Paganism
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100 free Paganism trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Paganism began as an insult. Latin paganus meant a villager or a civilian, and early Christians used it for everyone who was not a soldier of Christ. Nobody called themselves pagan until the 20th century, when Wiccans, Druids, Heathens and reconstructionists reclaimed the word for a family of new religions inspired by pre-Christian Europe. Today there are over a million practitioners in the United States alone and the pentacle sits on the list of approved headstone symbols at Arlington. These 100 questions run from antiquity to the present. Theodosius and the closing of the old temples, the last pagans of Lithuania, the druids as Caesar and Pliny described them, Stonehenge and its solstice alignment, Perun and the idols of Kiev, and the Gaelic festivals Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. Then the revival: Margaret Murray's discredited witch-cult, Gerald Gardner and the New Forest coven, Doreen Valiente and the eight-word Rede, the Wheel of the Year hammered out with Ross Nichols, Iceland's Asatruarfelagid, Romuva's state recognition, Kemetism, Hellenism and the Pagan Federation. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word pagan derives from the Latin paganus, which originally meant what?
Country dweller
It also meant civilian in army slang; early Christians saw themselves as soldiers of Christ and everyone else as paganus.
Q 02In the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire, pagans were most commonly called what?
Hellenes
The word meant Greeks, but for a thousand years it was a religious rather than a cultural label.
Q 03Which church father wrote The City of God against the Pagans after the sack of Rome?
Augustine of Hippo
Pagans were murmuring that the old gods had protected Rome better than the Christian one.
Q 04Which Roman emperor's persecution of paganism preceded the Visigoth sack of Rome by about 15 years?
Theodosius I
Julian, by contrast, tried to restore the old religion and earned the nickname the Apostate.
Q 05Which was among the last areas of Europe to be Christianised, in 1387?
Lithuania
Its revived native faith, Romuva, won state recognition in 2024.
Q 06The Gaelic festival Samhain marks the beginning of which season?
Winter
It falls on 1 November, with celebrations starting at sunset on 31 October since the Celtic day began at dusk.
Q 07Beltane, the Gaelic May Day festival, is held on which date?
1 May
Cattle were driven between bonfires for protection before being sent to summer pasture.
Q 08Imbolc, on 1 February, is also the feast day of which Irish saint?
Brigid
Historians suspect the saint Christianised a goddess of the same name linked to lambing and spring.
Q 09Lughnasadh, the harvest festival on 1 August, is named after which god?
Lugh
Its English equivalent is Lammas and its Welsh one Gŵyl Awst.
Q 10Yule was a midwinter festival of which peoples before it merged with Christmas?
Germanic
Swedish and Finnish still use cognates of Yule for Christmas; modern Heathens keep it as a separate festival.
Q 11The modern Wheel of the Year typically has how many festivals?
Eight
It combines the four solar quarter days with the four Celtic cross-quarter festivals.
Q 12Legend says the father of Wicca harmonised the eightfold Wheel of the Year with which Druid leader?
Ross Nichols
Nichols founded the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids in 1964; the two reportedly worked it out at a naturist retreat.
Q 13Which 1948 Robert Graves book proposed eight holidays of an 'ancient British festal system'?
The White Goddess
Graves also shaped the neopagan Triple Goddess of Maiden, Mother and Crone.
Q 21Which Egyptologist's 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe shaped early Wiccan theology?
Margaret Murray
Historians reject her theory; the similar confessions came from standard questions in witch-hunting manuals.
Q 22In 1964 the secret names of the Gardnerian deities were revealed to be Aradia and whom?
Cernunnos
The tradition promptly changed its secret names.
Q 23Which High Priestess wrote much of the early Gardnerian liturgy, including the Charge of the Goddess?
Doreen Valiente
Initiated in 1953, she later worked with Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain.
Q 14What is the largest and best-known form of modern paganism?
Wicca
It is also the most extensively studied, and was introduced to the public in 1954.
Q 15Which retired civil servant introduced Wicca to the public in 1954?
Gerald Gardner
A plaque on his gravestone calls him the Father of Wicca.
Q 16Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939 into a coven based where?
New Forest
He said the religion he found there was a survival of the witch-cult Margaret Murray had theorised.
Q 17What was the title of Gardner's 1954 non-fiction book that publicised Wicca?
Witchcraft Today
High Magic's Aid was his 1949 novel and The Meaning of Witchcraft followed in 1959.
Q 18Gardner spent much of his career as a civil servant in which British colony?
Malaya
He ended up Principal Officer of Customs in Johore and studied local folk magic and weapons.
Q 19Gardner directed a Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on which island?
Isle of Man
He ran it at Castletown with Cecil Williamson until his death in 1964.
Q 20Wicca is typically duotheistic, venerating a Horned God and which female deity?
The Triple Goddess
She is Maiden, Mother and Crone, matching the phases of the Moon; the God is tied to the Sun and the seasons.
Q 24The Wiccan Rede's best-known form is a couplet of how many words?
Eight
'An it harm none, do what ye will' was first publicly recorded by Doreen Valiente in 1964.
Q 25What is the Wiccan name for the volume of rituals and spells copied by initiates?
Book of Shadows
Gardner's original was written in the late 1940s; the TV series Charmed made the term famous.
Q 26What do Wiccans call seasonal festivals, as opposed to the lunar Esbats?
Sabbats
Esbats follow the Moon and the Goddess; the solar cycle belongs to the Horned God.
Q 27A pentagram inside a circle is properly called what?
A pentacle
Wiccans use it widely; the plain star alone is the pentagram.
Q 28In which year was the encircled pentagram approved for headstones at Arlington?
2007
It became the 38th approved symbol after ten applications from families of Wiccan soldiers.
Q 29Who popularised the terms pagan and neopagan from 1967 in the magazine Green Egg?
Oberon Zell-Ravenheart
He co-founded the Church of All Worlds, named after the religion in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
Q 30Which two 1979 books opened a new chapter in public awareness of paganism?
Drawing Down the Moon and The Spiral Dance
Margot Adler wrote the first, the Reclaiming priestess Starhawk the second.