Q 01/05

What is the big iron pot in which a storybook witch brews her potions called?

A) A cauldron

B) A crucible

C) A chalice

D) A tureen

Answer · why

A) A cauldron

A cauldron owes much of its spooky fame to Shakespeare: the witches in Macbeth chant 'Double, double toil and trouble' while stirring one.

Q 02/05

The word Halloween is a shortened form of which older name?

A) All Hallows' Eve

B) All Saints' Night

C) Hallowed Evening

D) All Hollows Day

Answer · why

A) All Hallows' Eve

All Hallows' Eve is the evening before All Saints' Day, a hallow being an old word for a saint; Scots speakers squeezed 'even' down to 'e'en', which g...

Q 03/05

Why did people once set carved lanterns on their windowsills?

A) To keep harmful spirits out

B) To welcome winter visitors

C) To show the harvest was in

D) To light the way to church

Answer · why

A) To keep harmful spirits out

To keep harmful spirits out, people in Ireland and Britain set lanterns carved with grotesque faces on windowsills and by doors, hoping the fright wou...

Q 04/05

Botanically speaking, a pumpkin counts as which of these?

A) A berry

B) A grain

C) A nut

D) A root

Answer · why

A) A berry

A berry, to a botanist, is a fleshy fruit grown from a single flower's ovary, so pumpkins and cucumbers count, as a hard-rinded kind called a pepo, wh...

Q 05/05

The champion pumpkin at California's Half Moon Bay weigh-off in 2023 weighed closest to which figure?

A) 28 lb

B) 275 lb

C) 2,750 lb

D) 27,500 lb

Answer · why

C) 2,750 lb

Close to 2,750 lb: the 2,749-pound winner was the heaviest pumpkin ever weighed at the time, and British growers have since pushed the record past 2,8...