One easy opener, then it gets awkward. This set includes a family-relationship puzzle that has been confusing people since the nineteenth century, and two riddles where the answer is a single letter rather than a thing.
#1easyUnsolved What can you break without ever touching it?
Hint: You give it, and then you fail to keep it.Answer: a promiseA promise is broken by not honouring it, never by physical force.
#2mediumUnsolved I am taken from a mine and shut inside a wooden case, from which I am never released, and yet almost everyone uses me. What am I?
Hint: You sharpen the wooden case to get at me.Answer: pencil leadGraphite is mined, sealed inside a wooden pencil, and used without ever leaving the case.
#3mediumUnsolved What word becomes shorter when you add two letters to it?
Hint: The two letters you add are E and R.Answer: shortAdd 'er' to the word 'short' and you get 'shorter'.
#4hardUnsolved A man looks at a painting and says: Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man's father is my father's son. Who is in the painting?
Hint: Work out who 'my father's son' must be before anything else.Answer: his sonWith no siblings, 'my father's son' can only be the speaker himself. So the man in the painting has the speaker as his father, which makes him the speaker's son.
#5hardUnsolved What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?
Hint: Look at the words themselves, not at what they mean.Answer: mThe letter M appears once in 'minute', twice in 'moment', and not at all in 'a thousand years'.
#6hardUnsolved I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What am I?
Hint: Remove the very first letter.Answer: sevenTake the S off 'seven' and you are left with 'even'.