Q 01/05

The English word 'harvest' comes from an Old English word that originally meant what?

A) Bread

B) Field

C) Feast

D) Autumn

Answer · why

D) Autumn

In some British dialects it still just means the season, and it only later came to mean the act of gathering crops.

Q 02/05

The harvest moon is defined as the full moon closest to what?

A) The autumn equinox

B) The winter solstice

C) The Halloween night

D) The very first frost

Answer · why

A) The autumn equinox

The next full moon after it is the hunter's moon; both names are recorded from the early 18th century.

Q 03/05

Why does a harvest moon low on the horizon look golden or red?

A) Reflected crop light

B) Atmospheric scattering

C) Dust from combines

D) Its slightly closer orbit

Answer · why

B) Atmospheric scattering

Light passing through more atmosphere loses its blue and violet, leaving reds and yellows to dominate.

Q 04/05

The modern British Harvest Festival is traced to Rev. Robert Hawker's 1843 service in which county?

A) Yorkshire

B) Kent

C) Cornwall

D) Norfolk

Answer · why

C) Cornwall

His idea spread with hymns like 'Come, ye thankful people, come' and the custom of decorating churches with home-grown produce.

Q 05/05

Lammas, the early English harvest festival on 1 August, takes its name from what?

A) Lamb feast

B) Last meadow

C) Lord's mercy

D) Loaf mass

Answer · why

D) Loaf mass

Farmers baked loaves from the fresh wheat and gave them to the church as Communion bread.