The plough follows the ox and turns the earth over, burying every print as it goes.
It’s in a Latin puzzle book credited to Alcuin of York from around 800, and people still reach for a number.
A trick question set for schoolboys some twelve hundred years ago.
An ox pulls a plough across a field all day. How many footprints does it leave in the last furrow?
What comes along behind the ox?
The plough follows the ox and turns the earth over, burying every print as it goes.
It’s in a Latin puzzle book credited to Alcuin of York from around 800, and people still reach for a number.
Source: Alcuin of York (attributed), Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes, no. 14, c. 800