The Horse and His Boy
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50 free The Horse and His Boy trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Horse and His Boy is the odd one out among the Chronicles of Narnia. It is set far to the south, in the proud empire of Calormen, and follows two runaways and two talking horses racing north with news of an invasion. C. S. Lewis wrote it as a chase, a comedy of manners and a tale of lost identity all at once. This quiz covers the whole book: Shasta's escape with Bree, the meeting with Aravis, the crowded streets of Tashbaan, the desert crossing and the battle that settles everything. It also asks about the people and customs of Calormen, the Narnian kings and queens who cross the travellers' path, and how Lewis came to write and publish the tale. It suits readers who have just finished the book, students getting ready for a reading quiz at school, and families or book clubs who want a ready-made round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a miss still teaches you something.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Into which animal does Aslan turn the defeated Prince Rabadash at the end of The Horse and His Boy?
A donkey
A donkey is what Rabadash becomes after he refuses every offer of mercy. He is warned that if he ever strays far from the Calormene capital again, the change will be permanent.
Q 02In The Horse and His Boy, Aslan comforts Shasta among the tombs at night in the shape of which animal?
A cat
A cat keeps Shasta company and guards him while he sleeps, and only much later does he learn that it was the great lion all along.
Q 03In six of the seven Narnia books, but never in The Horse and His Boy, the child heroes arrive from where?
The real world
The real world supplies the child heroes of every other book, from the Pevensies to Digory and Polly. Shasta and Aravis are natives of Narnia's own world and never leave it.
Q 04Which of Narnia's four sibling monarchs is away fighting giants in the north throughout The Horse and His Boy?
Peter
Peter never appears in the book at all, and his absence on the northern frontier is the opening Rabadash counts on for his raid.
Q 05Which old friend of Queen Lucy devises the Narnians' escape from Tashbaan in The Horse and His Boy?
Mr. Tumnus
Mr. Tumnus, the first creature Lucy ever met in Narnia, has become a royal adviser. His quick thinking saves Queen Susan from a forced match with Rabadash.
Q 06In The Horse and His Boy, what is the trade of Arsheesh, the harsh man who raises Shasta in southern Calormen?
A fisherman
A fisherman is all Shasta expects to be, until he overhears Arsheesh haggling to sell him as a slave to a visiting nobleman.
Q 07What is Aravis running away from when she flees her noble Calormene home in The Horse and His Boy?
An arranged marriage
An arranged marriage to Ahoshta, a rich courtier of sixty, is more than Aravis can stand. Her own mare talks her into riding for Narnia instead.
Q 08Before escaping north with Shasta towards Narnia, the talking stallion Bree serves a Calormene lord as what?
A war horse
A war horse and his master's prized mount, Bree hides his power of speech for years. With only dumb horses to compare himself to, he also grows thoroughly vain.
Q 09In The Horse and His Boy, the baby Shasta washes up on the Calormene coast inside what?
A rowing boat
A rowing boat carried him ashore beside a knight who did not survive the voyage. Aslan later reveals that he guided it to land himself.
Q 10Under which birth name is Shasta restored as heir to the throne of Archenland in The Horse and His Boy?
Cor
Cor is the name he was given at birth. As the elder twin by twenty minutes, he inherits a crown that his brother is delighted to be spared.
Q 11What is the name of the gentle talking mare who carries Aravis north in The Horse and His Boy?
Hwin
Hwin is nervous and humble where Bree is boastful, yet it is her plan of disguise that the four travellers follow into Tashbaan.
Q 12By which title is Rabadash's father, the supreme ruler of Calormen, known in The Horse and His Boy?
Tisroc
Tisroc is the title, and Calormenes follow every mention of him with a wish for his everlasting life. The rulers claim to descend in a direct line from the god Tash.
Q 13Which king of Archenland does Shasta reach on foot to warn of the Calormene raid in The Horse and His Boy?
Lune
King Lune hears the warning in time to get his knights safely inside his castle. He later recognises the ragged messenger as his own lost son.
Q 21In The Horse and His Boy, Rabadash is called the Peacemaker to his face, but which name behind his back?
The Ridiculous
The Ridiculous is the name that outlived him, because his people never forgot how his invasion ended. Calling someone a second Rabadash became a Calormene insult.
Q 22Tash, the god Rabadash calls on in The Horse and His Boy, is pictured in The Last Battle with which bird's head?
A vulture
A vulture gives Tash his head, on a four-armed figure far larger than a man. He is never described in the earlier book, where his name is mostly heard in oaths.
Q 23Which weapon do the turbaned soldiers of Calormen favour in C. S. Lewis's The Horse and His Boy?
The scimitar
Q 14What separates Shasta from the riders of Archenland just before Aslan walks beside him in The Horse and His Boy?
Thick fog
Thick fog swallows the road, and the unseen companion who then walks beside Shasta turns out to have guided him over a mountain pass into Narnia.
Q 15How do Queen Susan and her Narnian court slip away from Prince Rabadash in Tashbaan in The Horse and His Boy?
Aboard their ship
Aboard their ship, the Narnians are spirited out of Calormen before the prince can stop them. His rage at losing Susan sends him riding for Archenland.
Q 16In The Horse and His Boy, who tends the wounds of Aravis while Shasta runs on to warn Archenland?
A hermit
A hermit known as the Hermit of the Southern March shelters Aravis and both horses. Shasta has to carry on alone, on foot.
Q 17In The Horse and His Boy, traitors kidnap the infant heir of Archenland to stop what from coming true?
A prophecy
A prophecy said the boy would one day save Archenland from its deadliest danger. By carrying word of the raid, the stolen prince fulfils it anyway.
Q 18Shasta's twin brother, a prince of Archenland in The Horse and His Boy, grows up to be famous at which sport?
Boxing
Boxing earns the prince the nickname Thunder-Fist. He is so eager for a fight that a minder is told to keep him out of the battle with Rabadash, without success.
Q 19Shasta and his identical twin in The Horse and His Boy echo which twin brothers of Greek myth, one a famed horseman?
Castor and Pollux
Castor and Pollux fit the pattern: Castor was the tamer of horses, and the brothers were honoured as patrons of athletes and of travellers in danger.
Q 20At which stage of life are the Pevensie monarchs shown ruling Narnia in The Horse and His Boy?
Adults
Adults by now, the four have grown up on their thrones in Narnia. They turn back into children only when the wardrobe finally sends them home.
The scimitar completes a Calormene look of flowing robes and wooden shoes with upturned toes, in a culture that loves to quote its ancient poets.
Q 24Which art, taught to every Calormene noble, does Aravis show off to Bree's delight in The Horse and His Boy?
Storytelling
Storytelling is part of a Calormene noble's education, and even Bree, who dislikes most things Calormene, thoroughly enjoys the tale Aravis tells.
Q 25Calormen, the southern empire in The Horse and His Boy, probably takes its name from the Latin word for what?
Heat
Heat is calor in Latin, and it suits a sun-baked empire that lies across a great desert from Narnia and Archenland.
Q 26In The Horse and His Boy, what do the proud Calormenes call the human inhabitants of Narnia to their north?
Barbarians
Barbarians is the word, and Calormen's rulers long to conquer those small free lands. They are held back mainly by the reputation of the north and by fear of Aslan.
Q 27Which gossipy friend smuggles Aravis out of Tashbaan through the palace gardens in The Horse and His Boy?
Lasaraleen
Lasaraleen is vain and featherbrained, and never understands why her friend wants to leave, yet she still sees her safely out of the city.
Q 28Which castle, seat of Archenland's kings, does Rabadash besiege in The Horse and His Boy?
Anvard
Anvard holds out because Shasta's warning arrives first, so Rabadash and his horsemen are still stuck outside the walls when the Narnian army falls on them.
Q 29In The Horse and His Boy, Aslan's claws repay Aravis for the punishment of which person she drugged to escape?
Her maid
Her maid was punished for the escape she had slept through, and the wounds Aslan gives Aravis are his answer to that suffering.
Q 30With what does Aravis's host follow the distant battle for Archenland in The Horse and His Boy?
A magic pool
A magic pool shows him the whole fight as it happens. Aravis and the horses see only cloudy shapes in it, so he calls out each turn of the battle to them.