Tale As Old As Time Trivia Quiz

The "Fenian Cycle" is the third of four collections of tales in Irish mythology after the "Mythological Cycle" and the "Ulster Cycle" and before "The Cycle of the Kings". The tales are believed to have originated in the 7th century AD but were first written down some 500 years later. The central figure of the cycle is Finn MacCool, the anglicised version of his Gaelic name Fionn mac Cumhaill, and it is narrated by his son Oisin, another of the Fianna hunter-warrior band, who is credited as the author of the tales.

The cycle begins with "The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn" in which it is told that Fionn gained his great knowledge by catching the Salmon of Wisdom in the River Slate in Ballyteague. With this great knowledge, Fionn performed great feats that protected the Fianna and the Irish King from various foes such as the phantom Aillén mac Midgna (Aileen the Burner). The cycle continues through to Fionn's death although in some versions it is said the Fionn didn't die, he just went to sleep and would awake at the sound of the Fianna's hunting horn to rise and defend Ireland once more.

"Song of Roland" is part of the literary cycle known as the "Matter of France", one of the three great medieval cycles inspired by classical mythology (along with the "Matter of Britain" and the "Matter of Rome"). Believed to have been first written around 1086-1100 but almost certainly having been performed orally before that date, the oldest existing version, held by Oxford's Bodleian Library, dates from the middle of the 12th century. The epic takes the form of a "chanson de geste", which translates as "song of heroic deeds" and as its name indicates it was originally performed as a song, usually by minstrels.

Though the literary cycle was inspired by mythology, Roland was a real-life hero from the era of Charlemagne. A military commander who was stationed on the border between the Frankish lands and Brittany, it was his feats at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass that saw him become immortalised in verse and a symbol of French nationhood. The real battle in the Pyrenees mountain region was with the Basques but in "Song of Roland" the attackers were the Spanish Muslims.

As the Franks returned home from their victorious campaign with the Muslims having surrendered, they were betrayed by Roland's nephew Goncelon and ambushed in the mountains by their defeated foes. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Roland refused to blow his horn to summon reinforcements, believing it to be an act of cowardice. Only when the battle was lost with most of his men dead did Roland blow the horn to bring more of Charlemagne's men to the scene to avenge them. Roland kept fighting until they arrived but succumbed to his injuries before they did and was carried to heaven by angels. On discovering the slaughtered Franks, Charlemagne's troops drove the Muslims into the river where they drowned.

Though the Arthurian legend in the oral tradition dates back to at least the 4th century AD and the earliest known literary version of the tale is contained in the 9th century work "Historia Brittonum", it is the 15th century re-telling, "Le Morte d'Arthur" by Thomas Malory, that is now seen as the canonical version.

Malory had gathered the tales from several sources, most notably the "Vulgate Cycle", a 13th century literary work written in Old French. In his version of the tale, Arthur, the son of the late English King Uther Pendragon, established his right to rule the land by releasing the sword from the stone. He consolidated his power, firstly through a series of battles against domestic rebels and foreign invaders and then through marriage to Guinevere, from which he inherited the Round Table of her father King Leodegrance.

"Le Morte d'Arthur" is comprised of eight books that contain stories of many of Arthur's relatives and of the Knights of the Round Table, including the quest for the Holy Grail and the romance between Lancelot, the most faithful of Arthur's knights, and Guinevere.

Described as the longest poem ever written, "Mahabharata" is a revered ancient epic that forms part of Hindu scripture. The other great epic, "Ramayana", is also contained in summary within its 200,000 verses. The poem was compiled from as early as 400 BCE and completed by around the 3rd century AD based on the orally-transmitted tales told over the previous five or six centuries.

The Kurukshetra War that it depicts was an internecine struggle for the throne of Hastinapura that occurred sometime around 700-1000 BCE, although its precise date is not known. The war is the context by which morality around the importance of family, friendship and loyalty is discussed. The epic ends with the death of the god Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, which triggers the start of the Kali Yuga, the current world era, an age of conflict and sin.

Translating to "The Story of the People", the "Dine Bahane" begins with the emergence of light from the darkness. The light awakened the spirits of the four Holy People who had yet to take physical form. The spirits then journeyed through three of the four worlds, discovering knowledge that they could take into the fourth world, the Dinetah, the world in which the Navajo now live. In the Dinetah, the Holy People, along with the First Man and First Woman, created the sun, the moon and the stars and banished the monsters that lived there.

The stories have been written down and published since the middle of the 19th century but there is no definitive version of "Dine Bahane". The tradition of passing down the story down the generations through oral re-tellings is still a strong part of Navajo culture.

Sundiata Keita, the protagonist of the "Epic of Sundiata", was the founder of the Mali empire, a region that encompassed modern day Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Senegal. There are no contemporaneous historical sources of Keita's time (circa 1217-1255) but his story has been told by griots, traditional storytellers and poets from West Africa, and then written about in historical accounts from travellers to the region in the centuries after his death.

As with many tales from the oral tradition, there is no definitive version of the story and its historical accuracy cannot be determined but the common elements of its retelling are that Sundiata, the son of a king and his second wife, was born with physical disabilities that meant he was unable to walk. But upon his father's death, when his half-brother, Dankaran, took the throne, Sundiata raised himself to walk using a stick from the baobab tree.

Forced into exile to the neighbouring Mema kingdom along with his mother, Sundiata showed great prowess as a warrior. This led to an offer of the throne of the kingdom but his own people in Mali called for him to return when Dankaran fled Mali under threat from Soumaoro Kante, the leader of the Sosso people. Sundiata gathered the warriors of many of the kingdoms of West Africa and formed a force to defeat Kante. Upon victory he was pronounced the king of kings of the new empire.

"Kalevala" is considered the national epic of both Finland and the cross-border region of Karelia, shared between Finland and Russia. The epic became an important part of the quest for Finnish national identity and subsequently the independence of the nation from Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

The collected poems that form "Kalevala", which translates to "land of heroes", were first published in 1835, with the canonical version arriving just over a decade later. The included poems took the form of a runic song, a form of verse that, as its name suggests, was traditionally delivered in song, frequently in a call and response style. Many of the songs that formed that epic had never before been written down, existing only in the oral tradition.

The narrative of the poem begins with the creation of the world and later follows the adventures of its main characters, Väinämöinen, a wise old sage and powerful singer; Lemminkäinen, a daring and reckless hero; and Ilmarinen, a skilled blacksmith. They seek to win the love of the Maiden of the North and to acquire the magical Sampo, a talisman forged by Ilmarinen that brings good fortune and great knowledge to the Finnish people.

As one of the earliest known pieces of written literature dating from the 7th or 8th century BCE, most would not automatically recognise "The Iliad" as being part of the oral tradition. However, its verse, attributed to Homer along with the other great Greek epic of the time, "The Odyssey", tells of events that existed several centuries before Homer's time. Therefore, the passing down of the stories had come from the oral tradition first.

Written to be performed rather than read, the poem begins in media res with the Trojan War coming towards its end. Agamemnon, the Greek leader, had stolen away Achilles' war bride Briseis. Enraged, Achilles withdrew from the battle, which significantly weakened the Greek forces.

In Achilles' absence, the Trojans, led by Hector, gained the upper hand and many Greek heroes were killed. Patroclus, entered the battle dressed in Achilles' armour to rally the Greeks. Hector killed Patroclus, thinking he has slain Achilles. Provoked by his friend's death, Achilles returned to battle. He killed Hector and dragged his body around the walls of Troy.

The poem concludes with King Priam of Troy begging Achilles for Hector's body. Achilles, moved by Priam's plea, returned Hector's body for a proper funeral, demonstrating themes of compassion and humanity amid the brutality of war.

The "Poetic Edda" is, along with the "Prose Edda", one of the most important repositories of Old Norse mythology. It is a compilation of poetry from the Norse oral tradition. One example of the Edda is the medieval Icelandic manuscript, "Codex Regius", which translates as "The King's Book", a title it gained when it was presented to the Danish king in 1662. It was returned to Iceland under a naval guard in 1971, which is an indication of the great value placed on the manuscript.

The "Poetic Edda" contains mythological poems such as "The Prophecy of the Seeress" about the creation of the world, its eventual destruction (Ragnarök), and its rebirth; and "The Sayings of the High One", a collection of wisdom sayings attributed to the god Odin, offering insights into Norse ethics, magic, and wisdom. It also contains heroic poems or lays of Germanic origin, such as the "Völsunga Cycle"; poems that include stories of the legendary Volsung family, focusing on the hero Sigurd, his slaying of the dragon Fafnir, and the tragic love story with Brynhildr.

The Genpei War was a conflict between two clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, for the control of Japan in the late 12th century. In the first half of the 14th century, the legendary tales that had been told about that conflict were written down in the "Heike Monogatari" (The Tale of the Heike or the Tale of the Taira family). In the intervening 100 years or more, the stories had been passed down orally by the biwa-hoshi (lute priests) who travelled around the country recanting prose tales accompanied by music.

The epic tale tells of the rise and fall of the Taira, led by the ambitious Taira no Kiyomori to dominance over the imperial court and then to defeat by the Minamoto. It explores the concept that all things are fleeting and impermanent, and that power and glory are ephemeral, accentuating the personal suffering and loss of the individuals entangled in the machinations of the tribe's quest for power.