Yesterday I Saw a Swan Trivia Quiz

Answer: Helen of Troy

Minos (the king of Crete) and the heroes Perseus and Heracles are all children of Zeus by different women, but Helen of Troy is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, along with Castor. Leda also had a daughter, Clytemnestra, and a son, Pollux, by her husband Tyndareus. Pollux and Castor were twins despite having different dads, and the constellation Gemini is named for them.

Zeus was in love with Leda, and transformed into a swan and flew to her for protection while being chased by an eagle. He seduced her, and she laid two eggs.

Answer: He makes people get stuck to the swan and each other

This story is also known as 'Swan, Let It Stick!', and involves a magic swan, which a young man steals from its owner on the orders of an old woman, who tells him it will make his fortune. Whenever anyone admires the swan's feathers and asks to touch it, all he has to say is, "Swan, let it stick!" and they will be stuck to the swan.

When other people try to free the people stuck to the swan, they become stuck to each other, and the hero walks through the streets with his swan and a parade of people stuck to its back and each other.

The princess of the country has never smiled or laughed, but when she sees the ridiculous sight of the swan, she bursts out laughing and the king offers the hero her hand in marriage. Other versions of the tale, such as the Italian version collected by Italo Calvino, feature a goose.

Answer: Speak

This classic story is Aarne-Thompson Type 451, 'the brothers turned into birds', and other stories in this quiz bear some similarities to it. Some versions have as many as 12 brothers (Andersen's has 11), but this particular version has six. They are all changed into swans when they put on shirts that their evil stepmother has sewn for them.

They can only change back into their human forms for fifteen minutes every evening, and tell their sister that she must sew six shirts out of nettles, and must not speak for six years.

She hides away in a forest hut to do this. A passing king sees her and falls in love, but his mother hates the girl, and whenever the girl gives birth to one of the king's children, his mother hides the child and claims the new queen killed and ate it.

She is sentenced to be burned at the stake, and continues to sew the shirts in private, but on the day of the execution, one shirt has a sleeve missing. As the queen is about to be burned at the stake, she brings the shirts with her, as the six years are almost up, and her brothers fly down to save her.

She throws the shirts at them and they turn back, but the youngest still has one wing as his shirt only has one sleeve. As the queen is allowed to speak, she explains everything and her mother-in-law gets executed instead.

Answer: Steal the swan maiden's feathers

'The Swan Maiden' is set in the province of Mellby, and is an archetypal story of an enchanted woman who is transformed into a bird, and whose feathers are stolen as a means of capturing her. The hunter sees three swans taking off their feathers, turning into women and going for a swim, and when they get out of the water, they put their feathers back on, turn into swans and fly away.

The hunter falls in love with the youngest swan and goes off hunting, and his mother notices something is wrong. When he tells her he wants to possess the swan maiden, she tells him to wait till they go swimming and then steal her feathers. Upon noticing her feathers are missing, the swan maiden begs the hunter to give them back, but he wraps her in his cloak and takes her home.

The two are married, and seven years later, the hunter tells his wife how he won her. He still has the feathers, and brings them out to show her. As soon as he gives her the feathers, the swan maiden turns into a swan and flies away, and the hunter eventually dies of a broken heart.

Answer: He traps her by putting tar on the windowsill.

Like the girl in 'The Swan Maiden', the heroine of 'The Swan Queen' has the ability to become human by taking off her feathers, and when she is human, she helps an old couple around the house without their knowledge. They're curious to find out who the mysterious helper is, so the husband hides and when the swan turns into a woman, he burns her wings. The woman cries because she misses her family, but stays with the old couple until a passing king falls in love with her, and gives her adopted parents money in return for her hand in marriage. The queen gives birth to a son, and one day she sees a flock of swans singing to her and asking her to come with them. It makes her sad and she tries to ignore them, but the swan she once loved appears, and she gives in, takes a pair of wings and turns into a swan. However, her swan lover soon dies.

Meanwhile, the king has remarried, and his new wife, Lauma, is a witch who treats her stepson badly. Every night the swan queen flies home, and turns back into a human to wash her son and sing him to sleep. The king asks an old man how to catch her, and the old man tells him to put tar on the windowsill and when the swan gets stuck, to tear off her wings. He does this and she turns back into a human, and they get back together while Lauma is executed.

Answer: The Kalevala

The 'Kalevala', the national epic of Finland, is a Finnish epic poem compiled by the Finnish doctor and writer Elias Lönnröt from Finnish folklore and mythology. Tuonela is the Underworld, and features several times in the 'Kalevala'; for instance, the hero Väināmöinen travels down there to gain knowledge about the dead.

In Lemminkäinen's case, he goes to Tuonela to kill the Black Swan in an attempt to woo one of the daughters of Louhi, an evil witch queen who often sets heroes impossible or difficult tasks.

The Black Swan swims around in the river of Tuonela, around the island of the dead, and it sings a song to Lemminkäinen which moves him so much, he doesn't want to kill it. The blind son of Tuoni, the king of the Underworld, sends a poisonous snake to bite Lemminkäinen, and he falls into the river and is torn apart. Lemminkäinen's mother goes to Tuonela to search for him and dredges up first his clothes, and then pieces of his body.

She sews his dismembered body back together, but is unable to bring him back to life, so she asks a bee to get a drop of honey from Ukko, the thunder god.

This magic honey brings Lemminkäinen back to life.

Answer: She turns him into a bee, a mosquito and a fly.

'The Tale of Tsar Saltan' - or, to give it its full title, 'The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son the Renowned and Mighty Bogatyr Prince Gvidon Saltanovitch, and of the Beautiful Princess-Swan' - tells of three sisters, the youngest of whom marries Tsar Saltan and becomes Tsaritsa. Her sisters are jealous of her, and plot to get rid of her and her son Prince Gvidon. They write to Tsar Saltan, who is at war, telling him his wife has given birth to a monster, and the Tsar sends his wife a letter telling her to wait for him to come home. However, the sisters intercept the messenger, get him drunk and replace his letter with a fake one saying the Tsaritsa is to be drowned. The Tsaritsa and Prince Gvidon are sealed in a barrel and thrown into the sea, but they survive, as the sea washes them up on the magical island of Buyan. Prince Gvidon, who has grown rapidly while in the barrel, goes hunting and rescues a swan from a kite, and in return, the swan creates a magical city for him to rule.

However, Prince Gvidon gets homesick, so the swan turns him into a gnat and he hides on board a merchants' ship bound for his homeland. He hears his aunts bragging about a magical squirrel which cracks golden nuts and sings, and stings one of his aunts in the eye. When he gets home, the swan gives him the magic squirrel, and he has a house built for it. The swan turns him into a fly so he can see the Tsar again, and when his aunts brag about a magical army that comes from the sea, he stings his aunts' friend Barbarika in the eye. The swan summons the army when Prince Gvidon gets back, telling him they are her brothers. He returns for a third time, now disguised as a bee. Barbarika and the aunts brag about a beautiful princess, and the prince gets angry and stings Barbarika again. He tells the swan about the princess, and she reveals that she herself is the princess. The two are married, and when Tsar Saltan sails to the island, he is reunited with his wife and son.

Answer: His daughter

This isn't the first time Étaín has been turned into an animal - Fúamnach, Midir's jealous first wife, turns her into a pool of water, a worm and a butterfly. Étaín follows Midir's foster son Aengus as a butterfly, and Fúamnach summons a wind to blow her away.

She is reborn after the wife of the chieftain Etar swallows her. She later marries Eochu, and Midir tries to win her back by repeatedly playing a board game with Eochu, ultimately demanding a kiss from Étaín as a prize. When Midir embraces Étaín, she gets her memories back, and the two of them turn into swans and fly away. Eochu retaliates by having Midir's síd (a fiary mound) dug up, and Midir promises he can have Étaín back if he picks her out of a crowd of fifty identical women. Eochu picks her out and sleeps with her - but it isn't Étaín he picks out, it's his and Étaín's own daughter.

Answer: 900 years

Lir married Aoibh, the daughter of the god Bodb Derg, and they had three children: a son, Aodh, a daughter, Fionnghuala, and a pair of male twins, Fiachra and Conn. Aoibh died and Lir married another of Bodb's daughters, Aoifé. Aoifé grew jealous of the children and was going to kill them, but decided to turn them into swans instead. They had to spend 300 years on Loch Dairbhreach (Lake Derryvaragh), 300 years on Sruth na Maoilé (the Straits of Moyle), and 300 years at Iorrus Domnann (Erris) and Inis Gluairé (Glory Island). Aoifé relented a little and allowed the swans to have the power of speech, and told them they would sing beautiful songs. They told Lir about their stepmother's betrayal, and Bodb turned Aoifé into an air demon as punishment.

The swans travelled from place to place over the centuries, and when St Patrick came to Ireland, they heard Caomhog, a monk, ringing the bell for matins and sang to it. He revealed that he had come to Iris Gluairé to find them. Lairgnen, the king of Connacht, tried to capture the swans for his wife, but their feathers came off and they changed into three old men and an old woman. Knowing they were dying, Fionnghuala asked Caomhog to baptise them. He baptised and christened them, and they were able to die in peace and be buried.

Answer: Hans Christian Andersen

'The Ugly Duckling' is a classic Andersen tale of someone who is considered to be ugly when they're younger, but grows up into someone beautiful. In this case, it's a little grey duckling who doesn't fit in with the other ducklings, who think he's ugly.

The other farm animals bully him and he goes to live with wild birds, but has to escape when hunters start shooting him. He goes to live with an old woman, but is picked on by her cat and hen. A farmer finds him out in the cold and takes him home, but the farmer's children scare him and he runs away, and spends the winter lonely and miserable.

In spring, he sees a flock of swans and thinks about how beautiful they are, and how he would rather be killed by them than continue to live a miserable life.

However, the swans welcome him as one of their own, and the duckling sees his reflection and realises that he is not a duck, but a beautiful swan.