Thread: Tombstone Epitaph Riddles

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I'm in the process of creating a game for my Halloween party where individuals or small teams walk through my graveyard with a dim flashlight and are tasked with solving a series of riddles that are carved into select tombstones. Of course there will be creepy "obstacles" along the way.

The Riddles:

#1
I'm the beginning of eternity
the end of time and space
The start of every end and the end of every place.

#2
Feed me and I'll flourish, give me liquid and I'll die.

#3
I have a bed but never sleep.
I have a mouth but never speak.
I have no hands but several fingers,
Always run, forever linger.

#4
I'm always near you
your twin in the light.
But in the dark hours
I'll vanish from sight.



The Answers:
#1. The letter "e"
#2. A flame or fire
#3. A river
#4. your shadow

If carving these into tombstones is too much work, aged scrolls could be hidden throughout the cemetery instead.

This might work well in conjunction with a scavenger hunt where clues would lead participants to the whereabouts of the scrolls. Lots of possibilities here!

It might be more fun if the teams were made to go into the cemetery one at a time to solve their riddles.

I think this will be mainly for kids as the riddles don't stand up to hard core literary and grammar sticklers.

I also wanted the riddles to be eerie and creepy rather than silly.

I'm sure the forum will be able to add more riddles.

I love this idea. Ill try and think of a few more for you.

Love riddles!

Another couple of my faves:

A shoemaker made shoes without leather
of all the elements taken together
earth, water, fire and air
and each customer had two-pair


The riddle of the sphinx:
What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?


He who makes it needs it not
He who buys it wants it not
He who uses it feels it not



What does man love more than life
Fear more than death or mortal strife
What the poor have, the rich require,
and what contented men desire,
What the miser spends and the spendthrift saves
And all men carry to their graves?


Say my name and I disappear. What am I?


Old Mother Twitchett had but one eye
and a long tail that she let fly
and every time she jumped over the gap
she left a bit of her tail in the trap





Answers (highlight to see):
A horseshoe
Man (or woman). Crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult and uses two legs and a cane when they're old.
A coffin
Nothing
Silence
Needle and thread

If it was me, I'd actually not carve all of these. I'd paint and carve the decorations into the stones as usual, but where the epitaphs go, I'd have a raised "plaque" area that you can glue on the printed out epitaphs (cut them out into ovals or other interesting shapes). If you print them on speckled gray paper, you could match the color for the stones' paint. You want these to be easy to read, and the carving will KILL your hands if you do more than one or two...

Plus, once this was over with, you could either use a clear coat to seal them and have some cool riddle stones for your display, or you could peel the paper off and carve them with whatever epitaphs float your boat for the future!

Thank you so much Frankie's Girl! I'm revisiting this project and your riddles are EXCELLENT! And you're right, I'm not going to carve them. Your raised plaque idea is perfect! Thank you!