Demands joyous

Chambers thought our ancestors, with few books and no newspapers, passed long winter evenings telling old stories and putting riddles to each other. One riddle book, Demands Joyous, was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1511, and he quoted the few questions fit to print. Asked how many calves’ tails would reach from the earth to the sky, the answer was one, if it be long enough; what never was and never will be was a mouse’s nest in a cat’s ear. Another demand counted the ages of creatures, each three times the last from the field mouse up through the hedgehog, dog, horse, man, goose, swan, swallow, eagle, serpent and raven to the hart.