Vikram and Betal Stories for Kids: 5 Riddle Stories with Answers

Of all the story collections of old India, none is built more cleverly than Vikram and Betal. Every story ends with a riddle. The listener has to stop and think before hearing the answer. And the whole collection hangs on one rule that makes children sit up: if the king knows the answer and stays silent, his head will burst into a thousand pieces.

These tales come from a very old Sanskrit collection called the Vetala Panchavimshati, the twenty-five tales of the vetala, a kind of spirit. A version of it appears in the Kathasaritsagara, the great eleventh-century collection of stories compiled by Somadeva in Kashmir, and the Hindi retelling known as Baital Pachisi made it famous across North India. The king is traditionally identified with the legendary King Vikramaditya. These are legends, and the king of the stories is a figure of legend too.

How the stories begin

A wandering ascetic came to King Vikram and asked a strange favour: on a dark night, go to the cremation ground, cut down a body hanging from an old tree, and carry it back to me in silence. Vikram, brave and true to his word, agreed. But the body was possessed by Betal, a vetala, who was clever, talkative and full of mischief.

As Vikram walked with Betal on his shoulder, Betal said: the road is long, so let me tell you a story. At the end of each story he asked a riddle, and warned: if you know the answer and do not speak, your head will burst. But the moment Vikram spoke, he broke his silence, and Betal flew straight back to his tree. So the king had to go back and start again, and the next story began.

1. Who is the true husband?

A beautiful young woman had three suitors, and her father could not decide among them. Then, suddenly, she fell ill and died. The first suitor, heartbroken, gathered her bones and went on a pilgrimage to immerse them in the sacred Ganga. The second built a hut at the cremation ground and lived there beside her ashes. The third wandered the world in grief, and on his travels learned a mantra that could bring the dead back to life. He returned, recited it, and the young woman rose up alive. Now all three claimed her.

Riddle: which of the three should be her husband? Vikram answered: the one who brought her back to life gave her life, as a father does. The one who carried her bones did the duty of a son. The one who stayed beside her ashes, loving her faithfully, acted as a husband. So he should marry her. Vikram had spoken, and Betal flew back to the tree.

Ask your child: do you agree with Vikram? Many children argue for the third suitor, and that is a good argument to have.

2. The swapped heads

A young woman was travelling with her husband and her brother. They stopped at a temple of the goddess. Overcome by devotion, the husband went into the shrine and, in a moment of terrible zeal, offered his own head. Her brother followed him in and did the same. When the woman found them, she was about to give up her own life too. The goddess appeared, stopped her and said: put their heads back on their bodies, and they will live.

In her haste and grief, the woman put her husband’s head on her brother’s body, and her brother’s head on her husband’s body. Both men came back to life. Riddle: which one is now her husband? Vikram answered: the one with her husband’s head, because the head is the chief part of a person, where their mind and identity live.

Children find this riddle delightfully puzzling. Ask yours: what makes you you, your face, your body, or your mind?

3. Who is the most delicate?

A king had three queens, each famous for being delicate. One day, as the first queen played in the garden, a lotus petal fell on her foot and bruised it. That evening, the second queen walked in the moonlight, and the moonbeams raised blisters on her skin. And that night, the third queen heard the thud of a pestle pounding grain far away in the town, and blisters appeared on her hands.

Riddle: which queen was the most delicate? Vikram answered: the third. The first two were hurt by something that actually touched them, a petal and the moonlight. The third was hurt by a sound alone, by something that never touched her at all.

This is a funny one. It is also a good story for talking about how reasoning works: Vikram did not choose by feeling; he compared the evidence.

4. The four brothers and the lion

Four brothers set out to learn a special skill each. When they met again, they wanted to show off what they had learned. In a forest they found the bones of a dead lion. The first brother arranged the bones into a skeleton. The second covered it with flesh and skin. The third was about to give it life. The fourth, who had not gone very far in his studies but had plenty of common sense, said: stop, it is a lion! When no one listened, he climbed a tree. The third brother breathed life into the lion, which promptly ate the three of them.

Riddle: which brother was the most foolish? Vikram answered: the one who gave the lion life, because he had the knowledge to do it but not the wisdom to see what would happen. A very similar story, the lion-makers, also appears in the Panchatantra, a good example of how stories travelled between collections.

Ask your child: what is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?

5. The riddle Vikram could not answer

In the last story of the traditional collection, a king and his son were out walking and saw two sets of footprints, one small and one large, left by two women. They agreed that the father would marry the woman with the larger feet, and the son the woman with the smaller feet. But the larger footprints belonged to the daughter, and the smaller to her mother. So the father married the daughter, and the son married the mother. In time, both couples had children.

Riddle: how are those children related to each other? Vikram thought and thought, and could not work it out. So, for the first time, he stayed silent. His head did not burst, because he truly did not know the answer. Betal was so impressed with the king’s honesty that he revealed a secret: the ascetic who had sent Vikram planned to harm him. Warned in time, Vikram defeated the ascetic, and Betal was freed.

Vikram won in the end not because he knew every answer, but because he was honest about the one he did not know.

How to tell Vikram and Betal stories

Use the frame every time: the dark night, the old tree, the heavy body on the shoulder, the voice of Betal. Children love the ritual of it. Then, at the end of each story, stop. Ask the riddle and let your child answer before you tell them what Vikram said. You will find that children often disagree with the king, and their reasons can be very good.

Stories like these, which stop and ask the listener to think, are at the heart of our live storytelling classes, where children discuss, debate and then retell them in their own words. If you would like your child to learn storytelling with a mentor, enquire about our classes through the Book a Class page; fees are listed on our Pricing page.