Riddle me this, riddle me that...

I don’t know about you, but I love riddles. They are a great intellectual exercise, and what is more important – they are fun. :) Riddles appear in many forms, varying from highly metaphorical to painstakingly literal ones. You might even remember them from literature classes, because they were first collected in The Exeter Book in the Middle Ages. They are considered part of literature due to their poetic nature (e.g. the use of kennings, so typical for Old English). Here’s one of them:

My house is not quiet. I am not loud;
But for us God fashioned our fate together.
I am the swifter, at times the stronger,
My house more enduring, longer to last.
At times I rest; my dwelling still runs;
Within it I lodge as long as I live.
Should we two be severed, my death is sure.

No one really knows when did riddles originate and where they come from. It is speculated, however, that they were passed orally long before they got written down. But I mention riddles not because of their literary value, but because they are a wonderful tool for teaching. In what way? Well, let me explain. :)

The main use of riddles would be that of a game. You can divide students into groups and have them solve riddles – it’s that simple. The group that solves the most, or perhaps is the quickest in solving, wins. The competitive factor makes such a game both fun and motivating. The fact that riddles are an authentic material also helps to boost motivation (as we all know from our methodology classes). ;) What is most important about such a game is that it involves quite a lot of speaking when discussing possible answers.

Some riddles are very much like those from The Exeter Book - more poetic and metaphorical. For example:

Not born but from a mother's body drawn,
I hang until half of me is gone,
I sleep in a cave until I grow old,
Then valued for my hardened gold.

With flashing sword and booming cry,
With darkness staining land and sky,
The army comes, prepared to die.
Soldiers fall in glistening dress,
As battles are joined without egress,
Save comfort in the earth's caress.

There are also riddles that are far from being poetic, and require nothing but logical thinking to solve them, e.g.:

A barrel of rainwater weighs twenty pounds.
What must you add to make it weigh fifteen?

Two brothers wanted to race a course,
To see which had the slowest horse.
Since neither wanted to spur his mare,
What must they do to make it fair?

We can also find some tricky ones:

The language of man
Can be mastered.
But what word is
Always pronounced wrong?

And some that are laughably simple (but still useful for lower level students):

One pace to the North.
Two paces to the East.
Two paces to the South.
Two paces to the West.
One pace to the North.

But what we are really interested in is riddles that can help us in teaching. And these would be riddles that are built around some kind of collocations and therefore aid in teaching such phrases (mainly by making them more memorable). For instance:

Up and down they go,
But never move.

Names give power,
Magic to control.
But what is broken
By naming it?

Brought to the table.
Cut and served.
Never eaten.

This odd thing seems to get
Wetter the more it dries.

The light one breaks but never falls.
His brother falls but never breaks.

There are also such riddles, however, that involve more than just the knowledge of phraseology. They are especially difficult for non-native speakers, because to solve them you need to understand the use of certain English tenses. ;)

With this thing alone
You will have defeated
Even the strongest foe.

You can easily find hundreds of riddles on the Internet and choose those most appropriate for a given level of students, or find those that have answers connected with the vocabulary you want to teach. And if there is something wrong with you, you can also find riddles from The Exeter Book in the original (i.e. Old English). ;)
Just to finish off I’ll give you a link to a site with some interesting riddles - http://www.johnnyhollow.com/ Just enter their world and test the limits of your brain cells. :)