Escape from Monster

A swan sits at the center of a perfectly circular lake. At an edge of the lake stands a ravenous monster waiting to devour the swan. The monster can not enter the water, but it will run around the circumference of the lake to try to catch the swan as soon as it reaches the shore. The monster moves at 4 times the speed of the swan, and it will always move in the direction along the shore that brings it closer to the swan the quickest. Both the swan and the the monster can change directions in an instant.
The swan knows that if it can reach the lake's shore without the monster right on top of it, it can instantly escape into the surrounding forest.

How can the swan successfully escape?




Similar Riddles

A shopkeeper allows people to buy a cold drink bottle in exchange for five empty bottles. A guy had a party at home and spent 77 cold drink bottles at the party. Now he has 77 empty bottles with him.

How many bottles do you think he can buy in exchange for those 77 empty bottles?

Asked by Neha on 19 Jul 2026


In the Chess Board picture below white army is arranged. You need to add a black army on the board such that no piece is under any threat.
Note: Army comprised of 1 king, 1 queen, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, and 8 pawns.

Game of Chess

Asked by Neha on 14 Nov 2023

Solve this tricky question. You are trapped in a forest. With you, you have a gun preloaded with two bullets in it. In front of you, there is a tiger, a leopard and a jaguar.

How do you survive?

Asked by Neha on 24 Mar 2024


In one of the popular batman series movie "Batman Forever", there was a riddle that goes like "Tear me off and then scratch my head and I was red then and now I am back. Who am I?

Scratch the head

Asked by Neha on 28 Mar 2021

A woman named Maria was at the funeral of her mother. She met a nice young man that she had never seen before and after the service, they spent a bit of time together. Then she got busy and didn’t get his name or phone number before he left. She tried to find him, but no one knew who he was or how to contact him. A few weeks later, Maria’s older sister dies and the police suspect murder. Who killed the sister?

Asked by Neha on 02 Jun 2025

What does man love more than life, hate more than death or mortal strife; That which contented men desire; the poor have, the rich require; the miser spends, the spendthrift saves, and all men carry to their graves?

Asked by Neha on 15 Mar 2025


In the image below, you can see two glasses and two matchsticks.You need to move four matchsticks in such a manner that the crosses come inside the glasses. Note: you cannot move the crossed.

Fun With Matchsticks

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A tree doubled in height each year until it reached its maximum height over the course of ten years. How many years did it take for the tree to reach half its maximum height?

Asked by Neha on 07 Aug 2025

Bea Smith, Vera Bennett, Franky Doyle and Doreen Anderson were in Wentworth Prison for murder. But their behaviour in the jails is appreciated by the warden and the warden decided to give all these 4 prisoners 11 cupcakes. They all like cupcakes and they had all cupcakes in no matter of time but they do not know how many cupcakes each individual had. Therefore Bea started the conversation Bea: "Hey T-Vera, did you have more cupcakes than I had ?"Vera: "I do not know girl, Hey Franky, did you have more cupcakes than I had ?".Franky: "I do not know"Doreen replied instantly: "I know how exactly how many cupcakes each of you had?" So can you tell how many cupcakes each of them had?

Asked by Neha on 21 Jul 2026


The king of Octopuses has servants who have six, seven or eight legs. The distinguishing characteristics of the servants is that the one with seven legs always lie but the one with either six or eight legs speak the truth always.

One day, four servants meet and converse:

The black one says, 'We have 28 legs altogether.'

The green one says, 'We have 27 legs altogether.'

The yellow one says, 'We have 26 legs altogether.'

The red one says, 'We have 25 legs altogether.'


Can you identify the colour of the servant who is speaking the truth?

Servants with multiple legs

Asked by Neha on 09 Apr 2021

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There is a cryptic organization called Cicada 3301 that posts challenging puzzles online, possibly to recruit codebreakers and linguists.