Lithuanian Riddles with Answers · Page 6

a mushroom

The cap and stalk become a hat and a leg, although the mushroom has neither a head nor a foot.

a mushroom

Mushrooms mature rapidly. After picking, they may be strung on a thread to dry, giving this one an unusual afterlife.

a week

The six workers are the traditional working days; the seventh is Sunday, set aside for rest.

a week

The sisters are the seven days, and their shared bed holds them together as a week.

an echo

An echo repeats sounds in any language without having learned words or understood their meaning.

an echo

The chips are imagined fragments of sound: chopping heard from afar returns or carries beyond the forest.

rye

The colors follow growth: reddish young shoots, green growing stems, and yellow ripe stalks at harvest.

a pear

Height describes where the fruit hangs, not its size; the green skin and sweet flesh supply the remaining clues.

a spider

The spider produces silk and makes a web, doing the spinner's and weaver's work without their tools.

a duck

The clue is the duck's normal ability to float and swim, not a claim that a duck can never drown.

a stone

A stone emerging from the ground looks as though it grew there, but it has no plant roots.

a stone

The already-solid stone neither turns to ice nor melts in ordinary summer warmth; its temperature still changes.

a juniper

Juniper berries are fleshy cones, not true berries. The riddle notices the absence of familiar showy flowers.

a tree

Summer foliage is a fur coat; a deciduous tree stripped of leaves appears undressed in winter.

a tree

The trunk is the body, roots are legs, and the enclosed inner wood is a heart hidden from sunlight.

a hedgehog

When threatened, the walking animal curls up, protecting its soft body behind outward-pointing spines.

a sheep

Shearing removes the sheep's fleece, which can become clothing for a person; undressing means being shorn.

a rainbow

The luminous bands become a precious woven fabric, with the arc imagined as its sharply cut edge.

flax

A small seed grows into a plant whose fibers make linen; the whole world exaggerates its importance for clothing.

the sky

A clear blue sky looks cheerful, while rain from a gray sky becomes tears.

a swan

Naturally white feathers are compared to laundered cloth, without suggesting the bird never bathes or preens.

a turnip

The leafy top becomes a little oak, sheltering the rounded root beneath it.

dawn

The first band of morning light is the golden plank; its opening wakes the living world, playfully called worms.

fingers

The five fingers are soldiers; their hard nails become iron coverings at the back of each head.

fingers

The ten fingers of both hands cooperate on a shared task, like sisters working together.

a hand and arm

Bending, straightening, and gently touching explain the contrasting shapes and softness of the hand and arm.

rain

People want rain for growing crops, then seek shelter from the same rain to keep themselves dry.

rain

A falling drop appears as a thin streak, then disappears among wet grass and soil.

a mole

The dark mole pushes through soil and digs tunnels, resembling a miniature rooting pig.

a woodpecker

The bird's naturally contrasting feathers need no painter; the Lithuanian wording uses an older sense of decorated or patterned.

a watermelon

The intact rind is a sealed house, and the seeds inside are its inhabitants.

a snowflake

The snow crystal forms in a cloud and melts on a warm hand; the resulting water is its tears.

the heart

The verb means both striking and pulsing; a heartbeat does not attack anyone.

the heart

Beating means the pulse; burning evokes the emotional warmth or intensity traditionally associated with the heart.

milk

Milk combines snow's whiteness with water's liquid state, while being neither of those substances.

a mouse

The clues describe a mouse's quiet searching for food in dark household corners.

a mouse

The cave is the mouse hole. Its furry occupant is playfully called a little hawk, an agile seeker of food.

a radish

The root is the goat hidden in its house of soil; the leaves above ground become its beard.

a rainbow

The arch resembles a support for the sky; a low broad arc seems to wrap around the landscape.

flax

After harvesting and processing, flax yields pale fibers that can be bleached; death means the plant has been cut.