Q 01/05

Which star played the moneylender's daughter in MGM's 1952 film of Ivanhoe?

A) Vivien Leigh

B) Elizabeth Taylor

C) Deborah Kerr

D) Ava Gardner

Answer · why

B) Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor thought the story shallow and her part too small, yet the film became MGM's biggest earner of 1952.

Q 02/05

Which everyday job term is credited to Ivanhoe, where it meant a mercenary soldier?

A) Journeyman

B) Freelance

C) Free agent

D) Hired hand

Answer · why

B) Freelance

Freelance began as 'free lance', a medieval mercenary who fought for whoever paid; the novel has the earliest known use, where a mercenary captain spe...

Q 03/05

Ivanhoe belongs to which series of novels by Walter Scott?

A) Marmion

B) Waverley

C) Border

D) Abbotsford

Answer · why

B) Waverley

Waverley, his first novel, appeared anonymously in 1814, so Ivanhoe, like most of its successors, was billed only as by 'the Author of Waverley' until...

Q 04/05

In Ivanhoe, a jester jokes that livestock have Saxon names in the field but names from which language at table?

A) French

B) Latin

C) Norse

D) Welsh

Answer · why

A) French

French: the ox becomes beef and the calf veal, he says, because Saxon serfs tend the animals and their Norman masters eat them.

Q 05/05

What is the first name of Ivanhoe, the knightly hero of Walter Scott's novel?

A) Alfred

B) Wilfred

C) Edmund

D) Godfrey

Answer · why

B) Wilfred

Wilfred is 'of Ivanhoe' because the king gave him that manor; while he was away on crusade, the king's brother handed it to one of his own barons.