Riddles in Sri Lanka
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Introduction
Riddles are word game famous among children in rural areas in Sri Lanka. At the free occasions, an adult might ask questions from child to test his or her level of intelligent. It may sometime joyful time for them. A person who ask questions mostly try to win by falling replier. The replier always tries to answer for all questions. If he or she is unable to answer then replier change his or her position to questioner. This is like a game in between two persons. Farming community in rural arears in Sri Lanka, this word game is common in between old men and children at the paddy fields or vegetable fields at the tea brake or lunch break. More riddles that asked by farmers are related to their crops or names of village or area. Accordingly, this page tries to depict famous riddles among the farming communities in Sri Lanka.
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Riddles among farming community in Sri Lanka තේරවිල්ල (Ridddle) පිලිතුර (Answer) තනි කකුලේ සුද්දා
(A white man with only one foot)බිම්මල
(Mushroom)අත්තක් උඩ බුම්මාගෙන - කටු රෙක්දක් පොරවාගෙන
(One who covered with a thorn cloth is on a branch of tree)කොස් ගෙඩිය
(Jack fruit)පුංචි ලිදේ වතුර රසයි
(Water in the little well is very tasty)තැඹිලි ගෙඩිය
(King coconut)ගෙඩියක් උඩ ගහක් ගහක් උඩ ගෙඩියක්
(A tree on a nut and a nut on a tree)අන්නාසි ගෙඩිය
(Pineapple)නැට්ට නැති ගෙඩිය
(A nut without stalk)බිත්තරය
(An egg )මව්මරා උපන් කුමරා
(A prince who born by killing mum )කෙසෙල් කැන
(bunch of bananas)ගෙදර මල්ලී
(Younger brother of the house)කොත්ත මල්ලී
{KoththaMalli (cardamom)}භාසා තුනකින් නමක් තියෙන ගෙඩිය
(A nut name that giving meaning of three languages )ගෝවා ගෙඩිය
{Gova (cabbage)}ටික් ගාලා ටිකක් කනවා ටුක් ගාලා දොරවහනව
(Eating by sounding ‘tik’ shutting the door by sounding ‘tuk’)හුණු කිල්ලෝටය
(lime-box)කෑවොත් පලතුරකි කැපුවොත් අනතුරකි
(When it is eating, it is fruit. when it is cutting, it is a murder )බෙලි
{Beli (neck)}අකුලන්න බැරි පැදුර
(A mat that is unable to fold )මාර්ගය
{path (Road)}තනි කකුලේ උපාසක
(One-foot devotee )කොකා
(a crane )