The manticore poses several traditional riddles in The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate. Riddles, as a form of literature, have been around for a very long time. The two most famous riddles used in this story are the riddle of the Sphinx and the riddle of Homer. They are explained below.

The Riddle of the Sphinx

The sphinx from ancient Greece was a monster who posted herself on the road to Thebes. She had the head of a woman, the body of a lion and wings like an eagle. Some accounts say she also had a serpent's tail. She asked her famous riddle to all who passed her:

What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs in the evening?

 If a traveler could not answer the riddle correctly, she killed him. Supposedly, the sphinx met her demise when Oedipus correctly solved her riddle. After her defeat, she threw herself off the mountainside and died.
Robert correctly answered the riddle of the sphinx in the book. Do you know why the answer is “man”? Click here to see the answer.

 The Riddle of Homer

Homer was one of the great ancient poets. He wrote such epic stories as The Odyssey and The Iliad. A story about Homer's death says that he went to visit the Oracle of Delphi. She told him to “beware of the riddle of youths”. Later in his life, he visited the island of Ios, the home of his mother. He passed some boys who were fishing. They posed this riddle to him: 

Those we caught, we threw away. Those we could not catch, we kept.

It is said that Homer could not come up with the answer to the riddle. This so vexed him that he spent a great deal of time trying to figure it out. He did not watch where he was going, slipped in the mud, and fell to his death. This fulfilled the prophecy of the Oracle of Delphi.

Can you figure out Homer’s riddle? Hint: It does not have anything to do with fishing. Click here to see the answer.