Q 01/05

Rutherfurd's The Forest tells part of its 1099 chapter from the point of view of which animal?

A) A fox

B) A pony

C) A deer

D) A boar

Answer · why

C) A deer

A deer shares the opening chapter, The Hunt, which follows the animal through an elaborate courtship and then through being hunted.

Q 02/05

Rufus, the king whose death opens Rutherfurd's The Forest, was killed by which weapon while hunting?

A) An arrow

B) A boar spear

C) A thrown axe

D) A dagger

Answer · why

A) An arrow

An arrow hit Rufus during a hunt in the New Forest, and nobody has ever settled whether it was an accident or murder.

Q 03/05

Which king, father of the Rufus killed in Rutherfurd's The Forest, made the New Forest a royal forest?

A) Edward the Confessor

B) William the Conqueror

C) Richard the Lionheart

D) Alfred the Great

Answer · why

B) William the Conqueror

William the Conqueror proclaimed it a royal forest around 1079, and it already appears in his great survey, Domesday Book.

Q 04/05

Fanny Albion's trial in Rutherfurd's The Forest echoes a real scandal involving which novelist's aunt?

A) Charlotte Brontë

B) Mary Shelley

C) Maria Edgeworth

D) Jane Austen

Answer · why

D) Jane Austen

Jane Austen's family lived just east of the New Forest, which she visited, and her aunt's real courtroom ordeal gave Rutherfurd his plot.

Q 05/05

Rutherfurd's summary of The Forest promises witchcraft, the inner life of trees and even which creature?

A) A dragon

B) A griffin

C) A werewolf

D) A giant

Answer · why

A) A dragon

A dragon closes the author's list of the Forest's hidden side, which also takes in the secret lives of its trees and animals.