A Puzzle

March 16, 2009

It’s been ages, sorry!  In my defence, I was going to write a review of a book I’m reading, but then the essays got on top of me and I haven’t finished it yet… so in the meantime, here, have a puzzle.  Answer shortly, i.e. next time it’s my turn, probably along with something a bit political because that’s always exciting.

Some people who’ve known me since the beginning of time may recognise this, I wrote it way back when.

One night, a very long time ago, it happened that five of the more famous Knights of the Round Table were eating and drinking their favourite foods, all of which were different (well, they were knights.  They could afford to be fussy) while sitting at a smaller, similarly round table with five seats numbered one to five clockwise around the circle so that the knight in place number five was sat next to the knights in place numbers four and one.

The knight seated in place number five, however, was approached part way through the meal by a messenger who whispered something to him.  He reportedly went pale and refused to eat another bite.

The only problem is, as problems are wont to arise in situations such as these (they make the whole thing more interesting, I think), that Morgan le Fay, or someone with similar powers of uncalled-for malevolence, has put an as yet unbreakable spell on the knights so that they do not know where they were sitting, or what they were eating.  Instead, the following clues were left:

The five knights were:
Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain, Bedivere and Kay

The five foods were:
Veal, boar, beef, venison and rabbit

The five drinks were:
Red wine, mead, white wine, cider and beer

CLUE NUMBER ONE:
No two people eating meat with the same initial (e.g. boar/beef etc) are sat next to each other, nor are the two people drinking wine.  Galahad and Gawain were not sat next to each other.

CLUE NUMBER TWO:
The mead drinker ate venison and the person who ate veal sat in place number four.  The red wine and cider drinkers were not sat next to each other, but either side of Galahad.  Gawain drank the beer, but not with beef.  Kay did not drink white wine.

CLUE NUMBER THREE:
Galahad, who was in place number one, did not drink wine; Lancelot, who was sat next to him, ate a whole roast boar by himself, amazing one of his neighbours who dined relatively lightly that evening on rabbit and a rather fine wine.

QUESTION:  Who was in place number five and what did they eat/drink?  (From the clues you can get all the other ones as well, if you happen to have a few extra minutes!)

*JUST A WARNING – DON’T LOOK AT THE COMMENTS UNLESS YOU’VE GIVEN UP ENTIRELY AND WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER!*

5 Responses to “A Puzzle”

  1. Amblina Says:

    Kay, with red wine eating beef? *crosses fingers*

  2. clessidra Says:

    It was, yes! How long did it take you, could I possibly ask? (Just interested to compare times…)

  3. elnumbre Says:

    I can’t remember lol I just sat down and wrote it down on paper probably longer than you, I’m crap at these things :P

  4. Flitterbee Says:

    I love these! It took me between 5 – 10 mins with a self-constructed cross-referencing table (yeah, I have too much time on my hands) to give:

    5 – Kay, Beef, Red Wine
    4 – Gawain, Veal, Beer
    3 – Bedivere, Rabbit, White Wine
    2 – Lancelot, Boar, Cider
    1 – Galahad, Venison, Mead

    Is that right? I’m impressed that you wrote it yourself! Any more up your sleeve? I like this site.

  5. clessidra Says:

    That is right, well done! It’s surprisingly not too hard to write a logic puzzle, you do need a referencing table though and you just have to work backwards filling in absolutely everything you can as you go along – it’s the wording that’s the difficult bit! They are so much fun to do though aren’t they… I have one or two more somewhere, but it’s been several years since I wrote them so as yet I have no idea where I put them… *sigh* to be continued though. Thanks very much!
    xx

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