FAQ

What the heck is this?
See the "What the heck is this?" page for the background story and explanation.

No, really, what the heck is this?
This is a package for sale, consisting of one Talbert Briar Halloween pipe, one original watercolor drawing, and one original combination short story-and-riddle, printed on acid-free parchment paper and signed.  The pipe, the picture, and the story all work together to present a riddle for the buyer - What is the name of this korrigan?  Figure out the name, and the buyer will win himself a small extra goodie - a handmade tamper to match the pipe, made from sandblasted & carved antler joined to a briar tamping end and hand-signed.  I'll mail it at my expense whenever the buyer tells me the right name... WITH the explanation of how he figured it out (ie, burgle my house to find the answer if you want, but if you can't explain how you deciphered the riddle, no tamper...)

I just want to buy the pipe, I don't care about this other stuff
For the time being, it's only for sale as a package.  If the concept flops spectacularly and nobody likes it, the pipe may eventually go up for sale by itself.  I'll give it a couple months first, to gauge reactions.

I want the tamper but I can't figure out the riddle, or I don't want to bother trying to figure out the riddle. Can't I just pay for it and buy the thing extra?
No!  Well, OK, but the tamper will cost an extra 5000 euros.  Everyone has their price...
But seriously, no, the riddle is the point.  Think of it as buying a game, or a puzzle, or an Ellery Queen book, or a crossword - It's there for entertainment value.  You don't buy a puzzle because you want the finished picture, otherwise you'd just buy a picture.

You said you weren't making ANY Halloween pipes this year, what gives??!
I lied.  Or, more accurately, I left my options open.  What I wanted to do was to make something fun in October and be able to do it if I wanted to or not do it if I didn't..... without having to deal with people emailing me wanting to know where the Halloween pipes are, how many there will be, what the theme will be, how they'll be sold, etc. I wanted to have a good time, play, and be creative, without a bunch of external expectations to contend with, and the simplest way to get ths was to announce that there would be no Halloween pipes this year.  But now there's one...

What is a korrigan?
A korrigan is a creature from Breton folklore that's equivalent to a goblin, a brownie, etc - basically, creepy little buggers that live in the woods and dance among the standing stones.  There is more info in the Wikipedia entry, but they bizarrely attest that all korrigans are female, which is by no means true.  I deliberately drew my korrigan very differently from the predominant imagery of fae-things as exemplified by Brian Froud, and went for a more bizarre and alien look.

I bought it and I've had this damned thing for five years now, and still can't figure out the dratted goblin's name.  Can I just have the tamper?
Ask me again in another five years...

Can others help out?
The more the merrier, but just understand that the ONLY person who will receive the prize tamper is the buyer (or current owner) of the pipe.  If folks can figure out riddles from the material online, and feel like telling the pipe owner their answers, that's their business.  But I'll only ship the tamper until I hear, from the owner, the right answer and an explanation of how he figured it out.  Also, I would request that online discussions of this try to stay as spoiler-free as possible, out of respect for the pipe owner.  It wouldn't be much fun for him to log onto ASP to see a thread titled "THE KORRIGAN'S NAME IS XXXXXX!!!"  Imagine how you'd have felt if someone told you Darth was Luke's father before seeing "Empire Strikes Back".....

Is it possible to solve the riddle entirely from the website story and picture?
No.  One could get very close, but the final crucial key lies in the physical relationship between the pipe and the drawing, and one needs both in hand together to figure out the right answer.  

How hard is this?
I have no idea.  I think it's quite easy, because it was conceived and assembled speedily (in comparison to some of the other, much more complex Pfeifenigmas I've worked up).  But I can never tell.  I think a hard-core puzzle cracker could fly through it in no time.  Then again, I used to write riddles for my friends that left them totally stumped, until my wife came along and she was able to decipher them all easily.  I'll set the difficulty of any future Pfeifenigmas based on how easily this one gets solved.

I guess "<insert random name here>"!  Am I right?
I don't take guesses, nor provide right or not-right answers without an explanation of how that guess was arrived at.

Is the answer to this portion of the name <insert letter here>?
I won't corroborate the accuracy of any individual letters, only the full name.  It's pretty much a given that any question that boils down to, "Is this meaningful?" or, "Give me a hint" or, "Can you tell me if...?" isn't going to get any answer.  

You're mean!
Don't I know it.

Are you going to do more of these?
Let's see if this one sells first.  

Where'd you get the name Pfeifenigma?
I looked around and couldn't find any evidence of anyone trying any sort of project like this with pipes, but it was too "connected" a concept to call "a pipe, a story, a picture, and a riddle".  So, I dubbed my concept Pfeifenigmas, to be a catch-all word to describe these odd combinations of pipe and story and illustrations.