The Mystery of Castle Island Trivia Quiz

There are several ways to work through solving this logic puzzle but here is an explanation of one possible method:

Starting with the clue for castle 2, Lowlaw Castle has to be in the SE quadrant and be either 3 or 10. But 10 doesn't have "castle" in its name (see clue for that castle), so Lowlaw Castle must be number 3. Castle Rudolpho is in the NE quadrant (clue 4) and the clue for castle 1 tells us it is inland. Therefore it must be number 8.

Clue 8 indicates that Blunderings (another of the inland castles) is further to the east than castle 8, which means it has to be number 10. Clue 9 gives the information that Greyscalp Castle is in the SW quadrant, but is located further east than castle 9. Therefore it must be castle 4. Castle 3's clue stated that Glass Castle was one of the three on the south coast of the island - castles 3 and 4 have been identified as Lowlaw and Greyscalp, so Glass Castle must be number 5.

Then the clue for castle 7 indicates that Gormlessghost is one of the two castles located further west than it. The castle at 5 is Glass Castle, so Gormlessghost must be number 6. The clue for castle 5 tells us that Summerleap Castle is positioned on the coast and is further south than Gormlessghost. The only coastal positions still available are 1 and 2, but Summerleap Castle must be number 2 as number 1 is further north than number 6 (Gormlessghost).

The three castles remaining unidentified are Boarlumps, Castle Bearstein and Llamarot Castle and the positions still available are 1, 7 and 9. Clue 1 listed Boarlumps and Llamarot Castle as two of the inland castles, so the coastal castle marked number 1 must be Castle Bearstein. Finally the clue for castle 6 tells us that Llamarot Castle is not located in the NW quadrant, so it has to be the one at position 9 and by elimination Boarlumps is at position 7.

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You probably noticed that the names of Castle Island's castles are a bit strange and that's probably because they were all inspired by the names of various fictional castles. Castle Bearstein comes from the name of Castle Wolfenstein - the setting for a series of first-person shooter video games based on the Second World War. The original game 'Castle Wolfenstein' was first released in 1981.

Summerleap Castle doesn't exist outside of Castle Island. However, Winterfell is the name of the castle that was the seat of House Stark, the rulers of the Kingdom of the North in George R. R. Martin's 'Game of Thrones' series of fantasy novels. In the hit television series based on the books, the location for Winterfell was Castle Ward in Northern Ireland (with the exception of the pilot episode which used Scotland's Doune Castle).

The name of Lowlaw Castle was inspired (with the help of a thesaurus of antonyms and synonyms) by Hyrule Castle from 'The Legend of Zelda' video game franchise. The Kingdom of Hyrule is a main setting for the game and its castle has popped up regularly in the series since Link rescued Princess Zelda from its dungeon in the 1991/2 release 'The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past'.

Castle Grayskull (which has a much better name for an imposing fortress than Greyscalp Castle) features in Mattel's 'Masters of the Universe' franchise of comics, action figures, toys, video games, TV shows and film adaptations. It is located on the planet Etheria and is home to the Sword of Power, which transformed Prince Adam into the superhero He-Man.

Glass Castle was named for Glamis Castle, which can be found in eastern Scotland and is notable for being the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. While the castle that can be seen today was largely built in the 17th century, it stands on the site of an older fortress that was used by William Shakespeare as the home of the titular Macbeth in one of his most famous tragic plays. Macbeth proved to be dissatisfied with his title of Thane of Glamis and committed murder to become King of Scotland instead.

Gormlessghost (the home of Castle Island's most inept spectres) got its name from the enormous and desolate Castle Gormenghast from Mervyn Peake's series of fantasy novels. The ongoing storyline focuses on Titus Groan, the latest in a long line of reclusive Earls of Gormenghast, who escapes his bleak life to go and discover what life is like outside in the modern world. Sadly the series was left incomplete in 1968 when Peake developed dementia and died at the age of 57.

A thesaurus was also employed to come up with Boarlumps, a play on the name of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from J.K. Rowling's enormously successful 'Harry Potter' series. Hogwarts is (apparently) located in the Scottish Highlands and was founded by four ancient wizards and witches who gave their names to its school houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

The school itself can only be seen by magical people - us muggles just see a bleak ruin.

The name of Castle Rudolpho is not related in anyway to a flying reindeer with bright red nose. It is just a play on that of the castle featured in Ann Radcliffe's 1794 Gothic novel 'The Mysteries of Udolpho'. The novel was extremely popular in the early 19th century and was heavily satirised by Jane Austen in 'Northanger Abbey' - a book that is probably now more familiar to 21st century readers than Ann Radcliffe's masterpiece.

Thankfully for the inhabitants of Castle Island, Llamarot Castle is not full of decaying members of the camelid family. The name comes from Camelot, the legendary castle and stronghold of King Arthur. While there is no evidence that Camelot ever actually existed, Sir Thomas Malory - the author of 'Le Morte D'Arthur' - identified it as having been the city of Winchester in southern England.

This probably stemmed from Winchester having been an ancient capital of England under King Alfred and the existence of the Winchester Round Table, an artefact dated to the 13th century that was decorated with an image of King Arthur and the names of his knights on the orders of King Henry VIII.

Blunderings comes from Blandings, the castle that was home to the eccentric and somewhat absent-minded Lord Emsworth in a series of stories by P. G. Wodehouse. The author described the series as the "Blandings Castle Saga" but they are also commonly known as the "Blandings Books". One of the most famous characters that shares its name with the castle is the Empress of Blandings - Lord Emsworth's prize-winning pig.