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Fox, goose, and grain

Published , last checked . Re-solved cold against the published wording before it went live: how puzzles and answers are checked.

Get a fox, a goose, and a sack of grain across the river without anyone eating lunch early. From the free puzzle set on Think Fanny. Next try Three switches, one bulb.

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The puzzle

A farmer needs to cross a river with a fox, a goose, and a sack of grain. The boat holds the farmer plus only one other thing.

If left alone together, the fox eats the goose, and the goose eats the grain. The fox will not eat the grain.

How does the farmer get everything across safely?

How old this puzzle actually is

This one is neither ours nor new. A version of it sits in a Latin problem collection attributed to Alcuin of York, written around the year 800, which is why the wording here is rewritten rather than borrowed:

If one of these contradicts the answer above, we would rather hear it than not. See how puzzles and answers are checked.