Lions are Beautiful, Right? Trivia Quiz

Answer: C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis spent much of his life as an atheist, but after he joined a group at Magdalen College (University of Oxford) called the Inklings, he became convinced that God--specifically Jesus Christ--was true. After his conversion to Christianity, Lewis wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia" book series, which has many Christian elements in it. Lewis also wrote "Mere Christianity", which many Christians consider a great book of theology and apologetics.

Lewis himself stated that Aslan is not simply a symbol or allegory for Christ--to Lewis, Aslan IS Christ, but Christ to Narnia rather than Christ to Earth. Lewis said he wrote "The Chronicles of Narnia" because he wondered what it would be like if the Son of God visited a fantasy world instead of Earth. Lewis made the Narnia Christ figure a lion because Revelation 5:5 calls Jesus the Lion of Judah.

In "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", Aslan was tortured, beaten, and murdered and then he resurrected, just like Jesus in the New Testament. What I personally find fascinating is how even some of the little details match the New Testament. For example, the female characters, Susan and Lucy, witnessed Aslan's death and resurrection. This mirrors the New Testament because the witnesses to Christ's death and resurrection were indeed the women followers.

Answer: He is his father.

The Emperor is Aslan's father. Given that Aslan represents Jesus Christ, the Emperor represents God the Father, the first member of the Trinity. Unlike Aslan, his father isn't really described or portrayed as a lion. In fact, most of the Narnia books mention the mighty Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, but he doesn't really appear in them, per se. This is interesting because John 1:18 states that nobody has ever seen the Father; instead, according to that verse, the Son explained Him. In a similar way, it seems like nobody in Lewis's fantasy world "sees" the Emperor, but Aslan talks about him.

The Emperor-beyond-the Sea lives in what is called Aslan's Country, which is clearly similar to Heaven. In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", the mouse, Reepicheep, went to Aslan's Country.

Answer: Yes

Yes, Joy Adamson wrote "Born Free" to tell the true story of Elsa, a lioness. It is a memoir. Adamson raised Elsa from a cub after her husband, George, shot and killed Elsa's mother. He was the senior game warden of Kenya's Northern Frontier District. He did it because he thought the lioness was going to hurt him, but it also seems that Elsa's mother thought he was a threat to her cubs; she was only trying to protect them. Adamson and her husband gave Elsa's siblings to a zoo, but they kept and raised Elsa themselves.

"Born Free" was published in 1960. A movie version was released in 1966.

The actors who played Joy and George Adamson in the film, Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, were so moved by Elsa's story that they founded the Born Free Foundation, an international foundation to help wildlife and prevent animal abuse. McKenna and Travers were also married in real-life.

Answer: The mouse rescued the lion from hunters.

In "The Lion and the Mouse", a lion caught a mouse and was going to kill it, but it begged him to let it go. It said that it would repay the lion if he let it go, and, amused by its promise, the lion set the mouse free. Some time later, poachers caught the lion in a net and he wasn't able to set himself free. He roared and the mouse recognized his voice. The mouse ran over to the lion and nibbled on the rope until the rope broke and the lion was released.

The moral of "The Lion and the Mouse" is that kind or generous acts are never wasted.

The mouse's gender differs depending on the version. I saw one where the mouse was a "he" and another where it was a "she". For this reason, I just call it, "it".

Answer: Because the wolf's shadow deceived him

The following is the version from AesopFables.org. The exact wording differs between the editions or translations of this story, but the message is essentially the same.

"A wolf, roaming by the mountain's side, saw his own shadow, as the sun was setting, become greatly extended and magnified, and he said to himself; 'Why should I, being of such an immense size, and extending nearly an acre in length, be afraid of the Lion? Ought I not to be acknowledged as King of all the collected beasts?' While he was indulging in these proud thoughts, a Lion fell upon him and killed him. He exclaimed with a too-late repentance; 'Wretched me! This over estimation of myself is the cause of my destruction.'"

Another, seemingly more common, title for this fable is "The Wolf and His Shadow".

While there might be other interpretations, I personally see this fable as an allegory for God and the devil. I see the lion as God and/or Jesus and the devil as the wolf. The Bible implies that Lucifer became the devil when he rebelled against God and it was his pride that led him to do so. Lucifer didn't want to submit to God and wanted to be God.

A group of lions is called a "pride", but this, obviously, is an entirely different definition of the word.

Answer: A drink

The 1939 MGM movie is vastly different from the original story. I won't list all of the differences here, because there are a lot, but among these differences are the gifts that the wizard gave Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion. In the movie, he gave Cowardly Lion a medal of courage, but in the book, he gave him a drink of courage.

In the book, the wizard gave Scarecrow a brain made of pins and needles and he gave Tin Man a silk heart. In the movie, Scarecrow got a diploma and Tin Man received a heart clock.

The movie includes the saying, "Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my!", but there are no actual tigers included in the movie. "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" includes tigers in it, and one of them was most likely Hungry Tiger, who is Cowardly Lion's best friend in the other "Oz" books. The original book apparently doesn't name Hungry Tiger as one of the tigers, but other books imply that he was one of them.

Cowardly Lion and Hungry Tiger appear in books such as "Ozma of Oz" and "Little Wizard Stories of Oz".

Answer: Persia

There are countless variations of the "Beauty and the Beast" fairytale. The most popular or well-known literary version is probably the 1756 French version by Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont.

The Greek myth "Cupid and Psyche" possibly somewhat influenced "Beauty and the Beast". There is another interesting theory for the tale's origins, which suggests that it was based on a real-life man, Petrus Gonsalvus, who suffered from hypertrichosis, an extremely rare syndrome that causes hair to grow all over the body. A beautiful woman, Catherine, married Petrus. The people considered Petrus to be a "wildman" and really did fear him.

In Napoli's rendition, Orasmyn was a Persian prince and a Muslim. One day, he angered a fairy because he accidentally offered an imperfect camel as a sacrifice to Allah. She cursed him to be a lion and said that only a woman's love could cure him (something that she thought would never happen). When Orasmyn realized that, as a lion, he couldn't stay alive in Persia (his own father was hunting lions) he traveled. He traveled through India and eventually wound up in France, where he met Beauty or Belle.

Unlike other versions, which are told in third-person and focus more on Beauty than the beast, Napoli wrote "Beast" from the first-person narration of the beast. It tells the background life and information of the beast and how he ended up that way. Beauty isn't even mentioned until almost the story's end.

Answer: False

"Tarzan and the Golden Lion" is a real book, but Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote it. In this novel, Tarzan and Jane find a lion cub, which they take home and raise. The lion's name is Jad-bal-ja.

Jad-bal-ja appears again in "Tarzan and the Lion Man". In "Tarzan and the Lion Man", Tarzan and Jad-bal-ja find a mad scientist, who has a city of talking apes.

There are 24 total novels in the "Tarzan" series.

Answer: Lily

"Lily and the Lion" is similar to Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast", with some distinctions. For one, the name of the character is Lily instead of Beauty. While de Beaumont's doesn't specify what kind of "beast" he was, he was a lion in this variation. Also in "Lily and the Lion", the bewitched prince was only a lion during the day. During the night, he turned back into a human, and the cycle continued for a while.

A dragon princess captured the prince. Lily, his rightful wife, had to go on a big mission to rescue him. The prince and Lily were reunited at the end. Interestingly, the prince transforms into a dove, in addition to a lion, in this story.

Answer: He was allowed to stay, as long as he followed the rules.

In this cute tale, a lion walked into a library. The librarian, Miss Merriweather, was very strict when it came to rules. The library's rules included being very quiet and no running. Nonetheless, Miss Merriweather didn't have a rule against lions in the library! She told him he could stay as long as he kept the rules.

The lion made friends with the children and he did follow the rules. The only time he roared loudly was when Miss Merriweather was in trouble. He roared loudly to grab the attention of another librarian, to let them know that she was in trouble. But the lion was so good, he still temporarily left the library because he knew that he broke the rule!

"Library Lion" is a picture book with illustrations by Kevin Hawkes. Its appropriate age range is 4 and up.