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The Booke of Merrie Riddles was the title of a short collection of lateral-thinking puzzles, written in verse, that was published in London in the 17th century. The book was a great success at the time, with some sources even claiming that it is the “book of riddles” mentioned in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor.
Whether Shakespeare knew of it or not, in the decades that followed its publication the book proved popular enough to lead to a second collection, A New Booke of Merry Riddles, which was published in the mid-1600s. The puzzle reproduced below (updated into Modern English) comes from an edition of this second volume that was published in 1665. Can you figure out what item is being described?
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