Astle has written books on word puzzles and crosswords. So perhaps it was only a matter of time before he turned his attention to riddles, another form of linguistic befuddlement. The result is Riddledom: 101 Riddles And Their Stories. By discussing examples from around the world in their cultural contexts, Astle provides a potted history and a guided tour, showing how riddles are embraced around the world and used in different contexts, from simple amusement to regulation of social relationships.

"I started the book about 12 months ago," Astle says, adding he had an intense research period of about three months that took him to the National Library of Australia in Canberra, "digging up old books in the back room" as well as La Trobe University in Melbourne and making contact with various people online.

"I came to know a whole fraternity of anthropology and linguistic professors around the world."

Astle says about two-thirds of the book's contents were new to him, discovered in his research.

Not that it was all unfamiliar territory: he recounts some well-known posers and their backstories such as the riddle of the Sphinx that Oedipus solved – "What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon and three feet in the evening?") – with its fateful consequences and the riddles solved by the Prince Calaf in Puccini's opera Turandot to win the title princess's hand in marriage. And he goes into the background of some of riddledom's chestnuts, like the deathless query, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" and related subjects like knock-knock jokes, the eternal debate starter, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" and even anti-riddles with their defiantly puerile or obvious answers (example" "What's big and red and eats rocks? A big red rock eater.").

So what's the difference between a riddle and a joke? Riddles don't have to be funny, of course, whereas jokes are meant to be, but the line, as we see above, can get fuzzy. Astle says, "A joke enables the teller of the joke to hold the floor, to hold court. A riddle does that as well with the added benefit of wielding power by flexing knowledge. The teller has a moment to seize the conversational regime,"

Figuring out the answer to a riddle is a test of wits rather than knowledge and if someone can solve it he or she becomes powerful too.

This is, Astle says, explicit in some African cultures where competitive riddling is practised in a very public way, with put-downs and boasts and challenges an expected part of the ritual. And sometimes it can literally be a matter of life and death, as in the Biblical account in Judges of the Gileadites asking a captive, "Are you an Ephraimite?" and if he said no, telling him to say the word "Shibboleth" which they would pronounce "Sibboleth" – leading to their death.

This sort of thing has gone on in all cultures at all times.

"Riddles are not just wisecracks."

One of Astle's discoveries in his research was the Gwich'in people of northeast Alaska and the outer reaches of Canada. Because of a long oral history of bears charming women, luring them into their lairs, and taking them as wives, assembling bear-hunting parties was traditionally an activity men had to do by stealth and subtlety to avoid such betrayals, through a code known as gwizhii ideeridlii (wisdom that is told) and gwizhii ideegwidlii (wisdom that is performed) – questions and actions alluding to the idea of a bear hunt without actually explicitly saying so.

And there's much more to discover, including a riddle question or its answer on almost every page.

Astle says, "My love affair with words began the day I realised one word could mean many things."

When his mother said, "I feel like I'm a little hoarse" he envisaged an equine resemblance and, being what he calls "atrocious more than precocious" he devoured riddle books like the likes of Bennett Cerf and Keith Smith and spouted their punning, groan-inducing contents to anyone who would listen.

While Astle has always enjoyed riddles, he says it's only been in more recent years, and particularly with his research for the new book, he says, that he's come to realise and appreciate "just how important and how vital they are to being human".

Astle has been compiling crosswords for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald since 1983 and has been writing the latter's Wordplay column for the past five years. He's also been a regular broadcaster and presenter on ABC radio. He says he might revisit riddledom – perhaps by compiling a collection of riddles, since he's found so many of them.

Riddledom: 101 Riddles And Their Stories (Allen & Unwin, $29.95) is available now. David Astle will be speaking about the book at the National Library of Australia on October 12 at 6pm. See nla.gov.au/event/author-talk-david-astle.