Riddles
From Tolkien Gateway
Riddles were a passtime for Hobbits. The history of this practise goes back to the time the ancestors of the Hobbits still lived around the Gladden Fields. In the fifth chapter of The Hobbit, aptly titled "Riddles in the Dark", Gollum and Bilbo exchange riddles.
[edit] Examples
- What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
And yet never grows?
The answer, quite easily guessed by Bilbo, was mountain.
- An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
"That eye is like to this eye"
Said the first eye,
"But in low place,
Not in high place."
This was an old one, but Gollum remembered the answer was Sun on the daisies.
- It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.
The answer to this poetical display of Gollum was dark.
