Appearance
13.16 — Mythology, Religion and Culture
The stories that underpin the rest of the stories — the shared reference points that quizzes assume everybody has, and the names that turn up on everything from space missions to days of the week.
Greek and Roman Mythology
Who are the top three gods of the Greek pantheon, and their Roman equivalents? Zeus (Jupiter) rules the sky; Poseidon (Neptune) rules the sea; Hades (Pluto) rules the underworld. They are brothers who drew lots for the universe.
Who is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war? Athena (Minerva), who was born fully armed from the forehead of Zeus after he swallowed her mother. Athens is named after her.
Who is the messenger of the gods? Hermes (Mercury). He wears winged sandals and carries the caduceus, a staff intertwined with two snakes, which is often mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine (the correct symbol is the Rod of Asclepius, which has one snake).
What is the story of Pandora's box? It was actually a jar (pithos), mistranslated later. Pandora was the first human woman, given a jar containing all the evils of the world. She opened it, releasing them, and only Hope remained inside.
Who was Achilles, and what was his weakness? The greatest Greek warrior at Troy. His mother dipped him in the River Styx to make him invulnerable, but held him by the heel, which remained mortal. He was killed by an arrow to the heel, giving us the term Achilles' heel.
Who went on a quest for the Golden Fleece? Jason and the Argonauts. They sailed on the ship Argo to retrieve the fleece of a flying, winged ram to claim Jason's rightful throne.
What was the Minotaur, and who killed it? A monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, kept in the Labyrinth on Crete. Theseus killed it, navigating the maze using a ball of thread given to him by Ariadne.
Who turned everything he touched to gold? King Midas. He asked for the golden touch as a reward, but quickly regretted it when his food and his daughter turned to gold.
What was the punishment of Sisyphus and Tantalus? Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a hill for eternity, only for it to roll back down. Tantalus stands in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree, but the water recedes when he drinks and the branches lift when he reaches — giving us the word tantalise.
Norse and Egyptian Mythology
Who is the chief god in Norse mythology, and what did he sacrifice? Odin. He gave up one of his eyes to drink from the Well of Wisdom, and hung himself from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days to discover the runes.
Who is Thor, and what is his weapon? The Norse god of thunder. His weapon is the hammer Mjölnir, which always returns to his hand and can only be lifted by the worthy.
What is Valhalla, and what is Ragnarök? Valhalla is the great hall where warriors who die in battle are taken by Valkyries. Ragnarök is the prophesied end of the world, where the gods die and the world is submerged in water before being born anew.
Who are the chief Egyptian gods? Ra (the sun god), Osiris (god of the underworld), Isis (goddess of magic and motherhood), and Horus (god of the sky, depicted with a falcon head).
Who is the Egyptian god of embalming and the dead? Anubis, depicted with the head of a jackal. He weighs the hearts of the dead against the feather of truth.
Indian Mythology
Who is the supreme trinity in Hinduism? The Trimurti: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Together they represent the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction.
What are the two great Indian epics? The Mahabharata, which tells the story of a dynastic war between two groups of cousins (the Pandavas and the Kauravas), and the Ramayana, which follows Prince Rama's quest to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana.
Who is the elephant-headed god of beginnings? Ganesha. He is the son of Shiva and Parvati, known as the remover of obstacles, and is traditionally honoured at the start of any new venture or ceremony.
What is the Bhagavad Gita? A 700-verse philosophical dialogue found within the Mahabharata. It takes place on a battlefield just before the war begins, where the god Krishna counsels the warrior Arjuna on duty, righteousness, and the nature of life.
Who are the avatars of Vishnu? Vishnu descends to earth in different forms to restore cosmic balance. The ten main avatars (Dashavatara) include a fish (Matsya), a tortoise (Kurma), a boar (Varaha), a half-lion (Narasimha), a dwarf (Vamana), Rama, and Krishna.
Who is the monkey god of devotion and strength? Hanuman. A central figure in the Ramayana, he is the ultimate devotee of Rama and is famous for flying across the ocean and lifting a whole mountain to bring a healing herb.
What is the story of the churning of the ocean? The Samudra Manthan. The gods and demons worked together to churn the ocean of milk to obtain the nectar of immortality (Amrita). They used a mountain as the churning rod and a giant serpent as the rope.
World Religions
What are the Abrahamic religions? Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They all trace their origins back to the patriarch Abraham and are monotheistic.
What are the Five Pillars of Islam? The core beliefs and practices: Profession of Faith (Shahada), Prayer (Salat), Alms (Zakat), Fasting during Ramadan (Sawm), and Pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj).
What are the two main branches of Islam? Sunni and Shia. The split originated over the question of who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community.
What are the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism? The essence of the Buddha's teachings: the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering (the Eightfold Path).
What is the holy book of Sikhism? The Guru Granth Sahib, considered the living Guru of the Sikhs, succeeding the ten human Gurus.
Who founded Jainism? It has no single founder, but the teachings were established and revived by 24 Tirthankaras (spiritual teachers), the last of whom was Mahavira, a contemporary of the Buddha.
What is the world's oldest extant religion? Hinduism. It has no single founder, no single scripture, and is a synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions.
What are the Vedas and the Upanishads? The Vedas are the oldest Hindu scriptures, containing hymns, philosophy, and rituals. The Upanishads are later philosophical texts that form the basis of Hindu philosophy.
Philosophy and Ideas
What is Plato's Allegory of the Cave? A thought experiment where prisoners chained in a cave mistake shadows on the wall for reality. It illustrates that what we see is only a shadow of the true, higher reality.
What did Descartes mean by "I think, therefore I am"? (Cogito, ergo sum). He tried to doubt everything, but realised that the very act of doubting proved he existed as a thinking mind. It became the foundation of modern Western philosophy.
What is Occam's razor? The problem-solving principle that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If you have two theories that explain the same data, choose the one with the fewest assumptions.
What is Schrödinger's cat? A quantum mechanics thought experiment. A cat is in a sealed box with a vial of poison that might or might not break based on a random radioactive event. Until you open the box and look, the cat is considered both alive and dead at the same time.
Cultural Reference Points
What are the seven deadly sins? Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.
What are the four horsemen of the apocalypse? Conquest (or Pestilence), War, Famine, and Death.
Who is King Arthur and what was his sword? A legendary British leader who led the defence against Saxon invaders. He drew the sword in the stone to prove his right to rule, but his famous magical sword was Excalibur, given to him by the Lady of the Lake.
Who were the Knights of the Round Table? Arthur's finest knights, including Lancelot, Gawain, and Galahad. They sat at a round table so that no man had precedence over another, and they went on the quest for the Holy Grail.
What is the Holy Grail? In Christian mythology and Arthurian legend, it is the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous healing powers. It became the ultimate object of knightly quests.
What is a potlatch? A gift-giving feast practised by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States, meant to display wealth and consolidate status.
What is the Rosetta Stone? A granodiorite stele found in 1799, inscribed with three versions of a decree in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek. It was the key to deciphering hieroglyphs.
What is the significance of the year 1066 in British history? The Battle of Hastings, where William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy) defeated King Harold II, beginning the Norman conquest of England.
What was the Renaissance? A fervent period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic "rebirth" following the Middle Ages, roughly from the 14th to the 17th century.
What does "crossing the Rubicon" mean? Passing a point of no return. It comes from Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon river in 49 BC with his army, which was considered an act of treason and sparked a civil war.
What is the sword of Damocles? A metaphor for an ever-present peril. Dionysius, a tyrant, sat Damocles on a throne with a sword hanging above his head by a single horsehair, to show him that with great power comes constant anxiety.
The end of the section
This concludes the general knowledge section. If you can answer most of the questions across these sixteen pages, you are better equipped for a quiz — and for understanding the references in a newspaper — than ninety-nine per cent of the public.