Character. A character is a person or animal who takes part in the action of a literary work. The main character is called the protagonist. A character who struggles against the main character is called an antagonist. Characters can also be classified as major characters or minor characters. Two major characters in The Hobbit are Bilbo Baggins and a creature named Gollum.

• History Connection. In the past, riddles were often seen as important and serious. In ancient Greece, priests and priestesses called oracles spoke in puzzling riddles. The messages were so confusing that other holy people had to explain what each one meant. People thought that the gods were speaking through the oracles in these strange words. In Greek mythology, there was a creature called a Sphinx. This creature had a woman’s head, a lion’s body, a snake’s tail, and a bird’s wings. It terrorized the city of Thebes by posing a riddle to everyone who passed by and killing those who could not answer it. Here is the riddle: what has one voice and becomes four-footed, two-footed, and three-footed? A man named Oedipus finally answered the riddle. The answer is this: a person, because a person crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two feet when grown, and uses two feet and a cane when old. When the Sphinx heard Oedipus, it became enraged that someone knew the answer, and it threw itself off a high rock to its death.

If you could do magic, what one magical skill would you choose to have? Why?