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Rural Monkey Business Trivia Quiz

So you think you know your Stella Gibbons! "Cold Comfort Farm" will offer just that if you have a low score.

A multiple-choice quiz by balaton. Estimated time: 4 mins.

Author
balaton

Time
4 mins

Type
Multiple Choice

Quiz #
360,704

Updated
Dec 03 21

# Qns
10

Difficulty
Average

Avg Score
7 / 10

Plays
158

One at a Time - Single Page - Timed Game

Question 1 of 10

1. "Cold Comfort Farm" is dirty, chaotic and uncompromisingly dominated by a reclusive matriarch. Which character is determined to reorganize the whole Starkadder family?
Hint

Sarah Poste

Flora Starkadder

Robert Poste's child

Aunt Ada Doom

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Question 2 of 10

2. What present did Flora give to Adam Lambsbreath? Hint

A Bible

A bottle of disinfectant.

A dishmop

A twig to "cletter" the dishes with.

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Question 3 of 10

3. Adam Lambsbreath loved his pathetic herd of cows very much. What were their names? Hint

Sukebind, Feckless, Legless and Harkaway

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

Big Business, Graceless, Listless and Pointless

Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless

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Question 4 of 10

4. "The Church of the Quivering Brethren" was where the fear of Hell was hammered into the congregation each Sabbath day by its fervent pastor. Who was he? Hint

Amos

Micah

Ezra

Reuben

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Question 5 of 10

5. In which of these works does Flora seek advice, comfort and inspiration? Hint

Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

Farmers Weekly

The Higher Common Sense

Shakespeare's sonnets

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Question 6 of 10

6. Who wants to marry Flora, and eventually does so? Hint

Charles Fairford

Reuben Starkadder

Mr, Meyerburg

Dick Hawk-Monitor

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Question 7 of 10

7. What did Aunt Ada see in the woodshed when she was very small that had a lasting and terrible effect on her? Hint

The ghost of Fig Starkadder

Seth and Meriam

Wood

Something nasty

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Question 8 of 10

8. Who, finally, persuades Aunt Ada to leave behind the woodshed and enjoy life in Paris? Hint

Dr. Mudel

Seth

Earl P, Neck

Flora

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Question 9 of 10

9. According to the family, what has always been at Cold Comfort Farm? Hint

Starkadders

hospitality

beetles

babies

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Question 10 of 10

10. What wedding present does Adam Lambsbreath give to Elfine? Hint

A little dish mop

A nest containing four pink eggs

Graceless

A nest containing two blue eggs

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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. "Cold Comfort Farm" is dirty, chaotic and uncompromisingly dominated by a reclusive matriarch. Which character is determined to reorganize the whole Starkadder family?

Answer: Robert Poste's child

Flora Poste is often referred to as "Robert Poste's child" by members of the Starkadder family. They appear to wish to atone for some "terrible wrong" that they did to Robert Poste in the past, although, frustratingly, we are never told what this was! Aunt Judith declares that her lips are sealed since "we are not like other folk"!

2. What present did Flora give to Adam Lambsbreath?

Answer: A dishmop

Adam never used his present. He hung it up because it was too pretty to use and carried on washing the dishes with a twig! When he finally moved with his cows to the squire's farm, he carried the little mop round his neck on a string.

3. Adam Lambsbreath loved his pathetic herd of cows very much. What were their names?

Answer: Graceless, Aimless, Feckless and Pointless

The cows often lost bits of themselves, and their names might more appropriately have included Legless and Footless! They eventually joined the squire's herd and Adam went to look after them. There was also a bull called Big Business who was never let out of his field until Flora took pity on him one day.

4. "The Church of the Quivering Brethren" was where the fear of Hell was hammered into the congregation each Sabbath day by its fervent pastor. Who was he?

Answer: Amos

"Cold Comfort Farm" is a parody of some of the rural novels of its time and "The Church of the Quivering Brethren" may well be based on a church described in "Susan Spray", a novel by Sheila Kaye-Smith. Amos subsequently becomes an itinerant Gospel preacher - and part of Flora's final solution to the family's chaotic problems.

5. In which of these works does Flora seek advice, comfort and inspiration?

Answer: The Higher Common Sense

"The Higher Common Sense", by the Abbe Fausse Maigre, is a work of Gibbon's own imagination. It would be useful though, wouldn't it? "Farmers Weekly" offers very good advice, although the Starkadders could scarcely have profited by it since it first came out in 1934, two years after "Cold Comfort Farm" was published. Mrs. Beeton died in 1865, aged only 28, eight years after her book came out.

6. Who wants to marry Flora, and eventually does so?

Answer: Charles Fairford

Mr. Meyerburg falls in love with "poor daft Rennet". Dick Hawk-Monitor lends respectability to the family by marrying Elfine, while Reuben is content with inheriting the farm. Urk consoles himself for the loss of Elfine by marrying Meriam, the hired girl.

7. What did Aunt Ada see in the woodshed when she was very small that had a lasting and terrible effect on her?

Answer: Something nasty

The nature of the "something nasty", seen when Aunt Ada was "no bigger than a titty wren", is never revealed. Fig Stakadder was a real person - a family ancestor!

8. Who, finally, persuades Aunt Ada to leave behind the woodshed and enjoy life in Paris?

Answer: Flora

Flora uses a copy of "Vogue Magazine" to convince Aunt Ada. She finally departs theatrically in an aeroplane! Dr.Mudel looks after Judith, while Seth makes a career in movies, employed by the director Earl P. Neck.

9. According to the family, what has always been at Cold Comfort Farm?

Answer: Starkadders

The only beetle mentioned is Mrs. Beetle, a cleaning lady. She is raising her large family to be a jazz band! The only babies at the farm are the ones that Meriam, her daughter, produces each year when the sukebind is in bloom.

10. What wedding present does Adam Lambsbreath give to Elfine?

Answer: A nest containing four pink eggs

The four eggs are meant to prophesy four children to bless the young Hawk-Monitors. The book contains much that shows Stella Gibbons poking fun at old rural superstitions and rites such those in the contemporary novels of Sheila Kaye-Smith and Mary Webb.

Source: Author balaton

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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