
I am a fan of this show and find some of your comments a tad annoying. As for submitting this riddle – its a riddle to be worked on no matter the source. As for being used, any help on finding the answer to this will be appreciated by the fans of the show and I think you should take it as a complement that you were asked for help.
will you solve this for me? you throw away the outside and cook the inside then eat the outside and throw away the inside. what are you eating?
An ear of corn. (That happens to be one of the riddles on my riddles page)
Hey…i really enjoyed reading all of the above..very interesting! First..i noticed there were a lot of answers relating to the Bible so in keeping w/ the theme the “child give birth to child, man to mankind” just an idea but perhaps Mary giving birth to Jesus. It was believed that she was very young when she had him. And in the Christian faith, Jesus, through his death and resurrection brings spiritual life. So Jesus being man and God brings life “gives birth” or spiritual life to mankind..ANYWAY! just an idea..but i did enjoy reading all the comments. I do have a riddle though. Maybe i’m just lazy and haven’t looked hard enough, but here it is! :)
The person that makes it doesn’t want it. The person that buys it doesn’t need it. The person that uses it doesn’t know it.
thank ya muchly! :)
A coffin.
cool riddles
i need help with this:
“Think of words ending in -GRY. Angry and hungry are two of them. There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word? The word is something that everyone uses every day. If you have listened carefully, I have already told you what it is.”
It’s a trick question. Ignore the whole words ending with ‘gry’ sentence and read “There are only three words in the English language. What is the third word?”
It’s kind of silly if you ask me, but there are three words in the sentence, “The English language” so the third word is language.
posted nov 2005;
Hello a most haunted fan here, i admire the show, but it does wain on me a tad, due to the particular fomat which it has aquired since the show began back in 2002. I am an ardent admirer of david wells, he seems to pose a more inquisitive stance when giving readings, where as dereck acorah, (now no longer with the show) seemed to turn himself into a bi-product, like a gimmmic. I actually did enjoy derecks readings, i saw him years ago in a phsycic fair in folkstone kent, an thoroughly enjoyed the event. I am an avid observer of spirituality, an find it has much more grounded foundations in our existiance, more so than the organised nonscense which people have shrowded themselves in lost translations, over the centuries. If the show most haunted, has no real desire other than to make money, then its is truly sad, however i don’t think that to be entirely the case. Given that, their are credible scholars in paraphsycology, for whom i have had the pleasure of being present in lectures at hope University Liverpool. E,g. One Kieran o’Keefe, I would like to think that one with such reputation in his choosen proffession, would seriously heamerage that, if it was all one big hoax. THe show is now in to its 7th season, its live shows have proved interesting, as i was privy to watch live in the audience at halloween hackney london a few weeks ago, however all this in mind, it is a Tv show, and the onus to perhaps embellish certain senareo’s would not be suprising. question: can some one answer… Following the London dungeon investigation where the ilusive ‘Balthazar’ first appeared, to which show did he reappear, with this riddle? Is he now one of David wells guides? oh another reason David is preffered, he never reveals his guides, unlike Dereck.
It is a reference to what is contained in the hall of records buried beneath the sphinx. The weathering marks on the limestone show the sphinx to have been in existence towards the end of the last ice age, thousands of years before its arid climate ( aka Where water once flowed, there is now sand)
This riddle is a prediction of life..and although I need more time to study the words and give a more accurate interpretation, I can tell you that the line that says “the man and his wide” has nothing to do with cricket, wifes or fat people! It is actually refering to families or rather generations.(This is hard for me to explain, but I’ll try my best) The only way I can sum the line up that will make some sense to you is, the spawn of man, scattered through generations and situated in different lands..I hope that this makes sense, and I promise I will get back to you and let you know why the writer speaks of this, but as I said, I need a bit more time to study properly, as I have only had a quick glance..
I am not a scientist or anything special by the way! Just an ordinary housewife with 5 children..and I honestly cannot explain why I understand the riddle..I just do! I’m hoping you can tell me why!
hi just watched an episode of most haunted last night and i had a riddle that a medium had received from a spirit entity…and i decided that i would type the first line of the riddle into google and it brought me to this website
Hello, nathan my riddle is very interesting. i tried to figure it out with people of the same interest as me and was stumped, but finally came up with an answer(maybe). I will not find out if i am right until tomorrow. here it is, take a swing and have fun.
Adam ,God made out of dust
But thought it best to make me first
So I was made before man
To answer God’s most Holy plan
A living being I became and
Adam gave to me my name
I from his presence then withdrew
and more of Adam never knew
I did my maker’s law obey
Nor ever went from it astray
1000 of miles I go in fear
But seldom on earth appear
For purpose wise which God did see
He put a living soul in me
and took from me the soul again
So when from me the soul has fled
I was the same as when first made
and without hands, feet or soul
I travel on from pole to pole
I labor hard by day or night
To fallen man I give great light
1000’s of people, young and old will be my death, Great light behold
No right or wrong can I conceive
The scriptures I can not believe
Although my name is therein found
They are to me an empty sound
No fear or death doth trouble me
Real happiness I’ll never see
To heaven I shall never go
or to hell below
And when these lines you slowly read
Go search your bible with all speed
For that my name is written there
I do earnestly declare
Who am I
Hint: one word and it appears only 4 times in the king James Bible
I came across this looking for a particular version of it. Didn’t find it, but I do know the answer, and I also know the tune. I cannot sing it for you in this forum, but…
God made the whale without a soul
To travel on from pole to pole
Till the whale had Jonah swallowed
As in the deep the prophet wallowed
Now had a soul enshrined within
Till prayer received relief from sin
As light thus shone on God’s command
So whales shed light or all the land [whale oil!]
To all mankind, both slave and queen
Unless they burn the kerosene