With an awful racket,
I change my jacket,
I change my coat and color.
I weigh much less in my new dress,
But I'm many sizes larger.

(learned at a family reunion, Bastian, Bland County, Virginia, circa 1990)

Answer will follow in a separate post.

Most of the riddles told in Appalachia today, I would guess, are the joke-riddles popular in the rest of the USA and, I suppose, in the rest of the English-speaking world. The old rhyming riddles, riddles which are not jokes but "true riddles" are still told occasionally and, once in a great while, a new one comes along. Because I haven't found it in any old collections, I suspect the riddle above is relatively new, but it has the form of the old English rhyming riddles.

Anyone else have any Appalachian riddles (or related riddles from other regions) to share?

Kent