The Queen of Riddles

The queen of Petersburg promised that she would marry anyone who could ask her three riddles she could not answer. Many young men tried to win her hand, but to no avail. Finally, along came Ivan the peasant and he said:

I saw one good thing with another good thing in it. In order to do good, I took the second good thing out of the first good thing.

The queen did not know what to say so pretended she had a headache to put off her answer. She got her maidservant to coax the answer out of Ivan. Next day the queen said to Ivan:

‘Here is the answer: A horse was in a wheat field and I chased it out’

Then Ivan put his second riddle: ‘On the road I saw a bad thing. I took up a second bad thing and hit it, So one bad thing killed another bad thing.’

Once again, the queen got her maidservant to find out the answer from Ivan. Next day the queen said:

‘Here is the answer. I saw a snake on the road and killed it with a stick.’

Then Ivan asked her the third riddle. ‘How did you know the answers to the first two riddles?’

The queen did not want to admit that she had found out by cheating.

‘I don’t know.’ She answered. That was how Ivan married the queen.