Le Morte d'Arthur
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
50 free Le Morte D'Arthur trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Le Morte d'Arthur is the book that most later King Arthur stories borrow from. Sir Thomas Malory gathered centuries of scattered romances into one long English telling in the fifteenth century, and nearly every familiar scene, from the sword in the stone to the last battle, reached modern readers through his pages. This quiz follows the great movements of the story: Arthur's birth and crowning, Merlin's schemes, the adventures of Sir Lancelot du Lake, the kitchen knight, the lovers of Cornwall, the quest for the Holy Grail, the affair that splits the court, and the war with Mordred. A handful of questions cover Malory himself, the first printed edition, the long-lost manuscript, and the writers and film-makers who retold the tale. It is written for students revising a summary of the book, for readers who have just finished it, and for anyone who enjoys Arthurian legend. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the plot as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01At the truce before Arthur's last battle in Le Morte d'Arthur, what bites a knight and makes him draw his sword?
An adder
An adder slides out of a heath bush and stings his foot, and both armies take the flash of his blade for treachery. Each side had orders to attack if a single sword was drawn.
Q 02Sir Thomas Malory apparently finished Le Morte d'Arthur around 1470 while living where, by his own closing words?
In prison
In prison is the usual reading: he calls himself a knight prisoner and ends the book asking readers to pray for his deliverance. The leading candidate was jailed repeatedly and once escaped by swimming a moat.
Q 03In Le Morte d'Arthur, the sword in the stone and anvil appears one Christmas in a churchyard in which city?
London
London is where the lords gather to pray for a king, and Malory admits he cannot say whether the church was St Paul's. Arthur draws the sword on New Year's Day, on an errand during a tournament.
Q 04From whom does Arthur receive his second, more famous sword in Malory, after rowing out to an arm in the water?
The Lady of the Lake
The Lady of the Lake lets him take it in return for a gift to be named later. When she comes to court to claim it, her price is a knight's head, and she loses her own instead.
Q 05Which king fathers Arthur in Le Morte d'Arthur after Merlin gives him the likeness of the Duke of Cornwall?
Uther Pendragon
Uther Pendragon had promised the child to Merlin as the fee for the trick, so the baby is carried away to be fostered. Igraine's real husband had died in battle hours before the visit.
Q 06Which knight, Lancelot's son, pulls a sword from a floating stone at Camelot and goes on to achieve the Holy Grail?
Galahad
Galahad also sits unharmed in the seat that destroys anyone unworthy, where his name is found written. His father had knighted him that very morning.
Q 07Which printer, the first to set up a press in England, published Le Morte d'Arthur in 1485?
William Caxton
William Caxton also reshaped the text, cutting Malory's eight tales into 21 books and writing a summary for every chapter. Only two copies of that first printing are known to exist.
Q 08Which T. H. White retelling of Le Morte d'Arthur makes a young Thomas Malory a character in its closing pages?
The Once and Future King
The Once and Future King borrows the Latin verse that Malory says is written on Arthur's tomb. In White's ending the old king sends a page called Tom home before the battle, to keep the story alive.
Q 09To which death is Guinevere condemned for treason in Le Morte d'Arthur, before Lancelot rides in to save her?
Burning at the stake
Burning at the stake is a sentence Malory has her face three times. At the last, Lancelot's charge kills two unarmed knights and turns their brother into his bitterest enemy.
Q 10Which sorceress, Arthur's half-sister, is one of four queens who carry off the sleeping Lancelot in Le Morte d'Arthur?
Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay and her companions lock him in a castle and order him to take one of them as a lover or die there. He refuses all four and is freed by a king's daughter who needs a champion.
Q 11Although Le Morte d'Arthur is written in Middle English, its title, meaning the death of Arthur, is in which language?
French
French, in its Anglo-Norman form; modern grammar would want 'la', since the noun is feminine. Malory seems to have meant the name for his final tale only, but it ended up on the whole book.
Q 12Malory wrote Le Morte d'Arthur during which 15th-century English conflict, in which he is thought to have changed sides?
Wars of the Roses
Wars of the Roses loyalties may explain his troubles with the crown: the Yorkist king left a Thomas Malory out of four general pardons by name.
Q 13Which American humorist wrote an 1889 time-travel satire after a friend urged a copy of Le Morte d'Arthur on him?
Mark Twain
Q 21Which knight raises the infant Arthur as his own son in Le Morte d'Arthur, after Merlin carries the baby away?
Ector
Ector realises the boy must be king only when the sword leaves the stone, and kneels to him at once. The one reward he asks is that his own son be made seneschal of all Arthur's lands.
Q 22In Malory, for which foster brother, who has left his own blade behind, does young Arthur pull the sword from the stone?
Sir Kay
Sir Kay at first claims he drew it himself, then admits the truth when his father makes him swear on a book. Years later Lancelot borrows his armour and unhorses knights who mistake him for an easy target.
Q 23Which piece of Arthur's gear does Merlin call worth ten of his sword in Malory, since its wearer cannot lose blood?
The scabbard
Mark Twain quoted whole passages of Malory in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. He later called the friend who pointed the book out in a shop the godfather of his novel.
Q 14Which American novelist left unfinished a retelling of Malory titled The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights?
John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck rented a cottage in Somerset to research it and worked from the manuscript text rather than the printed one. He stopped in 1959, and it was published only after his death.
Q 15Which cycle of twelve poems by Alfred Tennyson retold Malory's tales for Victorian readers between 1859 and 1885?
Idylls of the King
Idylls of the King moves through the seasons of a single year, from spring at the start of Arthur's reign to his last fight in midwinter.
Q 16Which young artist's first big commission was illustrating an 1890s Le Morte d'Arthur for publisher J. M. Dent?
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley was a 20-year-old insurance clerk when he took the job, and its stark black-and-white pages launched the style that made his name.
Q 17Which 1981 John Boorman film, shot in Ireland with Nigel Terry as Arthur, is loosely based on Le Morte d'Arthur?
Excalibur
Excalibur gave early screen roles to Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne and Ciarán Hinds. Its script folds two of Malory's queens into a single sorceress, played by Helen Mirren.
Q 18A manuscript of Le Morte d'Arthur, unknown until a schoolmaster found it in 1934, is now kept by which institution?
British Library
British Library shelves now hold it, and ink smudges on its pages match the first printer's type, proof that it sat in his workshop. Its scribes used red ink lavishly.
Q 19A note at the end of Le Morte d'Arthur dates its completion to the ninth year of which English king's reign?
Edward IV
Edward IV had reigned since 1461, which puts the finish in 1469 or 1470. A rival retook the throne in autumn 1470, and the leading candidate for the author died five months later.
Q 20Which knight's story is the longest of the eight tales in Le Morte d'Arthur, filling about a third of the whole work?
Tristram
Tristram gets two whole books, even after Malory cut the original romance down to about a sixth of its length. The tale breaks off before the hero's death, which is only mentioned in passing later.
The scabbard is later stolen by the king's own half-sister and thrown into deep water. From then on he can be wounded like any other man.
Q 24Warned by Merlin that his destroyer is newly born, Arthur sets adrift the noble babies born on which day in Malory?
May Day
May Day babies are packed into a ship that breaks up on the rocks, yet Mordred, the one he feared, is washed ashore and raised by a good man. Many lords blame Merlin more than the king.
Q 25Which enchantress learns magic from the besotted Merlin in Le Morte d'Arthur, then seals him under a great stone?
Nimue
Nimue is no villain in Malory: she goes on to save Arthur's life more than once and is among the women who bear him away after his last battle.
Q 26Which knight with two swords deals the Dolorous Stroke in Le Morte d'Arthur and later kills his own brother unawares?
Balin
Balin strikes the blow with the spear that pierced Christ's side, and three countries are laid waste by it. The sword he leaves behind is set in a floating stone for a better knight to draw.
Q 27What does King Pellinore hunt in Le Morte d'Arthur, a creature whose belly sounds like thirty couple of hounds?
The Questing Beast
The Questing Beast has a serpent's head, a leopard's body, a lion's haunches and a hart's feet. It falls silent only while it drinks, and the chase later passes to a Saracen knight.
Q 28Which Roman emperor demands tribute from Arthur in Le Morte d'Arthur and dies in the war that follows?
Lucius
Lucius is fictitious, and Arthur answers his demand by marching on Rome and being crowned emperor there. The first printed edition cut this tale to less than half its manuscript length.
Q 29At which Christian feast do the knights of the Round Table renew their oath every year in Le Morte d'Arthur?
Pentecost
Pentecost is when they swear never to murder, always to grant mercy to those who ask it and to help women in need. The oath is Malory's own invention.
Q 30Malory tells readers that Camelot is the older name of which English city, where a medieval Round Table still hangs?
Winchester
Winchester gets the credit in Malory's own words, but his printer disagreed and pointed readers to ruins in Wales instead. The table in the city's castle dates from the 13th century.