Riddles in the Dark of Exilian

[Jubal]

The first time I looked at this, I started at it for ages without any idea at all, then it clicked, I think it's:

Spoiler

Oil?

Particularly liking the refined vs crude line

[justatoady]

Yup you got it 

Spoiler

Haha I wondered if polite was a close enough synonym for crude...

[Jubal]

Yay! My turn again I guess...

I need no food to keep me strong,
My belly's big, my one arm long,
My hat is hard, my bottom tough,
I drink and I eat, and that's enough,
For food I'm given; I give the same,
So tell me, can you guess my name?

[comrade_general]

Spoiler

Is it like a stove or something?

[Ierne]

have to admit to being inspired by the above guess, but to be precise, is it a

Spoiler

cooking pot?

[Jubal]

CG along the right lines, but Ierne is right - I was thinking specifically a saucepan (hence one arm, and a "hat" being the lid).

Right, Ierne, your turn to try riddle writing I guess!

[comrade_general]

Penis.

[Ierne]

i've never written a riddle before and may have made this waaay too hard, but here goes:

i was a god once
until you made me an enemy and a thing of riducule
men run from me in terror
but children hold me close
i search for warm places and sweet things
you sing to keep me at bay
when you find me you do not want me
but you are frightened that one day i might never come back

[Jubal]

My first thought is

Spoiler

A bear, which seems to fit most lines, especially the men run and children hold me close bit. I can't think of any bear deities and I'm not sure about the singing bit though.

[comrade_general]

Jubla is probably right but I'm going to try another way and say

Spoiler

innocence

[Clockwork]

My first thought is

Spoiler

A bear, which seems to fit most lines, especially the men run and children hold me close bit. I can't think of any bear deities and I'm not sure about the singing bit though.

Spoiler

singing is the advice given to walkers as it's thought bears only attack people they accidentally bump into, singing lets the bears know where you are so they'll avoid you. From my anime-ing, Ainu is a bear god

[Ierne]

Jubal got it right first, but Clockwork is spot on about singing if you are hiking The Ainu do have a bear god, as do the Sami (and there are probably others I don't know about, given how frequently bears appear in mythology as magical beings).

[comrade_general]

I hate rittles.

[Jubal]

My comparative mythology evidently needs improvement, and I didn't know the singing thing at all. Hats off on those ones. 

Let's see how you find this one (I think this may be an "easy but the poem is nice" one, but I may be wrong):

Within this court they say
A hundred servant lads are found,
Their messages a-carrying,
All told without a sound;
And all of them, yes all of them,
Within three walls are bound.

[Ierne]

right, I have an idea that's probably wrong, but I'm gonna say it anyway just in case:

Spoiler

all i can think of is neurons carrying messages in the brain. no idea how the three walls would come into that though.