Riddle time!

[Róisín]

Ran, I think your riddles are pretty good.

[RanVor]

Evidently not good enough.

[Jitter]

Too hard are boring! Yours are just right. And it’s thanks to you we have this thread in the first place!

[thorny]

Riddles so hard that nobody could get them would first be frustrating, then cause loss of interest.

And note that some of us aren't posting any at all. It's harder to come up with them than it is to solve them.

And also note that no one person has gotten the whole batch. You're dealing with a lot of different guessers who know a lot of different things; so of course the batch of us together are going to get more riddles than any one of us could alone.

[thegreyarea]

Ran, I second everything thorny and Jitter said!

I'm enjoying a lot this thread and your riddles, even if I just managed a few guesses.

[Mebediel]

Am also enjoying the riddles...if all of them are too difficult, then it gets frustrating And most of the answers that other people keep getting right are things I would never have guessed in a million years.

#7: My thunder comes before the lightning; My lightning comes before the clouds; My rain dries all the land it touches. What am I?

Okay I have literally no idea what this is so I'm going to throw spaghetti on the wall:

Spoiler: show

The thunder = my stomach when I'm hungry
the lightening = my lightening speed to eat the tasty food
The clouds = my shadow hovering over the food
My rain = mmmmmm my mouth
The land = the food
It doesn't quite work but please enjoy my attempt

[RanVor]

You see, from my perspective, harder riddles are better because they take longer to solve, meaning I don't have to spend as much time keeping track of this thread. But that's a moot point as it currently stands because even my hardest riddles get solved at a pace I simply cannot keep up with, not without spending hours every other day looking for new riddles to post. It would be easier if more people posted their own riddles, but as it is now, I might be soon forced to abandon this thread, at least for a time.

[thegreyarea]

You see, from my perspective, harder riddles are better because they take longer to solve, meaning I don't have to spend as much time keeping track of this thread. But that's a moot point as it currently stands because even my hardest riddles get solved at a pace I simply cannot keep up with, not without spending hours every other day looking for new riddles to post. It would be easier if more people posted their own riddles, but as it is now, I might be soon forced to abandon this thread, at least for a time.

Ran, just because you started it doesn't mean that you have to keep feeding it with new riddles every day. Just do that when you find some time to search for more and you are in the mood for it.

Meanwhile Jitter and Róisín had already posted some, and I'll try to find a few.

Anyway I'm sure that, however hard they are, our bunch of smart people will solve them. But that's one of the reasons for us to enjoy each other, right?

[Róisín]

One I have heard from Estonian, Finnish and oddly, Highland Scots people in various forms is:
‘Bunched up in a safe circle, curled up beneath a stone, or above the stone on a sunny day, or in a disc at the foot of a stump. Who is this?’

[Keep Looking]

‘Bunched up in a safe circle, curled up beneath a stone, or above the stone on a sunny day, or in a disc at the foot of a stump. Who is this?’

Spoiler: show

I would assume it to be a snake, personally - although I suppose that might not be such a common thing in Finland, Estonia or Scotland (isn't the only snake they have in Finland that adder that doesn't even cause serious injury? Maybe my standards for snakes are weird, because I always expect them to be deadly). Some kind of reptile, at least. I'm still going with the snake.

And Ran, I know I haven't been the most active person on this board, but your riddles are good, and the fact that you started this board is also really cool! Anyway, the speed at which they are solved is probably helped by the number of people working on them.

[JoB]

Spoiler: show

I would assume it to be a snake, personally - although I suppose that might not be such a common thing in Finland, Estonia or Scotland (isn't the only snake they have in Finland that adder that doesn't even cause serious injury? Maybe my standards for snakes are weird, because I always expect them to be deadly). Some kind of reptile, at least. I'm still going with the snake.

Spoiler: show

A bite from the common adder can kill children, elderly, or already-ill people. It's the "if left untreated for a couple days" part that's hard to come by in Europe.
FWIW, while the estimates for the number of snake species on the planet vary by more than a factor of two, the portion of snakes with venom of medical concern for humans only ranges between 1/5 and 1/4. As usual, fauna facts turn interesting when you look at Australia, of course.

[thorny]

Ran, just because you started it doesn't mean that you have to keep feeding it with new riddles every day. Just do that when you find some time to search for more and you are in the mood for it.

This, exactly.

For one thing, other people can post some. For another, if the thread goes quiet for a while from time to time when nobody's thought of anything to post, it can always be revived when somebody, whether RanVor or somebody else, does think of something. This is supposed to be fun, not work!

[Jitter]

Finland has adders, which are the only appreciably venomous animals here. In addition we have non-venomous grass snakes (Natrix natrix) and smooth snakes (Coronella austriaca), the latter of which only lives on Åland.

If it’s not a snake, is it a lizard? We have one species, the viviparous lizard (Zootoca vivipara). They are lovely!

Oh in addition to the viviparous lizard (which has a nice name in Finnish: sisilisko) we also have one species of legless lizard or slowworm (Anguis fragilis) which looks like a snake but isn’t.

[wavewright62]

One I have heard from Estonian, Finnish and oddly, Highland Scots people in various forms is:
‘Bunched up in a safe circle, curled up beneath a stone, or above the stone on a sunny day, or in a disc at the foot of a stump. Who is this?’

Man, I hate when people leave litter anywhere, but especially in natural places.  Apropos of nothing really, certainly not a stab at guessing.
And I echo the delight of others; thread necromancy recycling is delightful with such great content.

[Keep Looking]

Thanks for all the snake info, Róisín and Jitter! It's really interesting learning about the reptiles of other countries.