I have often been called a Riddle Master due to my love of inventing riddles
and tormenting people with
them though, ironically, I am terrible at solving them myself. Hence the reason I prefer the title Riddle-maker. An important point for, while I accept the Master title now, I was not so arrogant as to call myself one when I began telling riddles; like I said, other people called me that and continue to do so. Fun fact: I
have found that children grades 3-6 are the uncontested best at riddle-solving; far better on average than teenagers and up. Any guesses as
to why? (I know the answer, so consider this a quasi-riddle.) Anyway, Riddle Mastery is a passion of mine and since I am an educator by training and storyteller by inclination, I figured I should share my knowledge of the discipline.
(To my former students, there is a special message for you at the bottom of the page.)
Introduction:
It
is sad really that the art of making and answering riddles has been so
diminished since the advent of modern history, or at least since
collapse of the time-honored respectability granted to Bards,
storytellers, and others who partake in oral traditions.
The riddle-game was sacred and of
immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when
they played at it." - J.R.R. Tolkien
These
days it is only those who works within the realms of Fantasy who wholly
and truly appreciate the power and potency of riddles, a far cry from
when Kings and Heroes placed great weight upon them. Then again, why
not? For in the Fantasy genre lives the misty mystery of the ancient
past, and so we glory in the enigmatic and such puzzles as twists minds
into first comprehending and then solving Gordian Knots. However, true and masterful usage of riddles is rare even within Fantasy literature.
Riddles in Fantasy:
On that note, those Fantasy authors who do employ concept of riddles will 99% employ Riddle Games as its main element. J.R.R. Tolkien hosts a famous one between Bilbo and
Gollum in The Hobbit, the stake being Bilbo's life and freedom.
In The Grey King, the third book of Susan Cooper's fantasy sequence The Dark is Rising, Will and Bran must win a Riddle Game to gain a...special power necessary for the Light in their war against the Dark.
A sphinx appeared in the third task in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, guarding the final trophy. To get past, one must answer a riddle about a spider.
In Stephen King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands and The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass,
the ka-tet must riddle against Blaine the Mono in order to save their
lives. (Of course, seeing as I have read neither of these books, this is
only a secondhand account).
But, in my not entirely humble opinion, no Fantasy author makes better use of riddles than Patricia A. McKillip in her books The
Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Riddle-Master trilogy.
Here is an (easy) riddle I created:
What plays with words and logic, yet never tells
a lie = ?
Actual History:
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| Ancient Greek Sphinx from Delphi |
"Good riddles do, in general, provide us with satisfactory metaphors;
for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a good riddle can furnish a
good metaphor." - Aristotle
Indeed,
riddles and Riddle Games are not mere tools, mere elements, of mythology and
Fantasy literature alone. Professor Archer Taylor of Pennsylvania, a seminal
proverb and riddle scholar and folklorist, says that "we can probably say
that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of
different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, Native American, Chinese,
Russian, Dutch and Filipino sources amongst many others. Riddles have been characterized
as one of the most important forms of oral art in Africa.
In the assessment of
Elli Köngas Maranda (originally writing about Malaitian riddles, but with an
insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and
establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing with conceptual
boundaries and crossing them for the intellectual pleasure of showing that
things are not quite as stable as they seem" –
though the point of doing so
may still ultimately be to "play with boundaries, but ultimately to
affirm
them." A perfect example of this is the Riddle of the Sphinx, arguably
the world's most famous riddle (indeed, I cannot begin to tell you how
many times children have given it in an attempt to stump me).
The Riddle of the Sphinx is: What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three in the evening?
The
answer is a human, because a human being walks on all fours in early
life, on two legs as an adult and with a walking stick in old age. Of
course, arms and canes are hardly legs, but they functionally act like
them, thus proving Elli Köngas Maranda's point. Also and on a side note, Sphinxes are famous in world mythology for their riddles – as well as their annoying habit of killing those who fail to answer – making them a sort of mascot for the art of riddlery.
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When people ask how I fashion riddles, this is the answer
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According
to Archer Taylor, "the oldest recorded riddles are Babylonian school
texts which show no literary polish," such as the riddle:
My knees hasten, my feet do not rest, a shepherd without pity drives me to pasture = ?
I,
personally, disagree with him as, per my own Riddle Maker mind, I judge
the above riddle as perfectly respectable. My only grievance is that the answer was not preserved! AUGH!!
"Eyes see only what is possible. A trained mind can explore the impossible." - Magic: the Gathering
"The worthy shall cultivate a nimble mind to perceive the glorious wonders that await them." - Magic: the Gathering
Principles of Riddle Mastery
Types of Riddles:
Experience has led me to the conclusion that there are four basic types of riddles: Logic, Wordplay, Scenario, and Combination.
Logic – The most common form of riddle; generally describes something in a new way that, while telling the truth, makes it difficult to guess what the thing is.
Example: A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure
inside is hid = egg
Wordplay – Less common but still widely used (and, for me, harder to make), wordplay riddles are generally word puzzles that have the answer somehow concealed within the riddle. In effect, instead of trying to describe the answer itself, it describes how it is spelled. As these tend to vary more in construction, I will provide two examples.
Example: My first is always behind you, my second is a group of wolves = backpack
Example: What has two lips, but no mouth = a tulip flower
Scenario –
Still common, at least among kids, but of a very different makeup.
Typically they are a description of a puzzling situation and the person
trying to solve it must figure out how and why it occurred. (This is the
one type of riddle I do not deal in; too cumbersome to make and solve,
in my opinion).
Example: A
man leaves home. He makes three left turns. He returns home and finds
two masked men. Who are the masked men? Answer = The umpire and the
catcher (i.e. the man is playing baseball)
Combination – A riddle that combines the principles of any of the aforementioned types.
Example (Wordplay/Scenario): One
(k)night, a king and a queen went to bed in their room. No one came in
and no one
went out. In the morning the king and the queen were tied up. Who tied
them up? Answer = The knight (this riddle for obvious reasons requires
being told aloud rather than written)
Example (Logic/Wordplay): I am a fraction and far away = apart (i.e. a fraction is "a part" of something, and to be far away from something or someone is to be apart from them)
? – A hypothetical fifth type of riddle. I list this because my students have twice now attempted to create a new type that is fully distinct from the others. With limited success, as to do such a thing would basically require isolating a new way of thinking that is flexible enough to be written.
Noam, a student who became my equal in Riddle Making, came closest in creating a new Type, one which we dubbed Exemplar, which, to quote him, "is like a combination of Logic, Wordplay and Scenario. It is giving an example of the word using the words and letters."
Example: A white inspected weighs a ton = Backwards (because every word starts with a letter that is the same forwards as it is backwards.)
Well thought out, to be sure, the issue being we were unsure how would one use this new Type to make a riddle where the answer is a physical object; fire, for instance, or a sea shell. Until this is resolved, Exemplar will remain more of a prototype than Type. Still, as Noam pointed out, its elements could be merged with others to create solid albeit very difficult riddles. Call it a work in progress and, again, it is more than I or any other students of mine have come up with to date.
Knowledge – This is not actually a type of riddle, more of a sub-type, yet it needed to be addressed somewhere and this seems the best place. Regardless of type, all riddles should be solvable using only common knowledge; things children know enough about to recognize and describe. Knowledge riddles are riddles that requires what I like to call special (or uncommon) knowledge. I generally avoid them since posing a riddle the prospective Solver(s) does not know enough to solve is both unfair and, to the Solver(s), annoying. If I have a Knowledge riddle I really want to tell then I will carefully feel my After-school students or campers out via casual conversation to ascertain if they have the necessary learning and, if not, may teach them myself also per casual conversation a few days in advance.
Example: I wither flowers, lift birds’ wings, and make you not want to do certain things = heat (The issue with this one is that not everyone knows that warm air rises, much less that birds take advantage of the fact.)
Math – Call this a type if you will, because it technically is, but I never even mention it to my students (much less use it) because, frankly put, the difference between Math riddles and regular math problems is largely academic. Largely yet not entirely, as some riddles, typically Scenario but occasionally Logic, have a mathematical element to it. Point of order, I do not consider this a true, fully-fledged, type of riddle, so on the rare occasions I employ them I name them logic puzzles.
Example: If Mary has seven daughters, and each has a brother, how many kids does Mary have? = eight (one boy and seven girls)
Example: Twenty you have, top and bottom = nails (ten fingernails, and ten toenails)
"A riddle is nothing more than a trap for small minds, baited with the promise of understanding." - Magic: the Gathering
Riddle ranking-system:
Doing
anything for years naturally leads ones to take measurements of
skill-requirements needed for certain level, so just as chemistry is
considered a harder form of science compared to others, I measure my
riddles per these ranks:
Easy –
Simple riddles that have a token of complexity but can be solved fairly
quickly by 1st-2nd graders. These are typically Logic
riddles, as I never even introduce Wordplay riddles until a person or group has proven themselves with Middle-ranking Logic ones. Typically I use these to introduce 1st-2nd graders to Riddle Mastery since, for them, they will be hard enough to pose a challenge without taking so long to solve that they lose interest.
Example: When alive I am green, when I die I am brown, when I live I stay up, when I die I fall down = leaf
Lower Middle-ranking – Those comparatively harder easy riddles that serve as a bridge to more sophisticated ones, employing more complex language that requires a greater degree of creative thinking to solve. In short, simple riddles that can no longer quite be accurately called easy.
Example: I have no voice yet all can hear me, and I am only around when the ceiling is grey = thunder
Middle-ranking – The
most common level of riddle and, for me, the easiest to make.
Sophisticated enough in wording, playing with words and logic, to pose a
challenge to most for several hours. I typically use these to judge a
person's (3rd grade to adult) skill in riddle-solving.
Example: What can’t you keep until you give = a promise / your word
Upper Middle-ranking –
These riddles are, as their name implies, a step above Middle-rankng, yet not quite matching the more complex wording and sophistication of the Hard rank. I use these as the bridge between them, giving Upper Middle-ranking riddles to those who have proven themselves in Middle-ranking, though sometimes the distinction between the two is blurred.
Example: Only one color, but not one size; stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies; present in sun, but not in rain; doing no harm, and feeling no pain = a shadow
Hard – These are typically a couple steps above
Middle-ranking, being of more complex wording that requires the riddle-solver to think more creatively and/or outside the box while often having slightly
less obvious answers. They are, in short, openly and purposefully hard.
Example:
You saw me where I never was and where I could not be. And yet within
that very place, my face you often see = a mirror reflection
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Riddles in the Dark; one of the Fantasy
genre's most iconic riddle games. I judge all
of Tolkien's riddles to rank from
Upper Middle-ranking to Master. |
Master – Few
and far between are these riddles, both in terms of people able to make
as well as solve them; even I have very few. As the name implies, only
true master Riddle-solvers can answer these, and often only after hours
of
thought, for they require one to truly think outside of the box. Hence as a
rule I only pose these to experienced Riddle-solvers: people who have
successfully answered plenty of Middle-ranking riddles at minimum. The example below is a Master Wordplay one.
Example: When
you take away some of me, I remain whole = Wholesome
Sovereign-class – Formerly (and unimaginatively) called Above-Master, the sub-levels of this difficulty rank are listed below:
Grandmaster –
Answering one of these puts you in the riddle-solver hall of fame.
Always Combination riddles (at least all of mine are), these can be
counted on the finger of one hand and are almost never solved even by
those who can answer Master-ranked ones. I
have told my Grandmaster riddle to 1000+ people for over 15 years now, yet fewer than 80 have
ever solved it and most of them took several days if not weeks or months to do so.
Example: ---- (Sorry, but I am not posting it here. I never torment people with riddle interminably, so to post my prime Grandmaster here would necessitate posting the answer too.)
Championmaster – A couple long steps above Grandmaster, these are those insane riddles that are a hair's breath away from being
unsolvable. Hard enough to make Grandmasters look simple, my single riddle of this kind has only been solved barely twenty times, and most of the time by two or more Solvers working as a team. As an illustration of the difficulty level, it was first solved by
then-in-middle-school siblings Chloe and Heather, each of whom
individually was a Master Riddle-solver and it took them, working together, a full week to
solve it; and the first to solve it alone was the then-elementary-schooler Master Riddle-maker
and Solver named Noam, and it took him weeks. In fact, I only created the
Championmaster because my
friend Devin, who had solved the Grandmaster, challenged me to make a
harder one.
Example: ---- (Sorry,
but today I only tell this riddle to those very select few who solve my
Grandmaster. I do not do this to be cruel, rather the reverse as no one who has not solved the Grandmaster has a prayer at solving this one.)
Ultimatemaster –
Those beyond insane riddles that are half a hair's breath away from being
unsolvable. History repeats itself here, for just as I only created the
Championmaster because one who solved the Grandmaster challenged me to make a
harder one, I made the Ultimatemaster at Noam's request who, as stated above, was the first to solve the Championmaster solo. This riddle pulls out all the stops plus a few more that by rights should not have existed in the first place. That said, and to my utter shock, Noam managed to solve it.
Example: ---- (Sorry,
but today I only tell this riddle to those barest few who solve my Championmaster or both my Grandmaster and Adeptmaster.)
Adeptmaster? Yes, like many devout readers and writers of Fantasy, I have an incurable love for giving titles to things, though this actually had and has pragmatic reasoning behind it. Since for so long my first Grandmaster Riddle was the only riddle above Master-rank I possessed, "the Grandmaster Riddle" became its title in my mind in addition to its rank. So when I started making other riddles above Master I gave them names to distinguish them, which helped both me and my students (continue reading to learn more about methodology for teaching riddle mastery in an educational setting) remember which was which. Bottom line? I give any riddle above Master a name. To date I have a Highmaster, Archmaster, Apprenticmaster and an Adeptmaster, all Combination Logic/Wordplay riddles. I deem them all at approximately Grandmaster level, some a tad higher and some lower, but all harder than Master-rank and easier than Championmaster. Noam created one he names his Suprememaster, which could be Championmaster level, but I was not there long enough to see it tested. As to the Adeptmaster, it is the Grand's younger cousin, having been made by a camper named Jacob at a summer camp I once taught at and that until very recently had never been solved (though this means only so much as I rarely tell it). It was first solved by a sixth grader named Maddie, who stunningly managed it inside of fifteen minutes and in doing so proved that it was solvable (which I had begun to doubt after even Noam failed to unravel it). Anyway, these harder than Master-ranked riddles were so rare that it was only during the Day of Swiftest Solving that I decided to name them Sovereign-class riddles (because let's face it, Above-Master as a difficulty rank sounds terrible).
Mythicmaster – History has a habit of repeating itself, eh? Perhaps that is why many view time as a great wheel endlessly turning. Well, when eleven of my sixth graders solved the Ultimatemaster and were banging their heads fruitlessly on the below Eldermaster, I decided to do what I told Noam and his counterparts was beyond my skill: to make a riddle above the Ultimate (I hope). Thus was the Mythicmaster born, which has been solved six times, the first by 6th graders Rosa and Olivia, though it took them, working together, two weeks to solve it. Point of order, the Mythic ended up more the Ultimate's equal than a level above, but it requires a completely different way of thinking to solve, its own name, and a place on the ladder, so...
Example: ---- (This is getting repetitive; and redundant. I only tell this riddle to those who solve my Ultimatemaster.)
Divinemaster – The limit of my riddle-making abilities. Made not only because history repeated itself but because I got an idea for how to make a riddle of almost unprecedented difficulty. It was first solved by Rosa and Olivia working together.
Example: ---- (This is getting repetitive; and redundant; and predictable. I only tell this riddle to those who solve my Mythicmaster.)
Eldermaster – Whoever thinks elementary schoolers are not clever enough to create fiendishly difficult riddles never met my old After-school students since Noam
and two others, Jay and Ren, created this monster
around the time Noam solved the Ultimatemaster (they started working on
it prior, but finished after). A
triple Combination riddle, with elements of Logic, Wordplay, and
Scenario. What can I say at this point about difficulty? A neuron away
from unsolvable? Regardless, the riddle works even if only a confirmed
genius has the barest chance of solving it, and those few who solve the Ultimate, Mythic, and Divine look at it with despair, the classic line I hear from them being "I do not even know where to start." Truth be told, I kept it more as a monument to the skill and dedication of my After-schoolers, a model as to what a triple-compo riddle looks like, and a reminder to my current students that there is always a bigger fish and higher mountain. Until, on 3/10/2023, it was solved by Riddle Masters Olivia, Cassidy, Rosa, and Maeve all working together. Teaching me to never EVER underestimate my students, and stunning me so to the degree that my body was literally trembling (a fact the solvers commented on). Needless to say the four were euphoric as a mountain climber conquering Everest against all expectations, even their own; trust me, you have never seen children more radiant with happiness and accomplishment. Later, on 5/5/2023, it solved again by the combined efforts of Riddle Masters, Natanya, Lotte, and Alexandra. The first to solve it solo, on 5/17/2023, was Riddle Master Connor. The fastest to solve it solo – in less than a day – on 6/1/2023, was Riddle Master Saibya. So how hard is the Eldermaster? It took three Master Makers to create, and has only been solved 7 times in total, always by the most elite Master Solvers with over six months of experience and most of the Sovereign-class riddles under their belt.
Example: ---- (The makers of this riddle told me in no uncertain terms that it is not mine to reveal, making me promise to tell it only to those who, at minimum, solve my Championmaster. A vow I honor to this day.)
Types of Riddle Masters:
Now one often hears the term riddle master used to describe those who excel in the art of Riddle Games. But I judge the title differently because, while I have often been called a riddle master, I, paradoxically, am atrocious at solving riddles myself. Hence I say that there are two kinds of Riddle Masters: the Riddle-solver and the Riddle-maker, the latter of whom creates riddles. Naturally one can be both, but if not, then it is the riddle-makers' task to train the riddle-solvers' in answering, and the riddle-solvers' task to challenge the riddle-makers' in creating as well as test new riddles. Neither can truly flourish without the other.
I,
of course, am a Riddle-maker and have trained all those interested in
both the skills of Solving and Making – for to be one allows a unique
perspective as to the other and, in my experience, riddle-makers are the
rarer of the two kinds of Masters. That said, and also paradoxically,
it is easier to learn to become a Riddle-maker than it is a Solver. Why
else would I, after over a decade, still be terrible at solving?
As
to the question of how one becomes a Riddle Master, the answer is, like
with any title, the ability to back it up. To quote J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, "A king is he that can hold his own or else his title is vain," so naturally the same applies for Riddle Masters. For Master Makers this is
comparatively easy as one need only produce one’s list of created
riddles; no one has ever questioned my claim to the title on seeing my Riddle Sheet with 400+ riddles and their answers. As
for Master Solvers, they need merely demonstrate their skill by
correctly answering the lion’s share of the riddles posed to them or
by solving a Grandmaster level riddle. Mind you that
situations vary. What happens when someone who had answered few riddles
correctly manages to solve several Hard and even a couple Master-ranked
ones? Sounds improbable, yet I have seen it happen. What do I do?
It varies. But I do know that I grant for all to hear the Master Solver title
on anyone who solves my Grandmaster Riddle, for obvious reasons.
Then, of course, there is the third type of Riddle Master: A Riddle-teacher, who is adept at getting others excited about and teaching Riddle Mastery. Anyone, be they Maker or Solver, can do this, though I generally I deem it easier for Makers since then one is less likely to run out of riddles. For the details on how to become a Master Teacher and Master Maker respectively, continue reading until you reach the Methodology for teaching Riddle Mastery in an Educational setting and How to become a Riddle-maker links (or scroll down now if you are too impatient to read a few more very short paragraphs).
Riddle-maker (and teacher) Philosophy
It
occurs to me that Inquiry Teaching is synonymous with my Riddle-maker Philosophy. To expand young minds, those minds must find the answer
themselves and with limited hints.
It can either be found by, or given to you, when found you understand it, when given you might not = ?
Designing a curriculum is also akin to making a Riddle; working
backwards, first you think of what you want to teach and then how to
teach it.
As Patricia A. McKillip, author of The
Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Riddle-Master
trilogy says, "When caught between the riddle and its answer there is
no freedom," which is exactly why Inquiry Teaching has proven to be such
an effective method of teaching children (who, in my experience, are
the best riddle-solvers). Furthermore, not only are children typically the best riddle-solvers, they, at least in my experience, more often than not become addicted to them and subsequently develop great respect for the riddle-maker.
A riddle is a tale so familiar you no longer recognize it
Sadly
I have had to separate the remaining content of this page onto separate
mini-pages since having it all together on this one page makes, for
reasons I do not know, editing this page slows down my computer. See the
link below for the rest of what I have to say regarding Riddle Mastery:
Now
I can hear you saying, “this is all very interesting, Ian, but why did
you start inventing riddles? You must have had a bunch already created
before you worked at day-camps because otherwise you would have been
unable to pose them to campers.” Quite right. As an avid fan of the
Fantasy genre, I grew up with something of a fascination for riddles,
courtesy of the iconic riddle-contest between Bilbo Baggins and Gollum.
Hardly unique, true, and yet I soon ran into a problem: everyone knew
Tolkien’s riddles. Then there was the Arthur show on PBS Kids, namely
the episode "Arthur and the Big Riddle" where Arthur gets a spot on the
gameshow Riddle Quest. These riddles were naturally of a simpler, albeit
still challenging, nature (meant for sharp children to guess), and yet
they only worked on the show because the characters did not know the
answers beforehand from prior experience. I repeat, “did not know and
could not look up.”
Therein
lies the crux of the matter: Riddle-telling and solving had become
meaningless because all riddles had become public knowledge or could be
Googled in a heartbeat. Do you know how many people I told the Riddle of
the Sphinx to upon first learning it? Dozens. All my friends. Do you
know how many of them already knew it? Dozens. Most of my friends. Where
was the fun? Nowhere, so I let my interest rot. Then, when I was around
eleven-years old, came one of those ordinary days that ends up shaping
so much more. It was a chilly Autumn day and I was sitting on the
swing-set in the playground across the street from our apartment,
talking to my younger sister and one of her friends who somewhere along
the way had become my friend too. Then out the blue they asked me to
tell them a riddle. So, looking around, I tried to think up a good one.
“When alive I am green, when I die I am brown, when I live I stay up,
when I die I fall down,” I said, and they swiftly got the answer: leaf.
Yet it was a new riddle. They had never heard it before for I had
literally made it up right then. Then they asked me for another riddle, I
made up one for fire, and the cycle continued with me looking around
for inspiration and racking my brain for ways to make the riddles rhyme
if possible. Soon I had created just short of a dozen and, realizing
that I would never be able to remember them all, went back inside and
typed them all out on a sheet called Sayings and Riddles (for I
also included my favorite quotes). Thus a new hobby was born: me looking
around the house and nature for objects or concepts they would make
good answers, and then devising (hopefully rhyming) riddles to match
them.
Is this everything I know about Riddle Mastery? No, but it is most of it. What few secrets I have left relate purely to Riddle-teaching and are the the type best learned from experience. Is there an overall lesson one would learn from these untold things? Naturally, that being that sometimes a Riddle Master has to break their own rules in the interest of fairness and unforeseen (and unfortunate) circumstances. I keep specific examples of this hidden simply because if my students learned I had made exceptions in the past some would beg all the more insistently for one to be made for them. Which wraps up most everything I have to say save that finally and again,
the reason why I do not post the riddles I make is because the whole
reason I make them in the first place is so riddle-solvers cannot look
up the answers on the internet. Hence posting them here on Stars Uncounted would be counterproductive.
Beware another riddle master
(What does this mean? Heh. Several of my students always note that these words are marked in the header on every page of my Riddle Sheet and ask what they mean too. My answer? That I hope they never find out. Though ironically my teaching riddles to so many and encouraging others to do the same makes it all the more likely that they will. Call the answer a personally annoying overall blessing if you want, though perhaps I am just oversensitive. With luck they will run into the issue and not consider it a problem or annoying.)
A private message to my former students:
Greetings my friends!
If you are a former student of mine and are asking how can I possibly give you a private message on a public blog then you are absolutely correct. I have therefore written it on a separate page accessible via this link; it is password protected, and password is the answer to the Grandmaster Riddle – which I trust you all remember. The first letter is lowercase. If you write it in uppercase it will deny you access and tell you "the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist."
Best,
Ian Adler
But, in my not entirely humble opinion, no Fantasy author makes better use of riddles than Patricia A. McKillip in her books The
Forgotten Beasts of Eld and The Riddle-Master trilogy.
Feel free to visit my site as well.
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