Latvian Folk Riddles About Fruits and Vegetables

Since time immemorial, when the harvest was gathered and the Apjumības harvest festival was celebrated, when the days grew shorter and the evenings longer, large Latvian families would pass the time by the light of pine-splinter torches solving riddles. Sharp wits, ingenuity, and powers of observation were put to use. And how many of the answers to these riddles do you know? Riddles for children and adults!

1. A little red cow, a bony little heart.
2. A little red girl, a little white heart; the girl is sweet, the heart - not.
3. One little head alone, a hundred little kerchiefs.
4. Which head has leaves instead of hair?
5. A little white sheep, a little black forehead.
6. Smaller than a pea, angrier than the devil.
7. A tiny little ball under the earth, all around greenery.
8. Don't look for my fruit in the branches, for I hang my fruit at my feet.
9. All around hair, a little sausage in the middle.
10. A little green hen sits on yellow eggs.
11. Patch upon patch, not a needle's prick.
12. Mother sits in the garden, a hundred blankets on her back.
13. A little red man, a little green beard.
14. A little red man in the bathhouse, green beard outside.
15. A red bull in the stall, green horns outside.
16. A little green hen, little black eggs.
17. Here a little stick, there a little stick; in each little stick a little cradle, in the cradles tiny children.
18. Foot in the moss, little table in the open.
19. A little green house, full of little white gentlemen.
20. A tiny little woman, three hundred little caps.
21. Seven little dwarves in one cradle.
22. A stiff gentleman with many a fur coat.
23. A tiny little man with thrice-nine coats. Whoever undresses him will weep bitterly.
24. Mother like a harrow, children like onions.
25. A little man on one little leg.
26. A woman stands on one leg, a hundred kerchiefs on her head.
27. Thick porridge in a fur coat.
28. A little green meadow, little red sheep.
29. A little red cow, a silken cord.
30. A tiny little girl, a heart of stone in her chest.
31. You eat the shell, throw away the kernel.
32. A tiny little leg, a hat on the head.
33. One little head alone, a hundred little kerchiefs.
34. The hilltop smooth, the hillside ploughed.

Riddle About the Long Bean /A. Brigadere/

White, white in a little bag,
A black-black little cord,
The cord snaps,
The bag bursts -
Out leaps a princess,
She climbed into the clouds.
Branch by branch,
Tendril by tendril,
Leaf by little leaf,
Flower by little flower
The princess climbed
Up to heaven's gate.

Answers:

1. Cherry
2. Raspberry
3. Cabbage head
4. A cabbage head
5. Bean
6. Pepper
7. Potato
8. Potato
9. Corn (maize)
10. Potato plant and potatoes
11. Cabbage head
12. Cabbage head
13. Carrot
14. Carrot growing in the ground
15. Carrot growing in the ground
16. Hemp
17. Pea pod
18. Mushroom
19. Pea pod
20. Cabbage head
21. Pea pod
22. Onion
23. Peeling an onion
24. Apple tree and apples
25. Apple
26. Cabbage head
27. Grain sausage
28. Berries in the grass
29. Berry
30. Cherry with a stone
31. Cherry
32. Mushroom
33. Cabbage head
34. Mushroom