Woods Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vermont

Surprising as it may sound, Robert Frost wrote "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" - first published in 1923 in the collection "New Hampshire" - in the month of June 1922. He had been up all night writing another poem, and suddenly got the idea after he went out of his house in Vermont in the early hours of the morning to watch the sunrise. Written in iambic tetrameter, in the four-line stanza form created by English poet Edward FitzGerald for his translation of the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam, the poem uses simple yet evocative language to convey the contrast between the pull of nature's beauty and quiet in the depths of winter and the obligations of everyday life.

Born in San Francisco in 1874, Robert Frost had deep ties with New England, where he spent long periods of his life teaching and writing. The colonial-era house in Shaftsbury, Vermont, where he lived from 1920 to 1929 became the Robert Frost Stone House Museum in 2002, and is now owned by Bennington College. He died in 1963, and is buried in Old Bennington Cemetery.

Vermont is the only landlocked state in New England, though it has plenty of rivers and lakes. Much of its territory is covered by forests - here shown in all their autumn glory. Vermont is also known for its production of maple syrup.

Answer: Jethro Tull

"Songs from the Wood" is the first of a trio of folk-rock albums released by British band Jethro Tull in the late 1970s. The album includes songs inspired by medieval British folklore, such as "Jack-in-the-Green", "Ring Out Solstice Bells" and "Cup of Wonder"; the opening title-track has a distinctive a cappella intro. The band members (flautist, vocalist and main songwriter Ian Anderson, guitarist Martin Barre, bassist John Glascock, keyboardists John Evan and Dee Palmer, and drummer Barriemore Barlow) supplemented their customary rock instrumentation with various traditional instruments. Barre and Palmer also contributed to the songwriting. The photo hints at Ian Anderson's well-known flute-playing skills.

In keeping with the album's celebration of nature and rural life, the cover depicts Anderson in hunting clothes, sitting by a campfire in a wood with his dog and prey beside him. The second and third album of Jethro Tull's folk trilogy, "Heavy Horses" and "Stormwatch", were released in 1978 and 1979.

Jethro Tull was an 18th-century agriculturist who perfected the seed drill. Of the three bands and artists listed as wrong answers, only Franz Ferdinand were also named after a real person: however, they were formed about 25 years after the release of "Songs from the Wood".

Answer: Henri Rousseau

Located on the western edge of Paris, the Bois de Boulogne ("Boulogne woodland") is a remnant of the ancient oak forest of Rouvray, an old-growth forest that in the early Middle Ages covered much of the region around the French capital, extending north into Normandy. Named after the chapel of Notre-Dame de Boulogne la Petite, during the rule of Napoleon III (1852-1870) the wood was turned into a public park, whose design was inspired by London's Hyde Park. The present-day Bois de Boulogne covers an area of 845 hectares (2,088 acres), and includes various lakes, streams and gardens, as well as a children's amusement park (Jardin d'Acclimatation), the famed Longchamp Racecourse, and the Roland Garros tennis complex.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the Bois de Boulogne became one of the favourite subjects of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters - many of whom, however, focused more on life in the park than the actual natural landscape. On the other hand, Henri Rousseau's "View of the Bois de Boulogne" (1896, in a private collection) portrays a corner of the Bois as an almost untamed wilderness, foreshadowing the style of the fanciful jungle paintings to which he owes much of his fame. Though the two tiny human figures in the background act as the focal point of the painting, the artist appears more concerned with rendering the details of the trees, leaves and grass.

Largely self-taught, Rousseau (1844-1910) was nicknamed "Le Douanier" (the customs officer) because of his day job - from which he retired at 49 to become a full-time painter. His highly individual, primitive style influenced many avant-garde artists of the first half of the 20th century.

Answer: dark

J.R.R. Tolkien was a scholar before he became a writer, and his day job as a professor of English philology informed much of his work. This is particularly evident in the names of both people and places that appear in his fiction. The name of Mirkwood, the vast forest in Middle-Earth that plays a prominent role in "The Hobbit", comes from the Old Norse "Myrkviđr" (dark wood), a word that appears in the Poetic Edda and various Icelandic sagas, probably referring to a dark, dense forest in what is now Ukraine. Before Tolkien, the name was used by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris.

Corrupted by the influence of the Dark Lord Sauron, Mirkwood - formerly known as Greenwood the Great - became an almost impenetrable tangle of dark trees, infested by giant spiders and other dangerous creatures. Quite fittingly, its Elvish (Sindarin) name Taur-nu-Fuin meant "forest under deadly nightshade". After the fall of Sauron, the forest was cleansed by the elf-queen Galadriel (also known as the Lady of the Golden Wood), and took the name of Eryn Lasgalen (Wood of Greenleaves).

A word of Germanic origin, mirk is a variant spelling of murk - a synonym of gloom or darkness - that is mainly used in Scottish English.

Answer: Alberta

Covering an area of 44,741 km² (17,275 sq mi), Wood Buffalo National Park is larger than the entire country of Switzerland. It is not only Canada's largest national park, but the second-largest in the world after the immense Northeast Greenland National Park. Located in northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories, the park was established in 1922 to protect the world's largest herd of wood bison (Bison bison athabascae), a subspecies of the American bison native to northwestern North America. The park, which contains the huge delta of the Peace and Athabasca rivers, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983.

Most of the bison that now live in Wood Buffalo National Park are hybrids, born of unions between the members of the original wood bison herd and plains bison that were transferred there in the late 1920s from Buffalo National Park, in central Alberta (closed in 1940). Wood bison differ from plains bison by their larger size and weight, as well as their more pronounced shoulder hump. The park's vast expanse of boreal forest provides the ideal habitat for these rare animals, as well as many other wildlife species - including birds and Canada's national animal, the beaver.

Answer: Vienna

The Wienerwald (Vienna Woods) is a range of forested hills that runs for about 45 km (28 mi) from the Northern Limestone Alps, on the border between Germany (Bavaria) and Austria, to the states of Lower Austria and Vienna. With their dense cover of deciduous (mainly beeches and oak) and conifer trees, home to a rich wildlife that includes wild boars, roe deer, foxes, badgers, beavers, and many species of birds, the Vienna Woods are a popular, year-round outdoor destination for the inhabitants of the region around the Austrian capital. Once a royal hunting ground, the Vienna Woods are now a protected area, designated by UNESCO as a Biosphere Reserve in 2005.

Inspired by local folklore, "Tales from the Vienna Woods" ("Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald", Op. 325) was composed by Johann Strauss II (also known as Johann Strauss the Younger) in 1868. The waltz, often performed at the annual New Year's Concert by the Wiener Philharmoniker orchestra, features a zither solo - the zither being a traditional instrument in Central and Eastern Europe. "Tales from the Vienna Woods" also inspired a play by Austro-Hungarian playwright Ödön von Horváth, and two films produced in the 1930s.

Answer: satyrs

The figure of the wild man of the woods, which appears in the mythology and folklore of many parts of Europe, is probably much older in origin than the Middle Ages. Descriptions of people (particularly men) living alone in the wilderness, with characteristics more typical of beasts than humans, are found as far back as the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" (in the character of Enkidu, Gilgamesh's friend) and the Bible.

Other likely sources for this figure, frequently portrayed in paintings, sculptures and heraldic devices, are various deities and creatures of Greek and Roman myth - chiefly satyrs and fauns. Those half-goat, half-man creatures (often depicted with the ears and tail of a horse) were nature spirits characterized by their unbridled lust, as well as their love of wine, music and dancing - which made them the ideal companions of Dionysus, the god of wine and revelry. The Roman god Silvanus ("of the woods"), the tutelary god of woodlands, was also portrayed as a kind of wild man, or conflated with the satyr-like nature god Pan.

The satyr depicted in the 12th-century illuminated manuscript known as the Aberdeen Bestiary (in the photo) looks like a hairy, naked man with horns and a tail, albeit with feet instead of goat's hooves. This kind of depiction was not unusual in the Middle Ages, when wild men were often believed to share the lustful nature of classical satyrs. In Middle English, wild men were called "woodwoses" or "wodewoses" - a word also used by J.R.R. Tolkien in "The Lord of the Rings", which survives in modern English as the surnames Woodhouse and Wodehouse. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli are 20th-century versions of the medieval wild man of the woods

Answer: Yes

The western, or Eurasian capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus) is the heaviest member of the grouse family, a tribe of the family Phasianidae of the order Galliformes. The latter includes both domesticated birds (chickens and turkeys) and game birds (pheasants, partridges and quail). Turkeys are very closely related to the grouse family, and some scientists consider them to be part of it. The western capercaillie, though not as heavy as the wild turkey (the heaviest gallinaceous bird), can reach a respectable size and weight, and males in excess of 7 kg (15.4 lb) have been recorded.

Like all its relatives, the western capercaillie is a ground-feeding bird that tends to fly only in short spurts. The species also exhibits an extremely strong sexual dimorphism - with cocks almost twice as large as hens. Cocks are also well known for their elaborate courtship displays - characterized by the distinctive stance depicted in the photo, and often combative behaviour. Capercaillies feed mostly on plant matter, though they will also eat insects, especially when very young.

As their various common names (cock-of-the-woods, wood grouse, heather cock) suggest, the western capercaillie dwells in the conifer forests of northern Eurasia, as well as in some mountainous areas further south, such as the Alps, the Pyrenees and the Carpathians. Hunting, which in the past led to serious population decline, is now restricted in much of its range.

Answer: Hansel and Gretel

Premiered on Broadway in 1987, "Into the Woods" is the second collaboration between composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and screenwriter and librettist James Lapine. The musical's plot blends three of the Brothers Grimm's most popular tales - "Rapunzel", "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood" - and the English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk". The main characters of two other tales, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, also appear briefly. The frame story of a childless baker and his wife who try to begin a family is based on the tale of "Rapunzel". The witch that took the couple's child needs four ingredients to lift the curse of age and ugliness from her, and the main characters of the four tales journey into the woods in order to obtain them. Not all characters will make it alive to the end.

The original Broadway production won three Tony awards (Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress in a Musical). "Into the Woods" has been produced many times since its premiere. In 2014, it was also adapted as a movie (with screenplay by Lapine) directed by Rob Marshall and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. Meryl Streep, who played the Witch, was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award.

The tale of "Hansel and Gretel", though also set in a forest, is not one of the stories on which "Into the Woods" is based. The photo shows the meeting between Hansel and Gretel and the witch in one of Arthur Rackham's iconic illustrations for the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales.

Answer: it is poisonous

Grifola frondosa is a species of polypore mushroom (also known as bracket or shelf mushrooms) native to Europe, China, and North America. This perennial, parasitic fungus grows at the base of trees, especially old-growth oaks or maples, in late summer or early autumn, forming a cluster of greyish-brown caps (as shown in the photo). The fruiting bodies can grow very large, and reach weights of 30-45 kg (66-99 lb). These mushrooms are among the most prized in Japanese cuisine, where they are used in a variety of dishes. They have a firm, meaty texture and mild taste, lending themselves to being roasted, grilled, or even deep-fried. Though it tastes better cooked, hen-of-the-woods can also be eaten raw, and is perfectly safe. It does, however, need to be cleaned thoroughly to avoid eating any insects or other small animals that may be nesting inside the fungus.

The Japanese name "maitake" means "dancing mushroom". Other common names are sheep's head and signorina ("young lady" in Italian) mushroom. The name "hen-of-the-woods" comes from its appearance, which resembles a roosting bird. Another related species, Laetiporus sulphureus, or sulphur shelf mushroom, is known as chicken-of-the-woods because it supposedly tastes like chicken.