Hear that jingly pitter-patter overhead? That’s the sound of revelations about to come down your chimney.
And you’ve earned them. Respondents to our latest round of local riddles, this time spiked like punch with Christmas theming, did the best of any cohort so far, averaging nearly four out of eight solutions. Two solvers, Owen M. and Mel D., went eight for eight, giving themselves the best possible odds of winning one of our gift card prizes.
Winners will be announced once Santa has had a chance to coordinate with them, but in the meantime, like Dick Powell’s boss in Christmas in July, our riddles demand an explanation.
The easiest, Riddle #1—“Shopping local at Christmastime? For toys, one store in city lines”—was intended as a stocking stuffer—a whetting of the appetite. And so it was, with 87% of respondents correctly submitting New Haven’s one proper toy store: Pebbles Toys & Gifts.
The next-easiest, Riddle #4, required a little more persistence to unwrap: “Of three big shrines to crust and toppings, just one fills dough like Christmas stockings.” Almost all respondents realized the answer must be one of New Haven’s ‘big three’ pizza places—Pepe’s, Sally’s or Modern. And after checking the menus, most of them—72% of solvers—noticed that only Modern serves stuffed bread (calzones).
Riddle #8 proved slightly harder still, though it also invoked pizza: “In red and white, his sleigh in flight, he cries out thrice: ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ For red and white—and esp. late-night—words too come sliced, with three in row.” Fortunately, 66% of contestants put three and three together and came up with Est. Est. Est., the open-late pizza place serving red and white varieties by the slice. The riddle’s odd use of “esp.,” an abbreviation for ‘especially,’ was a big clue.
60% solved Riddle #5: “Like Yuletide tree with beacon star, this ’house once steered through deep and dark.” Here, another grammatical quirk—the apostrophe before “house”—helped illuminate the answer: Five Mile Point Light, a.k.a. New Haven Harbor Lighthouse, in Lighthouse Point Park. With a tall trapezoidal profile in the basic shape of a Christmas tree, the lighthouse, active in the mid-19th century, helped guide ships into harbor, and its beacon light, echoing the traditional star-shaped tree topper, was analogous to the Biblical Star of Bethlehem that guided the three kings to the manger.
In the writing, Riddle #2—“Rephrasing the scribe of a classic Carol, ‘This road is America’s best-appareled’”—was like a Christmas present that didn’t want to squeeze into its box. Which is fitting, because the riddle pings one of literature’s all-time standouts, Charles Dickens, who not only wrote A Christmas Carol but also reportedly called our own Hillhouse Avenue “the prettiest street in America.”
48% solved that one, but only 29% cracked Riddle #3: “Artfully placed ’neath well-trimmed trees, this courtyard’s gifts are shown to please.” The courtyard in question is the Yale University Art Gallery’s Wurtele Sculpture Garden, where several large sculptures, some of them literal gifts to the museum, are shown to the public under a canopy of two historic elms.
Riddle #6—“Traveled ode to three kings’ Third? Or hail to the chief who drove our birth?”—featured a historic twosome as well, thought it proved too tough for all but 22% of respondents. The route to the answer involves identifying the riddle’s “Third” (King George III, who led the British during America’s war for independence) and “chief” (George Washington, who commanded America to victory), then determining the single present-day “ode” or “hail” that could plausibly recognize either of them: George Street. “Traveled” and “drove” were breadcrumbs to lead you in the right direction, just as George Street itself does for countless drivers every day.
In the end, it was Riddle #7—“Imbibe this bracing season’s herb, by lapping ’round its minty curb.”—that caused the most consternation. Ironically, the answer is a place that eases our troubles: Lake Wintergreen. “Bracing season’s herb,” it was hoped, would quickly lead to wintergreen, with other rippling clues to carry you the rest of the way: “imbibe” and “lapping” to signal liquid, with a nod to the lake’s history as a source of city drinking water as well as the figurative sense in which we ‘drink’ nature in; “minty” to reinforce the wintergreen lead while referencing the (admittedly manmade) lake’s relatively untouched feeling; and “lapping ’round its… curb” to mean literally moving around the edge of the lake, where a trail facilitates exactly that.
And with that, we’ll get to contacting the winners. Thanks for playing, and we’ll see you next time!
Written by Dan Mims.
