A Inquisitor puzzle from Ifor is always welcome as there is usually something out of the ordinary about it.
This week we had two different clue variations to challenge us when trying to identify the form of the final clue. Also, as the solving developed we realised that knowledge of English alone was not enough to complete the puzzle.
The preamble told us that "30 cells must be highlighted to show four potential players, a fifth individual and something that clearly separates him from them. His three companions have already fled and are hiding as single superfluous letters to be read in clue order in all those clues whose entries do not contain highlighted cells. All other clues contain an extra word. Choosing either the first or last letter from each and reading in clue order reveals all five depicted characters; the other letters taken similarly spell out the theme"
For me, this was a puzzle where the identification of the superfluous letters and words was far more difficult than solving the final adjusted clues. For a long time I had far too many extra words and too few superfluous letters. When it came to parsing the clues they really did seem fairly easy.
I began to get an inkling of what was going from the last ten or so down clues where I had the greatest success in identifying letters and words correctly. I could see RÄUBER being spelt out from the extra letters in this set of clues and I could see THIEF coming from the beginning or end letters of the extra words. My limited German was just good enough to correlate RÄUBER and THIEF as meaning the same in German and English. I could also see a RÄUBER-like skeleton in the earlier superfluous letters that I had although I had by no means all of them until I did a bit of reverse engineering towards the end of solving.
RÄUBER was also apparent vertically in column 1 of the grid as was FENSTER (window) in column 3. A window ‘clearly separates’ things. I was operating at the limits of my German but HUND (dog) was obvious in row 8 as was KATZE (cat) in row 5. Given that there were two rows between KATZE and HUND, I looked in rows 2 and 11 and spotted German looking words – HAHN and ESEL. I had to revert to a German / English dictionary to determine that HAHN meant COCKEREL / ROOSTER and ESEL meant DONKEY.
Armed with these four animals and a THIEF, I was able to track down the tale of THE TOWN MUSICIANS OF BREMEN by the Brothers Grimm. In German the title is DIE BREMER STADTMUSIKANTEN
Taking the first or last letters of the extra words we can smell out DIE BREMER STADTMUSIKANTEN (24 letters) and ROOSTER CAT DOG DONKEY THIEF (24 letters) The actual words and an indication of which end letter contributes to the title of the tale or the list of participants is shown below. The use of the word ‘players’ in the preamble relates to the fact that the four animals were setting of Bremen to become musicians (players).
| Clue | Word | Letter 1 | Letter 2 |
| 1a | DANGER |
D |
R |
| 11a | INTO |
I |
O |
| 12a | ONE |
E |
O |
| 13a | BRISTLES |
B |
S |
| 15a | TASTER |
R |
T |
| 18a | ESCAPE |
E |
E |
| 20a | ROOM |
M |
R |
| 22a | CLOSE |
E |
C |
| 28a | ANSWER |
R |
A |
| 31a | TIMES |
S |
T |
| 38a | DEFICIT |
T |
D |
| 39a | AMMO |
A |
O |
| 3d | GROUND |
D |
G |
| 5d | DON’T |
T |
D |
| 6d | MANIFESTO |
M |
O |
| 7d | UNCERTAIN |
U |
N |
| 8d | SICK |
S |
K |
| 13d | IDLE |
I |
E |
| 16d | KINKY |
K |
Y |
| 19d | ALMOST |
A |
T |
| 23d | HARD-BITTEN |
N |
H |
| 27d | IDIOT |
T |
I |
| 30d | ENCOURAGE |
E |
E |
| 35d | FRUSTRATION |
N |
F |
The 18 superfluous letters spelled out RÄUBER RÄUBER RÄUBER to give the three companions of the RÄUBER in column one of the grid.
Lots of detail about THE TOWN MUSICIANS OF BREMEN can be found online. Here for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Musicians_of_Bremen
As mentioned above the final clues themselves don’t seem too difficult but that’s often true of clues in any puzzle once you have solved them. Writing the blog that thirty of the clues had definitions at the beginning with only twelve defined at the end. There were a lot of anagram clues. I counted twenty five anagrams in the forty two clues. That’s not a criticism as I think Ifor did a wonderful job creating the clues with extra letters and words that gave him all the thematic material in the messages. Also to get the superfluous letters into just clues whose entries didn’t contain a highlghted grid letter was particularly impressive.
I was intrigued by the constructs ‘after split in left’ in 17 across and ’emptied out leaving one at a time’ in 3 down which were, to me, a new way of indicating that the individual letters in one word were to be removed from another word even when they didn’t appear consecutively in the word from which they were being removed.
I satisfied myself that the eighteen entries without a highlighted letter in the grid were indeed the eighteen clues with a superfluous letter
14 (R), 17 (A), 26 (U), 32 (B), 34 (E), 36 (R)
37 (R), 40 (A), 2 (U), 4 (B), 9 (E), 10 (R)
21 (R), 24 (A), 25 (U), 29 (B), 33 (E), 37 (R)
I look forward to another Ifor puzzle
The filled grid looked like this
The title ‘Four in a Row‘ baffles me slightly. There were four robbers and four animals in the tale but I’m not sure where the row comes into it.
| No |
Clue Amended Clue |
LetterWord Letters |
Wordplay | Entry |
| Across | ||||
| 1 |
Obscure danger confused us badly (10) Obscure confused us badly (10) |
danger D R |
Anagram of (badly) CONFUSED US UNFOCUSSED* |
UNFOCUSSED (not clear; obscure) |
| 11 |
Report into rank bad smell (5) Report rank bad smell (5) |
into I O |
REECH (sounds like [report] REACH [level or rank]) REECH |
REECH (offensive smell) |
| 12 |
Former element of human history – one rewritten after ignoring legend (7) Former element of human history – rewritten after ignoring legend (7) |
one E O |
Anagram of (rewritten) HUMAN HISTORY excluding (after ignoring) STORY (legend) HAHNIUM* |
HAHNIUM (former name for the artificially produced radioactive transuranic elements dubnium and hassium) |
| 13 |
Beard that’s faint with bristles appearing a bit later (3) Beard that’s faint with appearing a bit later (3) |
bristles B S |
WAN (pale, faint) moving the letter W (with) from first place to second (appearing a bit later) AWN |
AWN (beard of barley) |
| 14 |
Shakespearean character argued in drama (7) Shakespearean character agued in drama (7) |
R |
Anagram of (agued [shivered]) IN DRAMA MIRANDA* |
MIRANDA (character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest) |
|
15
|
Blind taster rejected sediment in bottle (4) Blind rejected sediment in bottle (4) |
taster R T |
LEES (sediment that forms during the fermentation or aging of an alcoholic liquor; sediment in bottle) reversed (rejected) SEEL< |
SEEL (to blind) |
| 17 |
Dispute motion, wary after split in left (4) Dispute motion, wry after split in left (4) |
A |
Anagram of (wry) MOTION excluding (left) the letters of IN. As the letters of IN are not consecutive in MOTION they are referred to as split IN MOOT* |
MOOT (dispute) |
| 18 |
About eight gallons escape tub (4) About eight gallons tub (4) |
escape E E |
BATH (the largest Jewish liquid measure, containing about eight imperial gallons) BATH |
BATH (tub) double definition |
|
20
|
Fly zone set out in sides of the room (6) Fly zone set out in sides of the (6) |
room M R |
(Z [zone] + an anagram of [out] SET) contained in (in) TE (first and last letters of [sides of] THE) T (Z ETS*) E |
TZETSE (variant spelling of TSETSE [small fly of the African genus Glossina that transmits trypanosome parasites and causes sleeping sickness) |
| 22 |
Anybody turning handle keeps quite close (8) Anybody turning handle keeps quite (8) |
close E C |
NAME (handle is a slang word for NAME) reversed (turning) containing (keeps) VERY (quite) E (VERY) MAN< |
EVERYMAN (anybody) |
| 26 |
African chief’s old race could be migrating (8) African chief’s old race cold be migrating (8) |
U |
Anagram of (migrating) O and RACE and C [cold] and BE) CABOCEER* |
CABOCEER (West African headman; chief) |
| 28 |
God changes answer when losing head in panic (6) God changes when losing head in panic (6) |
answer R A |
Anagram of CHANGES excluding (losing) the first letter (head) C GANESH* |
GANESH (elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom and success.) |
| 31 |
Aldi or Lidl, with late opening times contrived to secure end of the small food store (4) Aldi or Lidl, with late opening contrived to secure end of the small food store (4) |
times S T |
Anagram of (contrived) LDI (the three letters remaining in each of ALDI and LIDL when the first letters A and L are excluded [starting late]) containing (to secure) E (last letter of [end of] THE D (E) LI* |
DELI (abbreviation for [small] DELICATESSEN [food store]) |
|
32
|
Rages curbed unlimited desire (4) Rages cured unlimited desire (4) |
B |
Anagram of (cured) ESIR (central letters of [unlimited by outer letters] D and E] DESIRE) IRES* |
IRES (rages) |
| 34 |
A Ghanaian of this caste (4) A Ghanaian of this cast (4) |
E |
Anagram of (cast) THIS TSHI* |
TSHI (member of a Ghanaian people speaking the language of the same name) |
| 36 |
Politician heard to speak three times is a criminal (7) Politician head to speak three times is a criminal (7) |
R |
Anagram of (criminal) S (first letter of [head] SPEAK) and TTT (three T [time]) and IS A STATIST* |
STATIST (statesman; politician) |
| 37 |
Hard to withdraw heavy knife (3) Had to withdraw heavy knife (3) |
R |
HAD reversed (to withdraw) DAH< |
DAH (heavy Burmese knife) |
| 38 |
Endless deficit, endless taxes (7) Endless endless taxes (7) |
deficit T D |
TAILLESS (without a tail; endless) excluding the final letter (endless) S TAILLES |
TAILLES (taxes levied by a French king or overlord on his subjects, or on lands held from or under him) |
| 39 |
Take away spent ammo from boundlessly violent criminal (5) Take away spent from boundlessly violent criminal (5) |
ammo A O |
Anagram of (criminal) VIOLENT excluding the outer letters forming the bounds of the word (boundlessly) VT ELOIN* |
ELOIN (archaic [spent] word for separate and remove [take away]) |
| 40 |
Revival of arts seen near chapters set in Spain (10) Revival of arts seen near chapters set in spin (10) |
A |
Anagram of (set in spin) SEEN NEAR and (C [chapter] and C [chapter] to give chapters) RENASCENCE* |
RENASCENCE (renaissance; revival of arts) |
| Down | ||||
| 2 |
French film movement won, even with foreign touting absent (7) French film movement won, even with foreign toting absent (7) |
U |
(Anagram of [foreign] W [won] and EVEN and W [with]) containing (toting) A (absent) NEW– W (A) VE* |
NEW-WAVE (a movement in French cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s which abandoned the linear narrative and experimented with untypical framing and fluid camera movements) |
| 3 |
Old boys’ bar often emptied out, leaving ground one at a time (3) Old boys’ bar often emptied out, leaving one at a time (3) |
ground D G |
OFTEN excluding (leaving) OT (the letters of OUT remaining when the central letter is removed [emptied] U). As the letters OT are not consecutive in OFTEN the clue directs you to remove them one at a time. FEN |
FEN (an archaic [old] word used only as a prohibitory exclamation in boys’ games, to bar an action, right or privilege) |
| 4 |
Line that’s muddy brown, not bright (4) Line that’s muddy brown, not right (4) |
B |
OCHRE (muddy brown colour) excluding (not) R (right) OCHE |
OCHE (darts term for the line, groove or ridge behind which a player must stand to throw) |
| 5 |
Last couples in don’t watch Sky free – terribly impudent (6) Last couples in watch Sky free – terribly impudent (6) |
don’t T D |
Anagram of (terribly) (CH, KY and EE, the last two letters of [last couples in] each of WATCH, SKY and FREE) CHEEKY* |
CHEEKY (impudent) |
| 6 |
Puritan manifesto sadly isn’t supportive of acting (5) Puritan sadly isn’t supportive of acting (5) |
manifesto M O |
Anagram of (sadly) ISNT containing (supportive of) A (acting) S (A) INT* |
SAINT (puritan)
|
| 7 |
Mister whirs uselessly after uncertain head of water falls away (4) Mister whirs uselessly after head of water falls away (4) |
uncertain U N |
Anagram of (uselessly) WHIRS excluding (falls away) W (first letter of [head of] WATER) SHRI* |
SHRI (in India, a title of great respect given to a man, now generally used as the equivalent of Mr) |
| 8 |
Man in shelter sick over glossy cover (6) Man in shelter over glossy cover (6) |
sick S K |
(MAN contained in (in) LEE [shelter]) all reversed (over) (E (NAM) EL)< |
ENAMEL (any glossy vitrified coating, fired onto metal or other surface) |
| 9 |
Games anyone can see made loads without adult supervising (5) Games anyone can see mad loads without adult supervising (5) |
E |
(Anagram of [mad] LOADS excluding [without)] A [adult]) containing (supervising) U (classification of a film that anyone can see) L (U) DOS* |
LUDOS (games in which counters are moved on a board according to the numbers shown on thrown dice.) |
| 10 |
Aria hurts me when played without too much skill (10) Aia hurts me when played without too much skill (10) |
R |
Anagram of (when played) AIA HURTS ME AMATEURISH* |
AMATEURISH (without much skill) |
| 13 |
Idle innkeeper caught nearly every time leaving abandoned cigarette butts (10) Innkeeper caught nearly every time leaving abandoned cigarette butts (10) |
idle I E |
Anagram of (abandoned) CIGARETTE BUTTS excluding (leaving) (C [caught] and three of the four [nearly every] T [times]) leading to an anagram of just IGAREEBUTS AUBERGISTE* |
AUBERGISTE (innkeeper) |
|
16
|
Priest blamed with absence of kinky sex hiding answer (4) Priest blamed with absence of sex hiding answer (4) |
kinky |
(BLAMED excluding three of the outer letters [hiding the bit that now remains] BED [to have sexual intercourse with]) + A (answer) LAM A |
LAMA (Buddhist priest)
|
| 19 |
Bird almost succeeded escaping from rear (4) Bird succeeded escaping from rear (4) |
almost A T |
STERN (rear) excluding (escaping from) S (succeeded) TERN |
TERN (example of a bird) |
| 21 |
Tree with restricted height to thrive in lines (4) Tee with restricted height to thrive in lines (4) |
R |
TEE containing (with restricted) H (height) T (H) EE |
THEE (Spenserian [Spenser was a poet who writes verse {lines}] word for prosper or thrive) |
|
23
|
Lean against upturned barrel acting hard-bitten (4) Lean against upturned barrel acting (4) |
hard-bitten N H |
(TUB [barrel] + A [acting]) all reversed (upturned; down clue) (A BUT)< |
ABUT (lean against) |
| 24 |
Canoe avoided tidal flows about mouth of river (7) Canoe voided tidal flows about mouth of river (7) |
A |
Anagram of (flows) (CE [letters remaining when the central letters ANO are removed from [voided] CANOE) and TIDAL DELTAIC* |
DELTAIC (referring to the mouth of a river) |
| 25 |
Pound left steep in auction (6) Pound left steep in action (6) |
U |
Anagram of (in action) L and STEEP PESTLE* |
PESTLE (as a verb, to pound) |
| 27 |
Idiot ponces around taking a chance (6, 2 words) Ponces around taking a chance (6, 2 words) |
idiot T I |
Anagram of (around) PONCES ON SPEC* |
ON SPEC (as a gamble; taking a chance) |
| 29 |
Unspecified weights from beast found retiring in flat race (5) Unspecified weights from east found retiring in flat race (5) |
B |
ARTAL (hidden word reversed [retiring] in [found … in] FLAT RACE) ARTAL< |
ARTAL (variable Levantine [archaic usage as descriptive of the East] weight) |
| 30 |
More than one encourage stocking adult book (5) More than one stocking adult book (5) |
encourage E E |
HOSE (stockings; i.e. more than one stocking) + A (adult) HOSE A |
HOSEA (book of the Old testament) |
| 33 |
Where hopes become brittle, unlike limitless fancy (4) Where hops become brittle, unlike limitless fancy (4) |
E |
Anagram of (fancy) UNLIKE excluding the outer letters (limitless) UE KILN* |
KILN (where hops are fired to make them dry and brittle) |
| 35 |
Complete frustration missing with means of escape (4) Complete missing with means of escape (4) |
frustration |
WHOLE (complete) excluding (missing) W (with) HOLE |
HOLE (a means of escape)
|
| 37 |
Put on Rover’s lead in swirling heart of London (3) Put on over’s lead in swirling heart of London (3) |
R |
O (first letter of [lead] OVER) contained in (in) an anagram of or a reversal of (swirling) ND (central letters of [heart of] LONDON) D (O) N |
DON (put on) |
Being entirely unencumbered by any German, I found this extremely tough. Indeed it was the closest I’ve come to giving up entirely for a long while and it was only last night, when I decided to have one last look at it that I finally cracked it – though I needed Google’s help to link my probable ROOSTER, CAT and DONKEY to the story. Well worth it in the end, though, with some highly inventive and mischievous cluing (I thought taking the r from argued to leave agued as an anagram indicator in 14A was truly diabolical, for instance).
I’d vaguely assumed the title referred to the animals stacked one above the other in the grid (as per the statue shown here), although that should surely be four in a column.
Thanks to Ifor (I think!) and to Duncan for an as ever comprehensive blog.
We completed the grid without having any idea of the theme. Despite the completed grid, we still hadn’t identified all the extra letters. We googled Rauber which Joyce recognised as being German but had no idea of the translation.
Having spotted the possibilities of THIEF, the theme unfolded and we were able to go back and check all the parsings.
Thankfully we knew the names of two of the four animals but needed a translation to find the others.
A very enjoyable solve and an amazing construction. The endgame was interesting too – all in all a good IQ!
Thanks to Ifor and Duncan.
I thought that this was a wonderful puzzle so many thanks to Ifor and to Duncan for the blog. I don’t know if it’s what Ifor intended but we did notice that, given the bilingual nature of the puzzle, a row could be a tier and ‘Tier’ is German for ‘Animal’
I didn’t do this, as I was away sailing in France without benefit of i. I think the title, however, refers to the four musicians making a “row” – pronounced the other way!
The grid fill I found straightforward enough, but sorting out the title and the characters took twice as long again, and I was close to giving up. I must admit that when I had a bit of the title, and a few of the animals, I went straight to Google to sort out the rest. Handily, there’s a bilingual version of the story online, and of course Google Translate. 🙂
Many thanks to Ifor for a particularly engaging challenge (yes, argued/agued was tough) and to duncanshiell for explication. I was briefly distracted by DHOLE (reading down from 31) as a possible DOG, but this was of course ruled out by the highlighting restrictions. Then the HUND jumped out at me, as it were, my wife knew ESEL, and KATZE would have been obvious if some careless idiot hadn’t pencilled in TSETSE for TZETSE. Like others I had to look up the Grimm tale for full confirmation. I read the title as being about the row — quarrel or fight — between the four animals and the returning robber, but wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ifor had BF’s Tier (very ingenious) and and Hi’s noise in mind as well! Great stuff.
I filled the grid bar two entries but the end game was far too cunning for me.
I had figured out most of the missing words and letters but not all of them. I had found DONKEY THIEF but was left a bit puzzled by MUSIK ANTEN. It did not occur to me to try and translate this into a foreign language. I had not heard of the story and could not make any sense of RAUBERRAUBERRAUBER (with a few letters missing here and there). Perhaps if I had all of the letters in place I might have looked up RAUBER and got somewhere.
Thanks all.
I thought this was brilliant, despite some very knotty cluing. Amazing grid construction.
Googling Rauber took me to Schiller rather than where I needed to be, but once I had three of the animals, all became klar.
O Level German (1971) and more recent evening classes came in handy for this one, but until the grid was completely filled I had no idea what was going on as I had not bothered much about the extra words and letters. A first go at listing the letters gave RAUBER plus several occurrences of R and B. As RAUBER also appeared in the grid a German theme seemed likely and this was quickly confirmed by HAHN, KATZE and HUND, although ESEL was new to me. I was vaguely aware of the fairy tale and the animal statue and looking it up led to FENSTER. I wasn’t expecting letters from the extra words to spell out the original German title and spent a while sorting them out, not helped by the assumption that some of the alternate letters would spell “robber” rather than THIEF, but although not necessary for submission this was a very enjoyable and satisfying task.
Vielen Dank Ifor! Ein Meisterstück!
On this occasion I must thank two bloggers – not just the indefatigable Duncan, whose expositions are so thorough, but also Kenmac of this parish. The curious will see why if they care to search the site for IQ 1323 Achieve Dead Boxer’s Struggle of a few years back. Thanks also to all those who commented, of course. I can confirm that the argument/noise interpretation of “row” was what I had in mind; I did consider the possibilities of “tier” and decided against it. But if I had my time again…
Ifor
Tackled this in fits & starts having spent most of the weekend grading exams – not a very satisfactory way to attempt solving a puzzle such as this.
Finding the three occurrences of RAUBER led me to Schiller, as with Neil Hunter @8. Then finding THIEF at the end of the first/last letters set me on the right track, and some residual German from schooldays helped me spot (most of) the thematic participants in the grid. And finally highlighting FENSTER gave me a sense of achievement after what had proved a struggle.
Thanks, Ifor & Duncan.
(In an idle moment afterwards, I did check that thing about “all those clues whose entries do not contain highlighted cells”, but it had been no help at all with the puzzle. And I didn’t give very much thought to the “row” in the title.)
Totally defeated me, I’m afraid!