Fairy Tales (Not For Kids) Trivia Quiz

Answer: To avoid being executed

According to the frame story, an oriental potentate (of somewhat vague location in time and space) discovers that his wife has been unfaithful, and has her executed. In his anger and sorrow, he decides that women cannot be trusted, and embarks on a course of marrying a string of virgins, each of whom is executed the next morning, before she has a chance to betray him. Scheherazade, the vizier's daughter, volunteers when they have run out of other suitable young women, and prolongs her life by telling exciting adventure stories, ending each evening's session with the latest story incomplete. To satisfy his curiosity, the king grants her an extra day of life so he can hear the next instalment. Eventually, they end up with her life secured, but different versions of the tale offer a variety of explanations as to how this is achieved.

The stories in the collection have their sources in Indian, Persian and Arabic tales, but some with which English readers are familiar were added in the process of translation into European languages, and are not found in the (admittedly incomplete) source texts.

Answer: Shipwreck

Sinbad is actually a late addition to the stories of "Arabian Nights" - his stories appear for the first time in a Turkish manuscript in 1637. Their inclusion in Sir Richard Burton's 1885 translation has ensured their subsequent popularity. The cycle describes seven voyages, in each of which he finds himself separated from his shipmates, has a wondrous adventure, and is rescued, with ever-increasing wealth.

His encounters during these journeys include a whale that sinks his ship, gigantic poisonous snakes, a monster that barbecues his shipmates, marriage in a culture that decrees he must be entombed with his wife when she dies soon after they are wed, a giant roc that destroys the ship after his crewmates foolishly eat one of its eggs, and more. You have to wonder why he kept going back to sea!

Answer: The choice of how he is to die

The fisherman was excited when he dragged up a valuable antique bottle, but not pleased to discover that opening it released a powerful and angry genie, who had spent four hundred years imprisoned in the bottle. For the first hundred years he was prepared to offer his liberator fabulous wealth; then he changed the offer to three wishes, and finally was so frustrated that he was only prepared to let the person who freed him choose how he was to die.

The fisherman managed to trick the genie back inside the bottle ("I'll bet you can't fit back inside that tiny bottle, such a big strong genie as you"), and only releases it again when it has relented, and promised to help him. Following the genie's advice, the fisherman then manages to befriend the Sultan with a gift of fish, and live happily ever after.

Answer: Hansel and Gretel

The original version had the children being abandoned by their parents, because there was a famine that meant they could not be fed. Later versions softened this slightly, introducing an evil stepmother who convinced a reluctant father to do the deed. Things start to look up for the children when they come across a gingerbread house, and start to feast on it, but once they have been lured inside with offers of further treats, they find themselves (or more precisely, Hansel) on the menu. Of course they manage to trick the witch and escape, after killing her in a most unchildlike fashion.

Answer: A hunter uses his ax to cut open the wolf and release the girl and her grandmother

After the hunter chops open the wolf as it sleeps, the girl and her grandmother both emerge unscathed (don't ask). The three of them fill the wolf's belly with stones, so that it is unable to escape when it wakes (again, don't ask why it stayed asleep through all this), and dies. Later versions have removed some of the grisly bits from this cautionary tale.

In some, neither the grandmother nor the girl was eaten - the grandmother turns out to have been hiding in the closet, and the girl is saved by a passing hunter (or woodcutter, depending on the version) as the wolf is approaching her rather than after she has been devoured. Still, the wolf gets it every time.

Answer: It dies

The point of the fable is that you cannot please everyone, as illustrated by a sequence of events whose order varies between versions. When the man and the boy walk beside the donkey because it is carrying a burden, they are criticised for being too foolish to ride it; when the boy rides the donkey, he is criticised for making his poor old father walk; when the father rides it, he is criticised for making his poor weak young son walk; when they both ride, they are criticised for making the donkey carry too heavy a load.

At some point, they decide that they must carry the donkey to keep it from being exhausted, which obviously leads to general laughter at their expense. One way or another, the ultimate fate of the donkey in almost every version is death, often by being thrown into the water because they are too frustrated to continue trying to deal with it.

Answer: Lack of charity on the part of the ant

Most versions come down on the side of the ant, emphasising the virtue its approach to life, as opposed to the profligate ways of the grasshopper, who makes music during the fair weather, rather than preparing for the winter that is to come. While some have later considered the grasshopper to epitomise the place of the artist in a society that does not value sufficiently the production of the fine arts (music, painting, sculpture, literature, etc.), that was not La Fontaine's point.

He was concerned with the lack of Christian charity shown when the ant refused to assist the starving grasshopper in his time of need.

Answer: Kill the hen to find the gold inside it

The couple were so excited when their hen started laying a golden egg every day that they decided it must have a large lump of gold inside, so they killed it to get at this supposed gold. Sadly, there was none, and their greed deprived them of all the eggs that the hen might have laid on subsequent days.

There are other versions of the story, in some of which it is a goose; in Caxton's version, they demand that the goose double its output to two eggs a day, and kill it in anger when it refuses to do so.

Answer: The lord had Matyi whipped unjustly

This is a cautionary tale to those in power, warning them not to abuse their power or to underestimate the intelligence of those they rule. Matyi was innocently selling his geese at the market when the Lord Dobroghy declares that the geese are really his, and has Matyi whipped for ostensibly stealing them. Matyi vows to get his revenge three-fold. First he disguises himself as an Italian architect, offers to assist Lord Dobroghy in the construction of his new castle, sends all the servants and guards into the forest to collect wood, and beats the Lord with the same 50 lashes that he had received earlier.

While he is still recovering from these injuries, Matyi pretends to be a doctor, and offers to treat him using herbs that all the castle residents must go procure; of course, that sets the stage for a second beating.

Much later, Lord Dobroghy is tricked into sending all his men chasing after another young lad pretending to be Matyi, leaving himself alone for the third and final whipping.

Answer: They cut off bits of their feet to make them small enough

The Brothers Grimm certainly do live up to their name on occasion! In this version of the story (in which Cinderella's father is actually party to her ill-treatment at the hands of her stepmother), Cinderella gets assistance from the birds, who first help her complete the "impossible" tasks set by her stepmother, then provide suitable clothing for her so that she can attend the three-day feast the Prince is throwing. When she loses her slipper, and the Prince's servants are looking for the woman whose foot it will fit, the first stepsister cut off her toes in order to fit her clodhopper feet into the dainty slipper. The birds tattled, and the men came searching again, so the second stepsister cut off her heel to make the slipper fit. Again, the birds gave their ploy away. Finally, Cinderella has her chance, and the Prince immediately recognises her as the woman with whom he has fallen in love.

As if the crippling and pain the stepsisters would have suffered from the futile attempt to get their feet into the golden slipper were not punishment in itself, this version of the story has birds pecking out their eyes during the wedding celebrations, to live the rest of their lives in blindness. Some versions are kinder: they are forgiven, and get to serve as Cinderella's attendants (not that they would find that much of an entrancing prospect, either).