Rudyard Kipling Trivia

1. A biographer of Kipling once referred to "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" as a "ferocious post-war eruption." With that in mind, in what year was the poem first published?

From Quiz The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Answer: 1919

Sir David Gilmour used this "ferocious post-war eruption" phrase to describe Kipling's poem in his 2002 biography titled "The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling". Kipling's poem was first published in London's "Sunday Pictorial" on October 26, 1919. The "Sunday Pictorial" was first published in 1915 and was renamed "The Sunday Mirror" in 1963. Kipling's poem was written shortly after World War I and can be read in the context of a post-War Britain.

From Quiz Rudyard Kipling's "If"

Answer: the speaker's son

The poem concludes with an address to the speaker's son: "And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!" Some critics have therefore assumed this poem is addressed to John Kipling, who was Kipling's only son. Born in August of 1897, John Kipling died in 1915, in the Battle of Loos, which was fought on the Western Front in France during World War I.

From Quiz A Survey of Rudyard Kipling's Poetry

Answer: A man

"If" was written in the 1890s as a tribute to Leander Starr Jameson, a Scottish colonial politician. It begins, "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" and continues with a series of "If"s, concluding: "If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!"

From Quiz Why the Sea is Salt

Answer: Best-Beloved

The book had its origins in bedtime stories told by Kipling to his first child, a daughter named Josephine and called Effie. When the first three were published in a magazine, he explained his title for the trilogy as coming from the fact that she insisted he tell them "just so", using the exact same words every time. Only a year later, she died of pneumonia contracted on a family trip to New York, and her father added another nine stories in the spirit of the original ones to publish 'Just So Stories for Little Children' in 1902.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Poem: 'A Smuggler's Song'

Answer: Midnight

"If you wake at Midnight, and hear a horse's feet, Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street." The poem comes from Kipling's book 'Puck of Pook's Hill' a collection of short stories set in and around English history. Specifically, it comes from 'Hal o' the Draft', which involves the famous Italian explorer Sebastian Cabot and the High Admiral of Scotland, Andrew Barton, unfairly hanged as a pirate. The poem is about smugglers, who evaded high taxes and duties on luxury goods.

From Quiz "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling

Answer: Zam-Zammah

On a plinth outside the Lahore museum in Pakistan stands the largest gun made in India of its day, Zam-Zammah. According to Peter Hopkirk's "Quest for Kim" the cannon was cast in Lahore in 1762 for Ahmad Shah Durrani who was the Afghan warrior king who ruled the Punjab at that time. The cannon was 14 feet long and had a calibre of ten inches and the last time it was used was in 1818, but it became damaged, and since then has been on display. According to Wikipedia Big Bertha was a super heavy howitzer developed by the armaments factory Krupps in Germany just before the start of World War 1. Along with Langer Max and the Paris Gun, Big Bertha was founded on a lesson learnt by the German military during the Russo-Japanese war. During this campaign 1904-05 the Japanese dismounted a number of their coastal defence howitzers and used them to break their siege of the Russian naval base at Port Arthur. This was unheard of at that time.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.6

Answer: Elephant

A Mahout is the person in charge of an elephant. His job is to take care of, and to drive, the elephant. Mahout is a family business which passes down from father to son. Kala Nag is owned by Toomai's family. It is on his back that little Toomai watches the elephant dance during the night and it is Kala Nag who protects little Toomai in the elephant stockade.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.5

Answer: High summer flood

Rikki was living in a burrow at the start of the story with his mother and father. A flood, during the summer, carried him into a roadside ditch. Clinging on for dear life to a wisp of grass he passed out. He regained consciousness on the middle of a path in a garden being looked upon by a small boy who thought he was dead and wished to hold a funeral. Luckily for Rikki, the boys mother did not think the small mongoose was dead and rescued him from the morbid attentions of the boy.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.4

Answer: Paul

St Paul's is situated in the Bering Sea between Russia and Alaska. It is one of a group of islands called the Pribilof Islands which is part of the Aleutian Chain of islands. Close to it is Otter Island and the Walrus Islands, which are a wildlife sanctuary for walruses. The indigenous peoples of the islands are the Aleuts who have lived there for over 200 years. One of the main reasons that Alaska was bought from the Russians was because of the thriving Fur Seal trade being operated by the Aleuts. The tour season for the islands is from the middle of May to the middle of October.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.3

Answer: Messua

Messua had lost her child to a tiger in the past. The village priest stated that "what the jungle has taken the jungle has restored." The fact that he could interpret Mowgli's return as an act of God also went in Mowgli's favour. The other names are animals in Jungle Book.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.2

Answer: Hathi the Wild Elephant

The Master Words are like an introductory phrase that one animal says to another. However this phrase must be spoken with the language of the animal you are addressing.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.1

Answer: The Dish-licker

Tabaqui, the Jackal, is despised by the wolves as a trouble-maker. They are also afraid of him because he can have periods of madness called Dewanee (rabies).

From Quiz Puck of Pook's Hill

Answer: By acting out "Midsummer Night's Dream", on Midsummer Eve

"'...what on Human Earth made you act out "Midsummer Night's Dream" three times over, on Midsummer Eve, in the middle of a Ring, and under - right under one of my oldest hills in Old England?' ... 'We - we didn't mean to,' said Una". As in all the best children's stories, the magic happens quite by accident. The ancient amulet and the enchanted library book come from quite different books altogether, and of course many wonderful things - such as a Psammead and a Neolithic man - have come from quarries, in their time.

From Quiz The Just So Stories

Answer: his suspenders

The Mariner makes his raft into a 'little square grating all running criss-cross' and ties it with his suspenders, which is why whales today can't swallow anyone! An ingenious reason for them eating plankton!

From Quiz The Jungle Books - Not the Movie

Answer: Tabaqui the jackal

Tabaqui the Dish-licker is subject to dewanee (the madness) but we'd call it Hydrophobia or rabies.

From Quiz Rikki-Tikki-Trivia

Answer: He was washed down by a storm to the family's bungalow.

Teddy's first words to him were, "Here's a dead mongoose. Let's have a funeral."

From Quiz The Jungle Books

Answer: frog

He is called "frog" because he is naked, with no fur.

From Quiz Rudyard Kipling's "Captains Courageous"

Answer: Harvey

Harvey was named after his father, Harvey Cheyne senior.

From Quiz Kipling

Answer: Joseph Rudyard Kipling

John Lockwood Kipling was his father. His mother was the sister of Lady Burne- Jones.

From Quiz The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Answer: Proverbs or maxims written at the top of school copybooks

Copybook headings, which contained maxims or proverbs, would be placed at the top of children's copybooks in 19th century Britain. Children would copy these proverbs to practice handwriting and learn virtue. The "Gods of the Copybook Headings", therefore, have typically been defined by literary critics as the "inescapable conditions inherent in human nature" (JMS Tompkins) or "old-fashioned common sense" (Andrew Lycett), truths about humanity that persist no matter how advanced and enlightened people imagine themselves to be.

From Quiz Rudyard Kipling's "If"

Answer: The Second Boer War

The goal of the Jameson Raid was to start an uprising in the South African Republic among British expatriate workers to overthrow the Boer Government. British colonial administrator Sir Leander Starr Jameson led the raid with Company troops and policemen on the 1895-96 New Year's weekend. The workers, however, did not rise up in insurrection. The British government was embarrassed and Boer dominance was strengthened, but Jameson was nevertheless regarded as a hero by many who held strong anti-Boer sentiments in London. The raid contributed to the onset of the Second Boer War. The poem "If" is written in the form of advice from father to son, but Kipling wrote in his autobiography, "Something of Myself", that the verses in it were "drawn from Jameson's character, and contained counsels of perfection most easy to give."

From Quiz A Survey of Rudyard Kipling's Poetry

Answer: Gunga Din

"Gunga Din" was written in 1890 and is narrated from the point of view of an English colonial solider in India. It tells of Gunga Din, an Indian water carrier who saves the soldier's life and is then shot and killed. The solider then regrets the way he abused the servant in the past and realizes Gunga Din is the better man.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.7

Answer: Baggage-camels

The baggage-camels were part of the melange of animals and men gathered at Rawal Pindi. They are easily spooked and are not as disciplined as the animals in the British Army. During one particularly wet night the baggage-camels panicked and stampeded. Their explanation for their behaviour was that they had had bad dreams!

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.5

Answer: Segowlee Cantonment

Segowlee (Sugauli) is to be found in Bihar province in India. The cantonment was a British military base in northern India located between the cities of Calcutta and Varanasi. The other answers are major cities in India.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.4

Answer: Winter Wren

It is from Limmershin that we first hear about the story of Kotick, the "White Seal", and his adventures in finding a safe haven for his community away from the seal hunters. Limmershin is a Winter Wren, member of the Troglodytes species, which is also known as the Northern Wren and tends to be found in coniferous woodlands throughout British Columbia and many of the northern states of the U.S.A.. It is an insectivore and can live in the cold climates by foraging for insects in the bark of the fir trees and fallen logs as well as spiders and seeds.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.3

Answer: Gray Brother

Gray Brother and Mowgli grew up together in Mother Wolf's den and they are very close. Throughout the tale it is Gray Brother who keeps Mowgli informed about where Shere Khan is and what he is doing. Akela and Raksha are members of the wolf clan that Mowgli grew up in.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.2

Answer: The Bandar-log

Every animal has its own name. The "Gidur-log" are the Jackal People. The "Bandar-log" are the Monkey People. Seeonee is the name of the wolf pack. Keddah is a placename. The "Bandar-log" are despised by the members of the jungle for their annoying habits and inability to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes.

From Quiz "The Jungle Book" Pt.1

Answer: The Jackal People

The Gidur-log is the name of the Jackal People. We find this out when Tabaqui enters the wolf's den seeking scraps of food to eat.

From Quiz Puck of Pook's Hill

Answer: Cuts out a square of turf from the Ring, one for each of them

"'It's an old custom the people had when they bought and sold land. They used to cut out a clod and hand it over to the buyer, and you weren't lawfully seized of your land - it didn't really belong to you - til the other fellow had actually given you a piece of it - like this.'" The spell the children had inadvertently cast had broken the Hills. However, the People of the Hills are all gone; only Puck is left - the oldest Old Thing in England. Since now he can't let them into the Hills, he instead will show them "something out of the common".

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Last Updated Nov 16 2024 5:46 AM

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