The Fox, the Corn, the Goose, the Brain
For the uninitiated:
A man went on a trip with a fox, a goose, and a sack of corn. He came upon a stream that he had to cross and found a tiny boat to use to cross the stream. He could only take himself and one other – the fox, the goose, or the corn – one at a time. He could not leave the fox alone with the goose or the goose with the corn. How does he get all safely over the stream?
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My solution involves tying a string around the stern of the boat and the goose’s neck. It didn’t have to be in the boat
I mean if the actual solution relies on undisclosed factors, everything goes with this riddle.
I was at a seminar last year and they used this as a team-building icebreaker. Was surprised that nobody else already knew this beforehand.
Oh I’m sure this riddle is a beloved go-to to illustrate “thinking outside the box”.
I first came across it as a kid. My grandmother read it from a children’s comic book in Chinese to me back in the 70s I think.
You feed the corn to the goose and the goose to the fox, one trip 😉
‘Safely’ is relative.
Ah, the turducken approach.
My dad got me a bunch of logic puzzle books when I was a kid so I’ve known this one since I was very young.
I saw a variant of it in a video game (one of the Broken Sword games) where instead of fox, goose and corn, you were a constable and you were trying to get a murder suspect, witness and victim’s brother across the river.
I like the one solution I saw somewhere online (xkcd maybe?)
1. take the goose across
2. go back alone
3. take the corn across
4. Leave the fox behind
5. Why did you have a fox?