"A Breath of Snow and Ashes" Chapters 11 - 20 Quiz | Literature

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Poor Bobby! Immediately after suffering surgery for the removal of his "emerods", young Higgins is bitten in the arm by the recalcitrant mule of one of the brothers Brown. Following that, he falls into a dead faint. When he regains consciousness, Bobby informs Claire and Lizzie that he has had these fainting fits before. When the young man returns from fetching Roger Mac to Jamie, Claire attempts to diagnose the cause of his fainting spells. What is wrong with poor Bobby now?

Answer: Anchylostomiasis - fainting as a result of iron deficiency anaemia.

This question is a little tricky because you were asked to take a step beyond what was revealed in the book: Bobby Higgins, after the humiliating removal of his haemorrhoids, now has hookworms -- intestinal parasites -- to deal with. When hookworms are present in large numbers they can cause anchylostomiasis, characterized by pallor, fatigue and fainting. Congratulations on your correct diagnosis!

Bobby's immediate reaction, upon hearing of this new affliction, is to vomit profusely into a bucket. He asks Claire if this has taken care of the hookworms, and offers to produce more of the same if it would help. Unfortunately for Bobby it won't, but Claire assures him she knows how to concoct a medicine that will poison the little buggers.

2. Roger Mac comes home from Ronnie Sinclair's cooper shop to find on his dinner table a corked green glass jar sealed with wax. There is a chunk of something inside, submerged in a liquid. Brianna snatches a curious Jemmy away from the jar and admonishes him that the substance is poisonous. To Roger, Brianna explains that the substance is packaged in water because it will ignite when in contact with air. The substance is white phosphorus; what does Brianna intend to make with it, if she can?

Answer: Strike-anywhere matches

Brianna tells her husband that she knows how the match-making process works in theory, but the production will still be difficult due to the reactive nature of phosphorus. In later chapters of the book Brianna experiments with glassmaking by soaking paper in dilute sulphuric acid.

White phosphorus was first used in the production of friction matches in 1830. A box of matches had to be kept air-tight, lest they ignite, and contained a lethal dose of the chemical element. Phosphorus sesquisulphide is a non-poisonous compound and was first used in the production of "safety" matches in 1899. The element phosphorus gained notoriety in the Vietnam War with its military applications of incendiary weapons and smoke-screens.

3. After a long day each, Claire and Jamie sit down to a late dinner of Mrs. Bug's stew. A conversation about the remedies Claire plans to employ for the treatment of Lizzie Wemyss' and Bobby Higgins' ailments turns rather morbid: Not including the time Jamie had smallpox when he was a child or the day he met Claire, is it true or false that Jamie claims he has been close to death five times?

Answer: True

Claire mentions the time (in "Outlander") in the Abb� de Ste. Anne de Beaupr� where Jamie nearly died from a fever, and the fever he suffered as the result of a gaping and festering leg wound he received at the Battle of Culloden ("Voyager") during the Rising of 1745. Jamie mentions having smallpox when he was younger but chooses not to count it since he had been told it was a light case and he doesn't think he was in any danger of dying. He also recalls being shot by Laoghaire ("Voyager") and being poisoned by a snake ("The Fiery Cross"). Claire brings up the day they met on which Jamie was both shot and stabbed and nearly bled to death ("Outlander"), but Jamie protests that those were merely scratches and doesn't count this incident either. Finally Claire recounts the time that he was hit in the head with a lochaber axe by his Uncle Dougal (alluded to in several books but occuring in none), and Jamie concedes that he has almost died five times. Since Jamie is prone to horrible seasickness, I'm surprised that he didn't try to add all of the times he's been at sea!

Near Death Experiences (NDEs) are thought by some to be the result of hallucinations produced by the brain as it dies. Others believe NDEs to have a more religious or spiritual origin, and it is also a phenomenon studied in parapsychology. A person having an NDE may experience all or some of the following: a feeling or sense of being dead; a sensation of existing outside of one's body (called an out-of-body experience); an overwhelming sense of calmness, peace and love; a feeling of moving upwards; encountering deceased relatives; seeing light or a being of light; having one's life pass before one's eyes or the sensation of having reached a boundary. Finally the person having the NDE has a sense of returning to him- or herself, usually accompanied by a feeling of reluctance. In a later chapter of "A Breath of Snow and Ashes", Claire has a Near Death Experience that exhibits several of these characteristics.

4. Among his first duties as Indian Agent, Jamie and Ian visit the Cherokee village where Bird-who-sings-in-the-morning is chief. "Tell your King we want guns," Bird says to Jamie. Jamie replies that guns are possible but he cannot yet promise them. What does Jamie offer to the village as a certainty on behalf of the British Crown?

Answer: Trade goods

Later in the conversation Bird makes a second request for guns, and also tells Jamie to tell the King why they are wanted for the village. Jamie points out that this probably isn't a sound method for obtaining weaponry as one of the reasons the Cherokee wish for the guns is the increasing number of British settlers staking their land claims on the wrong side of the Treaty Line. Bird reminds Jamie that his men are perfectly capable of ridding themselves of the intruders, with or without guns.

Partway through their conversation Jamie refers to Bird as Tsisqua, which means "Bird" in the language of the Tsalagi (Cherokee). There are seven clans of the Tsalagi: the Anigilohi (Long Hair Clan), the Anisahoni (Blue Clan), the Aniwaya (Wolf Clan), the Anigotegewi (Wild Potato Clan), the Aniawi (Deer Clan), the Anitsisqua (Bird Clan) and the Aniwodi (Paint Clan). The number seven has particular spiritual significance to the Tsalagi: in addition to being the number of Tsalagi clans, it is also the number of directions that exist according to Cherokee belief -- north, east, south and west, and also up (to the Upper World), down (to the Lower World) and Centre (the part of the World inhabited by man).

5. Roger Mac and Tom Christie, the schoolmaster, travel to River Run Plantation, the home of Jocasta and Duncan Innes, to meet up with the village of emigrants and escort them back to their new home on Fraser's Ridge. Roger is approached by one of the plantation's slaves, a young girl named Phaedre, Jocasta's chambermaid. Phaedre recounts an incident where she was out with "Miss Jo" and Roger's son, Jemmy, when a man approached them and behaved strangely towards the boy. Phaedre describes the man as tall and fair-haired and mimics his Irish accent for Roger. "We was in town, sir, this morning, at Mr. Benjamin's warehouse, you know the one? Down by the river." In which town has Phaedre just encountered Stephen Bonnet?

Answer: Cross Creek

River Run Plantation is situated nearest to Cross Creek in (what is now) Cumberland County. The towns of Edenton, Wilmington and New Bern are on the North Carolina coast and each would be a journey of at least several days from the plantation by horse or along the river. That being the case, it would be impossible for Phaedre to recount the morning's incident to Roger in the afternoon at River Run if she and Jocasta had journeyed farther away from their home than Cross Creek.

Stephen Bonnet is a pirate who has played a major role in the lives of the Frasers throughout the New World Trilogy: "Drums of Autumn", "The Fiery Cross" and "A Breath of Snow and Ashes". Since the day he first encountered the Frasers in Charleston, South Carolina, Bonnet has robbed Claire and Jamie, raped and kidnapped Brianna and attempted to rob Jocasta Innes (then Jocasta Cameron). The island of Ocracoke, where Stephen Bonnet hides his lair, is notorious as a favoured hideout of Edward Teach until his death in 1718 ... the pirate formidably known as Blackbeard.

6. Jamie returns from his visits among the tribes. Inquiring as to the Ridge's welfare in his absence, he is surprised to learn that most, but not all, of the barley had been reaped. Jamie remembers a rain shower that might have harmed the delicate grain, but recalls that it had occurred in the week after the last of the barley ought to have been harvested. Claire tells her husband the story of what happened to one of Murdo Lindsay's fields. It wasn't damaged by rain; what had happened to it?

Answer: It was beset by grasshoppers.

Claire had adjourned to her garden one day near the end of the barley harvest to find the enclosure overwrought with grasshoppers. She ran for the aid of Lizzie and Mrs. Bug, and the three of them drove the grasshoppers from the garden with brooms. The swarm had then flown from the garden and settled in Lindsay's field. The three women, with Brianna and Marsali, had taken chase and set fire to the field lest the grasshoppers ruin any more of the harvest. Of course, Claire laments, it was at just that moment that Roger Mac returned from River Run with the new tenants. Claire: "It was getting dark, and here they all were, standing in the woods with their bundles and children, watching this--this bally conflagration going on, and all of us dancing round barefoot with our shifts kirtled up, hooting like gibbons and covered in soot."

The term "locust" is applied to the swarming stages of some species of short-horned grasshoppers (as opposed to long-horned grasshoppers, which are called katydids in North America and bush-crickets in the United Kingdom), those that display swarming behaviour in areas of high population density. Biblically speaking, locusts were the eighth of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, sent by God to punish the Pharaoh for ignoring God's warning for him to release his Israeli slaves. Socrates had something to say about locusts, too: In Plato's "Phaedrus" Socrates claims that they are the creation of the Muses; the transformation of those who had died forgetting to eat or drink, so captivated were they when the Muses first brought song to the world.

7. Jamie pens a rather lengthy letter to Lord John Grey, in which he describes his recent employment for the Crown, the formation of a Committee of Safety in nearby Brownsville and the coming of the Scottish emigrants to the Ridge. Jamie also passes along words of thanks from Brianna for the gift of white phosphorus and reports that as her experiments to date have been somewhat combustive, he is very glad that none have been witnessed by the new tenants lest they come to think his entire family the spawn of Satan. The Scottish emigrants view Claire's surgery as somewhat of a chamber of sorcery, but why are they distrustful of Jamie?

Answer: He is Catholic

Jamie writes to Lord John Grey: "Since I speak of Matters hellish, I must observe that our Newcomers are also, alas, stern Sons of the Covenant, to whom a Papist such as myself presents himself fully furnished with Horns and Tail."

The Committees of Safety of the American Revolutionary War began to be formed in the thirteen colonies as early as 1760. These were meant to serve the public interest, and it wasn't uncommon for all of the male members of a community to be members. Delegates were sent to county and colony assemblies to give voice on matters of local concern. The Brownsville Committee of Safety, while obviously serving the purposes of the Browns and their kin, are a constant thorn in the side of Jamie and Claire, culminating with the latter's arrest on the suspicion of her involvement in the murder of Malva Christie.

8. A quiet evening at home with the MacKenzies: Brianna describes to Roger Mac the concepts she is toying with in order to provide running water to the homesteads on Fraser's Ridge, but Roger is whittling something for Jem and isn't really listening to her. When the item is complete he hands it to his son, who accepts it with great pleasure and asks Roger what it is called. Jem has no frame of reference for "car" or "automobile" to mean anything; what does Brianna tell Jemmy that the toy is called?

Answer: A vroom

Roger Mac has obviously spent a long time making the toy, and as he and Brianna struggle to name it for Jemmy, Diana Gabaldon writes sullenly to instill in the reader a sense of the two time-travelers' homesickness for the era they left behind. The chapter ends with Brianna's thoughts once again on how she might provide herself in this time with amenities she took for granted in her youth.

Henry Ford's "Model T" ("Tin Lizzie") automobile is considered to be the world's first affordable car. It was produced by Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1927. To increase the efficiency of the production line, the Ford "Model T" was offered in limited colours (that is, one), which prompted this famous quote by Ford: "A customer can have a car painted any colour he wants so long as it is black."

9. It is the last day of the haying, and the women of Fraser's Ridge have prepared a feast to celebrate the end of this arduous task. While Lizzie Wemyss whiles away most of the evening with her intended fianc�'s family, Bobby Higgins manages to extract her from the scrutiny of Frau Ute for a private conversation. While Claire decides whether or not she should intervene, Jamie quotes to her: "Three things astonish me, nay four, sayeth the prophet. The way of the eagle in the air, the way of the serpent on the rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea -- and the way of a man with ..." what?

Answer: "... a maid."

While Lizzie and Bobby are apparently keeping a respectful distance from each other, they seem flirtatious and Jamie and Claire decide to send Young Ian, who has a scratch on his hand, over to ask Lizzie to clean up the wound. Then the Beardsley twins, ever protective of Lizzie, decide to take Bobby into the woods for a chat ... one that Claire hopes won't result in the need for more doctoring.

Jamie's quote is from the Bible, Proverbs 30:18-19. I'm not sure from which version of the Bible he is quoting ... the way he words the quote is a little different from all of the versions I could find. While English language translations of the Bible have been available in mass print since 1525 (the Tyndale Bible), as a Catholic Jamie's exposure to the Holy Scriptures (in the mid-eighteenth century) would mainly have been in their Latinate form. The discrepency could therefore be in Jamie's scholarly translation to English when he recites the passage to Claire.

10. Jamie and Ian return from visiting the tribes, bringing with them a group of six Cherokee. Among the party is a Miss Mouse Wilson, who has come to have Claire pull a damaged tooth. One of the members of the Ridge is not amused to discover that Mouse and her brother, Red Clay Wilson, share a surname with his wife's family: "'Great-Uncle Ephraim,' he whispered. 'Jesus save us.' And without further word, he turned on his heel and tottered off." Whose relative is Great-Uncle Ephraim?

Answer: Hiram Crombie

Hiram Crombie is the leader of the Thurso emigrants. He is not well-liked by the other citizens of the Ridge but through the course of the novel he comes to have a grudging respect for Jamie, Papist though he is. Hiram is first introduced to us through the description of his character that Duncan gives to Roger at River Run: "The wee sour-drap with the stick up his ..." well, you get the general idea, I'm sure! Later in the chapter a funeral is held for an unknown settler, whom Brianna irreverently dubs "Ephraim".

The surname Wilson means "son of William". It is a popular name that occurs throughout the geographical regions of Scotland, although it is particularly associated with the areas surrounding Angus and Fife in the east. Those Wilsons living in Caithness were a sept of Clan Gunn, whose name derives from the Old Norwegian word "gunni" meaning "war" or "battle". The Norwegian link is not surprising given the proximity of Caithness to the Orkney Islands, which remained a Norwegian stronghold until well into the fifteenth century.

Source: Author LadyCaitriona

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"A Breath of Snow and Ashes" Chapters 11 - 20 Quiz

In book six of the "Outlander" saga we follow Claire and Jamie's story through the American Revolutionary War. Excerpts from the book are given in quotation and were written by Diana Gabaldon.

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