Celtic & Arthurian Legend Quiz — 10 Free Questions

Question 1

Which king spent his life in pursuit of a strange beast that no one else could catch, unhorsed the young Arthur early on and broke his first sword, and later killed King Lot of Orkney in battle, setting off a blood feud with Lot's sons?

Question 2

Which queen of Connacht started the great cattle raid of the Ulster Cycle after a pillow-talk boast about her possessions ended in a dead heat with her husband, except that he owned a great bull she could not equal?

Question 3

Which knight was raised in the forest by a mother who kept him from all knowledge of chivalry, so that he first blundered into Arthur's court a rustic innocent, and later, reaching the Grail castle, failed to ask the question that would have healed the wounded king?

Question 4

What was the name of the great circular piece of furniture around which King Arthur's knights sat, designed so that no man could claim the head of it and all were equal, and given, in one account, by Merlin or as part of Guinevere's dowry?

Question 5

What is the name of the island, meaning something like 'the isle of apples', to which the mortally wounded King Arthur was carried by boat to be healed, and where his sword had earlier been forged?

Question 6

What was the name of the roving warrior brotherhood of Irish legend, led in its most famous era by Fionn mac Cumhaill, that lived by hunting in the summer and billeting on households in winter and guarded Ireland from invaders and monsters?

Question 7

What is the name for the race of gods in Irish mythology, understood as 'the people of the goddess Danu', who arrived in Ireland wrapped in a mist, brought with them four treasures, and ruled the land until they in turn were beaten by the ancestors of the modern Irish?

Question 8

Which figure, dwelling in or beneath a lake, gave King Arthur his sword, raised the orphaned Lancelot in her realm, and, in the version where she is called Nimue, learned Merlin's secrets and used them to shut him away for good?

Question 9

What is the name usually given to King Arthur's chief castle and court, a place of feasting, tournaments and the ideals of chivalry that came to stand for a brief golden age brought to ruin?

Question 10

What is the name for the set of magical objects that the Tuatha De Danann were said to have brought to Ireland from four northern cities, one for each city: a coronation stone that cried out under the rightful king, an unstoppable spear, an irresistible sword, and a cauldron that left no one unfed?

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About Celtic & Arthurian Legend

This quiz covers two overlapping bodies of legend. One is the Matter of Britain, the stories of King Arthur, Merlin and the knights of the Round Table, built up over centuries by Welsh storytellers, Geoffrey of Monmouth, the French poet Chretien de Troyes and, finally, Sir Thomas Malory. The other is Celtic mythology proper: the Irish tales of the Tuatha De Danann, the Ulster Cycle of Cu Chulainn and the Fenian Cycle of Fionn mac Cumhaill, and the Welsh tales collected as the Mabinogion. Eighty questions describe a character, a creature, an object, a place, a text or a festival and ask you to name it from four choices, then explain the story and how it has come down to us. Where versions differ, the most familiar is used and the main variants noted; names are given in the spellings an English reader is likeliest to know, with alternatives supplied, and the tone is that of retelling rather than of settling which strand of a much-rewritten legend is 'right'. Arthurian material and Celtic material are kept distinct even where medieval writers blurred them, as when Welsh storytellers pulled Arthur into tales of the old gods.

The first pack is the Arthurian core: Arthur himself, Merlin, Guinevere and Lancelot; Excalibur, the Round Table and the Holy Grail; Camelot and Avalon; Mordred, Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake; Gawain, Galahad and Percival; Tristan and Iseult; Uther Pendragon, the sword in the stone, the Green Knight and the last battle of Camlann.

The second pack widens out on both sides. More of the Round Table, Kay, Bedivere, Bors, Gareth, the Fisher King, the Questing Beast, Elaine of Astolat, and the writers Geoffrey, Malory and Chretien. Then the Irish gods and heroes: the Tuatha De Danann and their enemies the Fomorians, the Dagda, Lugh, the Morrigan, Balor and Nuada; Cu Chulainn and the Cattle Raid of Cooley, Queen Medb, Deirdre and Ferdiad; Fionn, the Fianna, Oisin, and Diarmuid and Grainne; the sea god Manannan, the Land of the Young, the fairy mounds and the Children of Lir.

The third pack is Welsh myth and the wider Celtic world: the Mabinogion and its Four Branches, Rhiannon on her white horse, the giant Bran, the Otherworld of Annwn, the enchantress Ceridwen and the bard Taliesin, and the tale of Culhwch and Olwen. It also covers the four great seasonal festivals, Samhain, Beltane, Imbolc and Lughnasadh, and Halloween's descent from the first of them; the goddess Brigid; the antlered god Cernunnos and the Gundestrup Cauldron; the druids; the ogham alphabet; the passage tomb of Newgrange; and the Salmon of Knowledge. Because a captioned illustration usually gives the answer away, images are used only where a site photo or an ambiguous artefact does not, and everything has been checked against standard reference works.