Riddles for Riches

George, a peasant living in feudal times, sat on a rock looking up at the night sky. This was his favorite part of the day, because he was able to gaze at the stars and not have a worry in the world. After all, living as a peasant meant he was faced with constant hardships and a daily struggle for survival. As he gazed up at the night sky he saw a shooting star and wished for a life of luxury. Maybe not even a life of luxury he thought. Maybe just a life where he had enough for himself and his family.

Suddenly there was a bright flash and a large metal box appeared in front of him. George could not believe his eyes. Out of the box stepped a man dressed in clothes George had never seen before. The man also look bewildered. Before George could speak the man asked, "What year is it?"

"I am not quite sure, but our ruler is King Richard," George replied.

"Oops, I must have mistyped the numbers," the man said to himself.

"Are you here to grant my wish? You are here to bring me riches, correct?" George asked.

Looking to have some fun, the man replied, "Why yes, I am, but you must correctly answer my three riddles."

"Okay," replied George.

"What is your name?" asked the man.

"That's not a riddle," said George.

"Do you want the riches or not?" asked the man.

"My name is George," George finally replied.

"Correct," answered the man. While he was correct George wondered how the man knew his name, but he was too awestruck about the sudden events that he quickly disregarded said thought.

"What is your profession?" asked the man.

"I am a farmer for the local lord," replied George.

"Correct again!" replied the man. "Only one more question and the riches are yours. Being a farmer you should know this next one easily."

George could not believe what was happening. Soon he would have the riches he needed to lift his family out of poverty and maybe even improve his friends' lives as well. "How long does it take to grow corn?" asked the man.

"What's corn?" asked George.

Already knowing that America had not yet been discovered, the man laughed, "Incorrect!"

George was crushed. "But do not despair, George. Since you were able to answer two of my questions I will still give you riches, but in a less immediate form," the man said. Being a somewhat cruel man, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out one of many pieces of paper with numbers on them. The man handed George the paper and explained, "These numbers are very important and where I am from people spend their hard-earned money trying to guess the right combination. While these numbers may look ordinary, they are arranged in such a way that they will bring you riches. All you need to do is hold onto this piece of paper until the day of the date that is labeled on them, and riches beyond anyone's imagine will be yours."

With that the man climbed back into his metal box and as suddenly as it had arrived the box disappeared in a flash of light. George now found himself once again alone, this time wondering if what had just happened was all a dream. But the piece of paper with the numbers on it proved otherwise. And while George was excited, he was somewhat saddened. "If only I knew how to read," he thought to himself.

Author's Notes: This story is from the perspective of George, a peasant living in feudal times, as he has to answer riddles from a time traveler who promises riches if his riddles can be correctly answered.

For this story I was inspired by a few stories from the Mahabharata. The first story that I was inspired by was the riddles by the river where Yudhishthira has to answer riddles in order to drink from the river, and once he answers all of the riddles correctly he is given two boons. In the story I have written I wanted to keep with the general plot idea that the protagonist has to answer riddles, but I wanted to have a much lighter tone to the story. As a result, instead of fighting for his life my protagonist is fighting for a better life. Also in the original story Yudhishthira was able to answer all of the riddles correctly, and that left me wondering what would have happened if he had answered a few incorrectly. That inspired me to have the protagonist incorrectly answer one of the riddles.

The other story I was inspired by was the gambling match story. More specifically I was interested in Shakuni. The time traveler in this story is inspired by Shakuni, because he has the idea to cheat. But instead of using loaded dice the time traveler looks to use a time machine in order to go back in time and win the lottery as evidenced by the fact he has numerous lottery tickets in his pocket.

My inspiration for the riddles was from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In that movie each of the protagonist has to answer three riddles from a wizard in order to be able to cross a bridge. The riddles themselves are not really riddles, but, instead, they are either trivial facts or just questions about the person answering the riddles themselves. For example, one of the riddles is "What is your favorite color?" Additionally, most of the riddles were easy to answer, but sometimes the final riddle that was asked would be extremely difficult or impossible to answer.

Bibliography: Public Domain Edition of The Mahabharata "The Gambling Match" by Donald A. Mackenzie Link and Public Domain Edition of the Mahabharata "Riddles at the Lake" by Donald A. Mackenzie Link

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