riddles-from-Appalachia

Today’s riddle is a hard one, but I liked it so much I wanted to share both the riddle and the answer.

Riddle: Six set and seven sprung, out of the dead the living come.

Answer: A chicken (a small one I guess) made a nest in an animal skull. She hatched out six baby chicks. She and the chicks made seven. When they left the skull – out of the dead the living come.

Wayde Powell shared the riddle with me. He said he grandmother used to say it to him.


The last riddle I shared was from James Still:

“I have teeth yet can’t eat; Can’t crunch corn or bread of wheat, Still I’ll fix you fairly neat.”

Lots of folk guessed the answer: a comb.

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4 Comments

  1. You were right it was a hard one! Thanks for giving the answer. I do like you riddles. I can guess some of them.

    Dennis Morgan

  2. I was gonna say a seed…, like the Bible says that falls into the earth and dies ,then bears much fruit….never woulda guessed it was a chicken riddle, haha

  3. That sure is a hard one. Even if one was keeping setting hens it still would not be easy. That combination of “set” and “sprung” made me think of a steel trap but I knew that was going in the wrong direction. Sounds to me like it might have been inspired a bit by Samson’s riddle to the Philistines.

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