While on my way to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives.

Each wife had seven sacks;

Each sack had seven cats;

Each cat had seven kits.

Kits, cats, sacks, wives;

How many were going to St. Ives?

The accepted solution is one, but if you want to get technical and say that he that the traveler overtook the wives on their way to St. Ives, then you'd have to do the exponential stuff mentioned earlier.  BUT, if you are already playing semantic games with the riddle, then you could make it a little easier on yourself by disregarding the kits.  They are not mentioned as being in the sacks, only as being the offsprind of the cats.

Posted by Dave on 2005-01-19 16:24:11