Medieval Melodramatics Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ragnar the Fearless

Although Ragnar has killed both Uhtred's brother and his father, he enjoys Uhtred's futile attempt at avenging their deaths and takes the child as a foster son and raises Uhtred as a Dane. Willibald is a Saxon priest, while Ivar is one of three Danish brothers who attempt to conquer Wessex.

Historically, Ivar, Ubba, and Halfdan are sons of Ragnar Lodbrok. In "The Last Kingdom," the brothers attempt to conquer Wessex and bring all of England under Danish control. The Norse explorer Eric the Red is not in the book.

Answer: Northumberland

At the age of ten, Uhtred sees his father, also named Uhtred, killed by Ragnar, who captures the boy. While under the control of the Danes, Uhtred then loses control of Bebbanburg and Northumbria to his uncle Ælfric.

Answer: fighting in a great shield wall

As a hostage of Guthrum the Unlucky, Uhtred once again meets up with Brida, a former companion and lover. Enjoying the news that Uhtred is going to become a father, she tells him that when his son is born, Uhtred will be a "proper man." But in reaction to that comment, Uhtred reveals to himself his inner conviction that becoming a father would still leave "one thing lacking," which is being in a great shield wall.

He had "never endured the long bloodletting, the terrible fights when thirst and weariness weaken a man and the enemy, no matter how many you kill, keeps on coming. Only when I had done that, I thought, could I call myself a proper man."

Answer: his marriage to a land-holding Wessex woman

Once Uhtred marries Mildrith he becomes a landholder in Wessex as well as acquiring a huge debt to the Church attached to the land he gains from the marriage. This assures his role as a subject of Alfred and as a warrior for Wessex against the Danes in the rest of Cornwell's Saxon Series.

Answer: They would mount dragon heads on the prows of their ships.

In his Saxon Series, Cornwell makes a clear distinction between Vikings on the one hand and Danes and/or Norsemen on the other. In "The Last Kingdom," the invaders of England are most often described as Danes or pagans, but rarely as Vikings. The former are groups of people, while "viking", as Cornwell says in his "Historical Note" at the end of the story, "describes an activity, rather than a people or a tribe. To go viking meant to go raiding..." And, while the Danes spent a good deal of time raiding in England, they also meant to conquer and to settle. Thus the Danes in the story put "beast heads" on the prows and rears of their raiding vessels while viking.

Otherwise, as Ragnar tells the young Uhtred, "we lift the beast heads off so they don't frighten the spirits [of the land]" which the settlers need around so their settlements won't fail.

Answer: Ubba

When the ten-year-old Uhtred first meets the brothers Ubba and Ivar, at Eoferwic, the boy's blind adoptive grandfather Ravn warns him to fear Ubba. Ravn says, "If I give you one piece of advice, young Uhtred, it is never, never, to fight Ubba. Even Ragnar would fear to do that, and my son fears little." Yet Uhtred's face-to-face battle with Ubba at the shield wall is the climax of the novel.

The historical brothers are mentioned in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," but little is said of Ubba except that he died at Cynwit.

His name is also rendered as Ubbe or Hubba.

Answer: Saint Edmund and Saint Sebastian

The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" mentions the death of Edmund at the hands of the Danes, but the exact nature of his death is unknown. According to Wikipedia, one story says "In 869...the Danes...shot him with arrows and then beheaded him, on the orders of Ivar the Boneless and his brother Ubbe Ragnarsson." Cornwell uses this account in his novel after Edmund relates to the Danes the story of Saint Sebastian's miraculous survival of the same treatment at the hands of the Romans. Edmund also gained sainthood, and is also known as Edmund the Martyr.

Answer: Eoferwic (York, or Jorvik to the Vikings)

Eoferwic falls to the Danes, and this corresponds to the historic establishment of the Danelaw on English soil in the Ninth Century. From 886 to 954, the Danelaw is an area bounded by Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex. In Cornwell's Saxon Series, Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, although nominally ruled by Saxon kings, are also under control of the Danes, leaving Wessex as the only free Anglo-Saxon ruled kingdom.

Answer: Alfred

Cornwell uses this incident to introduce two characteristics of Alfred the Great which carry important weight in the story: his frequent ill health and his piety. Both threads run strong throughout the Saxon Series and are borne out in the historical record. One explanation of his health problems is that he may have suffered from Crohn's Disease.

Answer: Ælswith - Uhtred's birth mother

Ælswith is actually Alfred's wife and the only historical person of the four. Her name is also given as Eahlswith or Ealswitha, and she is described by some accounts as the daughter of a queen of Mercia. Alfred's biographer Asser, however, does not mention her. She and Alfred had five or six children, one of whom was Edward, who succeeded Alfred as King of Wessex.