A Halloween Mix, Part II Trivia Quiz

Answer: werewolf

Of all the continents, belief in werewolves became most widespread in Europe with almost every European country having its own version of this folklore mythological monster. Densely forested parts of northern Europe with abundant wolves and other predators had more werewolf legends and stories than their southern neighbors. Yet countries such as Italy or Portugal have their own werewolves, 'il lupo manaro" and 'lobisomem'. Colonization spread the werewolf legend to the Americas.

In countries lacking wolves, however, there were other legendary "were-animals", like the were-tiger of Asia, or the were-hyena of Africa.

Answer: Love Song for a Vampire

Annie Lennox was born on Christmas day in 1954 in Aberdeen, Scotland. She achieved international stardom in the 1980s singing "Sweat Dreams Are Made of This" (1983) with David Stewart as the duo Eurythmics. Her hits as a solo artist include "Walking on Broken Glass" (1992) and "No More 'I Love You's" (1995). In Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula", she sang "Love Song for a Vampire" to an ethereal background of electronic instruments. "Come into my arms again... "

Lennox won an Oscar for Best Song for "Into the West", from "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003). In 2012, she performed before Buckingham Palace for Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee. For her campaign with Amnesty International to release Tibetan prisoners, and her humanitarian work with many other organizations such as Oxfam and the British Red Cross, she became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2010.

Answer: Harley Quinn

In the Italian commedia dell'arte of the 16th-17th centuries, the Harlequin character, dressed in a checkered costume, was a male servant clown. In DC Comics, however, Harley Quinn is a woman who originally appeared in a motley outfit, with a coxcomb (jester hat) and a cowl, and she is the Joker's sometime accomplice and lover. Her real name is Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel, a psychiatrist at the Arkham Asylum who falls for her patient, the Joker. She also happens to be an expert gymnast who is immune to various toxins. Harley Quinn debuted in 1992 on "Batman: The Animated Series" and appeared a year later in comic books. Her costume has been altered a couple of times since, and in the movie "Suicide Squad" (2016), starring Margot Robbie, Harley Quinn abandoned the "fool" costume for multicolored dip-dyed hair, white skin, and a more grunge/punk costume, a look which the comic books in turn adopted.

Ms. Harley Quinn should not be confused with Mr. Harley Quin, a detective who appears in more than a dozen short stories by the queen of mystery, Agatha Christie.

"Google Frightgeist" is a website that shows top Halloween costume searches and also makes costume recommendations and suggestions based on user-set filters.

Answer: Orange and black

The color combination has become so strongly associated with Halloween in Western culture that it is practically taboo to wear it any other month but October. The associations date back centuries, with orange for the harvest and the bonfires that the ancient Gaels would light, not to mention the color of the leaves, while black was associated with mourning and praying for the dead. Beginning in the 21st century, purple started to become a Halloween color, moving away from its role as an accent and inching toward more prominence, but still not anywhere close to orange and black.

Red and green go with Christmas, pink and lavender and other pastels together suggest Easter, while sparkling gold and silver are associated in many countries with the New Year.

Answer: Mashed potatoes and kale (or cabbage)

To make colcannon, peel, boil, and mash several large potatoes; then stew them with kale in milk or cream. Add butter or oil, salt and pepper, and maybe parsley. (You may substitute cabbage for the kale.) If you like, add onions, leeks, onions, scallions, and/or and chives. Serve with boiled ham or Irish bacon (back bacon).

At Halloween, the Irish traditionally hide a prize of some sort in the colcannon, maybe a ring or a thimble or even a coin, not unlike the English tradition of hiding a prize in the Christmas pudding.

Answer: Nancy Drew

Nancy Drew is a young, independent woman, an attorney's daughter who solves mysteries in her spare time -- which is to say all the time because she never goes to school or work! Drew first appeared in a series of novels in the 1930s, revamped in the 1960s and again in the 1990s, and she has also appeared in movies, television series, comic books, and video games.

Her Interactive, an award-winning Seattle-based company, created the first Nancy Drew Adventure series for PC (and later Mac) from 1998 through the 2010s, over two dozen games.

They also made a few Nancy Drew games for iPad/Kindle, Wii, iPhone/Android, and DVD. (Starting in 2008, THQ and Majesco each made three games for Nintendo DS, but these have been discontinued). These mystery-driven games tend to be less about finding keys and collecting items than about piecing together information found in old books, scrawled notes, etc. and solving puzzles.

The Her Interactive video games have proven far more successful than any other media adaptation of Nancy Drew, including TV, movies, and comic books.

Answer: Kentucky Derby

The curse dates all the way back to 1882, when the Thoroughbred racehorse Apollo won the Kentucky Derby by defeating the favorite, Runnymede. The Derby is for three-year-old horses, and at the time Apollo was the only horse to have won it without racing as a two-year-old, which made it even more amazing that he had defeated Runnymede, a proven winner with 4-5 odds.

Since that fateful day, no horse unraced as a two-year-old had been able to win the Kentucky Derby, even though over five dozen such horses had entered the Derby since 1937. Then in 2018, the curse was broken by Justify, who had never raced at age 2 but had never lost a single race at age 3. The amazing chestnut colt Justify won not only the Derby but also the Triple Crown! Until Justify's victory, the Curse of Apollo was one of the longest curses of any North American sport, even longer than baseball's Curse of the Bambino.

Answer: All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day

All Saints' Day (November 1), also called All Hallows' Day, is a day to honor all saints known and unknown. The night before is All Hallows' Eve or Evening, which especially in Scotland became All-Hallow-E'en, and then Hallowe'en; sometimes you still see it spelled with the apostrophe. Pope Gregory II (r. 731-741) set the date for All Saints' (Hallows') Day and its vigil, still followed today. Then in the 11th century, Abbot Odilo established All Souls' Day on November 2 for the monks of Cluny to pray for the souls in Purgatory; it eventually became the norm throughout Christendom in the Middle Ages. The three days of Halloween, All Saints' Day, and All Souls' Day constitute the Triduum of Allhallowtide, also called the Hallowmas season.

In the present day, the Hallowmas season is of most significance to Catholic and (some) Anglican churches. Methodists and Lutherans generally celebrate All Saints' Day but not All Souls' Day (or merge them into one day). Some evangelical Protestants regard the entirety of Allhallowtide as Satanic or pagan. Orthodox (or Eastern) Christian churches typically celebrate All Hallows' Day on the first Sunday after Pentecost, so it falls in May or June, rather than November.

Answer: "I got a rock!"

Poor Charlie Brown's words actually became one of the most famous lines from the "Great Pumpkin" special, and really in all of the "Peanuts" franchise. According to creator Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown's maltreatment by his neighbors so angered viewers that for years his California office was inundated with sacks of treats addressed to Charlie Brown.

For a time in the 1960s, Schulz also received a number of letters from academics who wondering where the Great Pumpkin story had originated and believed it must be based on some genuine folklore. Schulz told them to go ask Linus!

Answer: Too many polar bears

Hudson Bay has warmed about 3°C (over 5°F) since the 1990s, which has caused a reduction in shore ice along the bay's western edge. The lack of ice has forced polar bears to migrate inland, and in 2014 they began wandering right through the hamlet of Avriat, as many as seven or eight bears a day! As a result, the hamlet banned trick-or-treating and instead held an indoor party with a haunted house, face-painting, and activities for the children. According to "Slate" magazine, the mayor of Churchill, Manitoba -- which calls itself the "Polar Bear Capital of the World" -- gave some the residents of Avriat some facetious advice: don't dress as a seal for Halloween.