1. A strange thing I saw in this world:
   Water bubbling round fire.

   Answer       

2. A strange thing I saw in this world:
   It roared and wailed and circled round.

   Answer       

3. What is that which travels without feet, head or hands?

   Answer       

4. What is that which hides men in its belly?

   Answer       

5. What is that which encompasses the world in a moment?

   Answer       

6. What is that which from head to foot is all tongue?

   Answer        

7. What is that which no woman will eat?
   If a man eat it he grows strong.
   Good is it and impalpable, but in eating it
   Neither hand, nor lip, nor mouth is used.

   Answer       

8. White art thou as snow; black am I as a Negro:
   My head is split: thou art below and I am above.
   You do not move: though I do move.

   Answer

9. What is that travelling ship, double-doored,
   Lion-armed and dragon-shaped?
   Another sight I saw in it:
   It made the dead alive.

   Answer       

10. A headless crane I saw: nor barley does it eat nor wheat;
    Water it drinks from the river and it benefits all mankind.
    

    Answer       

11. What is that strange creature with two heads?
    Six holes has it in its body:
    Weigh it and its weight is six misqal;
    On its back it carries a hundred mann.

    One misqal is 1/16 oz. and 90 misqal is 14 oz.

    Answer       

12. A strange creature I saw that had six legs and two heads:
    Stranger still, listen to me, was this; its tail was in its back.
    

    Answer       

13. A strange thing I saw in this world
    That had a hundred nails in its feet and hands.
    Five bodies, five heads and four lives
    Read me this riddle, oh wise man.

    Answer       

14. What is that which is light as a fairy
    It flies without wings; it emits sound though void of mouth
    

    Answer       

15. What is that which is round and rolling?
    Its whole without life: its halves alive?
    Ass is he that guesses not this
    And less than a goat is that ass.

    Answer       

16. A man from Africa came to me;
    A strange weird creature he had with him;
    The animal by God's creating
    Had eighty heads and ten bellies and thirty legs.

    Answer       

17. The head of (the word) mullah on the neck of mullah.
    This riddle is made in the name of God.
    

    Answer       

18. It travels to the sky ahead of the eye
    But no one has ever seen it.

    Answer       

19. This wool-dressed and well-stuffed Sufi
    Has one penis and two hundred testicles.

    Answer       

20. In the depths of this sea there dwells a shark
    That holds in its mouth a single pearl;
    Strange that though it has no belly
    It drinks the sea to the last drop.

    Answer       

21. A bird I saw without legs or wings;
    Born neither from womb of mother nor loin of father:
    Neither in the sky nor 'neath the earth it lives,
    Yet it ever eats the flesh of man.

    Answer       

22. What is that fairy-shape that has no life?
    It laughs yet has no mouth:
    It weeps yet has no eyes
    It travels much yet has no feet.

    Answer       

23. What is that which has no bones;
    In its body it has neither breath nor life?
    When hungry it is at rest
    When full it complains.

    Answer       

24. A strange thing I saw in this world;
    Inanimate it followed the animate.
    

    Answer       

25. Two bodies in two Caravans I saw
    Their heads barred, their bodies blistered;
    The Caravans do not move without permission of those two
    Nor do those two move without permission of the Caravan.

    Answer       

26. What is that which has no bones;
    If it fastens on you it does no harm.
    

    Answer       

27. A warbler of this garden am I, and this garden is my flower ground
    I'm a fire-eating bird', am I, and fire is my plumage'';
    My bones are silver, and in my belly I carry gold;
    He that guesses this is is wiser than I.

    ' Atash-khwar is also a name for the pheasant. '' As it surrounds it when cooking.

    Answer       

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Answers:

1. Answer: Samavar.
   Back

2. Answer: Mill.
   Back

3. Answer: Water, Wind, a Worm.
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4. Answer: The Earth.
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5. Answer: The Wind.
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6. Answer: Fire.
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7. Answer: Knowledge.
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8. Answer: Pen and Paper.
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9. Answer: Tortoise.
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10. Answer: Pen (reed).
    Back

11. Answer: Horse-shoe.
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12. Answer: Scales.
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13. Answer: Bier (with the corpse borne by four men).
    Back

14. Answer: Paper-kite.
    Back

15. Answer: Melon (Khar-buz )
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16. Answer: Elephant (Fil )
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17. Answer: The word Majid "Glorious" The head of mullah is the letter mim, and the Arabic for neck is jid : together these make Majid. One of the ninety-nine attributes of God and also a proper name.
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18. Answer: Sight.
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19. Answer: The Kathal or Jack-fruit.
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20. Answer: The Wick of a Chiragh.
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21. Answer: Anxiety.
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22. Answer: Cloud.
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23. Answer: Mill-stone.
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24. Answer: Threshing-machine.
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25. Answer: Dice at Backgammon.
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26. Answer: A leech.
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27. Answer: Egg.
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BORCH'S FALKONERI  - dansk BORCH'S FALCONRY  - english

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Jakob E. Borch ©
borch@vip.cybercity.dk