I was inspired by one of Tolkien's famous riddles from The Hobbit,
No-legs lay on one-leg,
two-legs sat near on three-legs,
four-legs got some.
to create a new riddle:
One-leg took four-legs
to a place with no legs,
two-legs came later.
Explain what this is describing.
Edit. And here's a hint:
The one-leg my riddle is referring to can fly. It and its kind don't have wings, but they sometimes have arms.
Since the hint mentioned
the one-leg is something that can fly.
I thought it could be:
a rocket.
The four-legs refers to:
The dog Laika, the first animal in space.
then the place with no legs is
space, since you're weightless in space and so you effectively have no legs.
two-legs is then:
Humans, since we went to space later.
I think the answer is:
Evolution
One-leg took four-legs to a place with no legs,
A single replicator eventually became 4 nucleotides (the building-blocks, or legs of nucleic acids such as DNA). And took this new replicator to the oceans (at the time, no life-forms there had any literal legs).
two-legs came later.
We evolved from all of that much later, and we have two legs.
I think one-leg is
collar
and four-legs is
the dog.
The place with no legs is
a park,
and the two-legs is
the dog owner.
Hence,
the dog owner taking his/her dog for a walk to a park with its collar. The dog basically is brought by the collar and the owner comes after the dog.
Since my previous answer was wrong, I'll have another go:
A hole, in golf.
One-leg took four-legs
The club (a single stem/leg) took four tries (legs, or sections of a journey) to get the ball...
to a place with no legs,
The hole.
A well-hit ball in golf is also sometimes referred to having legs - "That's got some legs".
two-legs came later.
The human player, having two legs, came along later to collect the ball.
My guesses are:
One-leg took four-legs
I guess: A Helicopter - assuming leg is figurative
As the first helicopter designs (Chinese Flying Top or Leonardo's Airscrew) had a single propeller while the first practical working model (early model Skiorosky VS-300s) had four propellers.
While the hint: Helicopters fly but have no wings but sometimes, like the pictured skiorosky below, they have two "arms" for carrying payloads, to help stabilize, and for other reasons.
to a place with no legs,
From the 1939 Skiorosky came the jet propelled aircraft of the 1940s which had no propellers or "legs".
two-legs came later.
Finally in the 1950s to just recently, Tilt-rotor aircraft (like the Marine's V-22 Osprey) have been developed and successfully flown.
