First Stanza Riddle Solution

Back in January I introduced a hint to what I believe is the answer to the riddle in the first stanza that hints to where to begin, where warm waters halt. Many searchers struggle with the meaning of the first stanza, proposing silly and irrational reasons, such as a the poem raps around and the first stanza and contains the 9th clue.

Mr. Fenn said two things we should consider before going down that rabbit hole. 1) Simplify and 2) Solve the riddle in my poem. I believe there are at least two riddles to solve. The first stanza contains the first riddle, it is also as the poem suggests is a hint to where to begin. Here is the first stanza:

As I have gone alone in there And with my treasures bold, I can keep my secret where, And hint of riches new and old.

The first hint is treasures bold. Since clues get us closer to the treasure a hint is introduced to tell us which state to look for the treasure. That state is the "Treasure State" of Montana. I know what you are thinking, why not New Mexico since the hint of new and old could also hint to Mexico? Well that is where the first riddle comes to play. Lets rephrase the hint or last line in stanza 1 as a riddle:

What is new and old and also rich?

Think about it for a second... ok ready? The answer is the moon. At the exact moment the old moon turns to the new moon they are the both the old and new moon. Sure it could be more, but consider the qualifier "rich" and other work for rich is full and a moon can be full which is what we are really interested in. Not convinced yet? Then why is there a dove resting on a moon in the TTOTC book? Why did Mr. Fenn steal the thumb over Philadelphia from Jim Lovell who placed his thumb over earth with the same story as Forrest as he came around the dark side of the moon on Apollo 8 (also played out in the movie Apollo 13)?

There are many more moon references to back up its importance but I will get to that later. But first, lets use the answer of the riddle to solve the location of where to find where warm waters halt. Luna comes from the latin word for moon and it is linked to lunacy. Wolves howl at the full moon (trust me I know and there are no shortages of wolf hints, just check out the last chapter of Once Upon A While!) and many people are believed to go crazy during full moons. Fenn has hinted to "crazy many times, and even the idea of the treasure hunt as described by his friend is crazy. He even recently described 7% of searchers as crazy, coincidentally the number of full moons (7.7%) in a year.

Forrest also said, “I hid the treasure chest at the first onset of dementia.”f and dementia is a synonym of lunacy. He also hinted to this by answering 3 questions in a row from Loco Lobo (translates to "crazy wolf") on Mysterious Writings website. To illustrate what I believe to be one of Mr. Fenn's clever use of subliminal imagery to tease our brain with hints is the image from The Knife That Growls. This action shot is the exact same shot taken from both the Alfred Hitchcock Movie Psycho.

What is more interesting is that background photo in this shot is a pair of trees forming an X and that image was used in the final chapter of his book Once Upon a While. Now for the very interesting part; there is a wolf shadow lurking at the bottom of the page underneath where the knife is now. It is so fitting to tie crazy into a crazy treasure hunt.

Ok so we have crazy ... so what? Well the answer then becomes very simple and straight forward. Look for where warm waters halt in Montana as the State Hospital of Warm Springs. The answer is so straight forward and obvious many people over look it, but by definition it is where warm waters exist and even is plural like water(s) suggest. The proof of halt comes later, but for now we have a starting place.

@copyright The Wolf. No public use or republication is authorized without written consent from The Wolf.