Yours Truly, The Easter Bunny Trivia Quiz

Answer: Coracles

The word 'coracle' is derived from the Welsh language's 'cwrwgl'. Coracles, which are round (or oval) in shape, have been used in the British Isles for several thousand years; the wooden frame was originally covered in animal skins but in recent years they have been covered with calico that has been waterproofed with bitumen paint. They are actually found in many different countries, including India, Tibet and Iraq. The Duke of Wellington made use of coracles during his campaigns in India.

In Britain, coracles are still used on three rivers in Wales for net fishing. A net is stretched between two coracles which then float downstream catching fish as they go - usually salmon.

Leeks are a national emblem of Wales. The Easter Bunny clearly got confused.

Answer: France

Étienne and Joseph Montgolfier were the children of a paper manufacturer in Paris. When Britain was engaged in the American War of Independence, France and Spain took the opportunity to declare war on Britain and in 1779 Spain began the Great Siege of Gibraltar. Finding a way to defeat the garrison of Gibraltar was of great interest to Joseph Montgolfier who, after watching embers float up from a fire, wondered if a 'special gas' in the smoke could be harnessed to lift men above and over the defences.

The two brothers constructed several balloons, initially unmanned, and gave demonstrations to French dignitaries. The first living creatures sent aloft were a duck, a sheep, and a rooster in front of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. In 1783, a tethered balloon rose above the paper workshops containing Étienne Montgolfier, the first human to fly above the earth in a balloon. Later that year Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d'Arlandes made the first free, untethered, flight in another Montgolfier balloon.

Answer: Tatami

Historically tatami were made of woven rice straw covered with soft rush straw although some now have wood chip instead of the rice straw. They were originally used only by Japanese nobility, but nowadays most Japanese houses have a room furnished and decorated in the traditional style, and this room will have tatami; it is in this room that guests are received.

Tatami mats are well looked after. It is the custom for shoes to be removed when entering Japanese houses, but in most of the house slippers will be worn. However, even slippers leave a mark on tatami and so they are removed before entering a room with tatami mats.

Answer: Kon-Tiki

Thor Heyerdahl combined his academic qualifications in Zoology and Geography with an interest in culture, history and ethnography. He argued that similarities between various elements in the culture of Peru and Polynesia, combined with historical evidence such as drawings of ancient Incan rafts made by the Conquistadors showed that the original settlers of Polynesia could have come west across the Pacific from South America.

In 1947, Heyerdahl and his team built a raft made primarily of balsa wood lashed together with ropes made of hemp. They used only materials and techniques which would have been available to South American peoples prior to the arrival of Europeans. Their journey across the Pacific lasted 101 days, ending in the Tuamotus islands which are part of French Polynesia.

In 1969/70 Heyerdahl built two boats called Ra and Ra-II to demonstrate that it was possible to cross the Atlantic in woven reed boats. Ra was made of papyrus, as ancient Egyptian boats were, but broke apart several weeks into the voyage. Ra-II was made of woven reeds from Lake Titicaca and made a successful voyage from Morocco to Barbados.

Answer: Lacrosse

Native Americans used a variety of implements to hit or throw the ball. Matches took place between villages, sometimes involving hundreds of men, on areas with no formal boundaries and goals marked only by stones or trees. Lacrosse involved tribal rituals - players were painted, sticks were painted or carved, and sometimes sacrifices were held. Ceremonial dances were held before and after matches, and medicine men performed rituals to bless players and scare off the opposition.

Modern lacrosse uses sticks with a loose net which the player uses to catch, cradle, then throw the hard rubber ball. Because the ball travels through the air, lacrosse is one of the fastest field sports in the world.

Answer: Thatched

Thatch is used for roofing in many countries, but there are more thatched cottages in the UK and Ireland than anywhere else in Europe. The materials used for thatch varies between, and within, countries. In England, for example, the majority of thatched houses use straw, particularly wheat or rye straw. However, in East Anglia, traditional thatch was made with water reed but reed now has to be imported as large-scale reed-beds no longer exist in England.

Thatching methods also vary but in general terms, the material is attached to the roof ridge and to the roof beams by fastening with ropes and stakes. However, in the county where I now live, the traditional method was not even as high-tech as that - a thick layer of mud was applied to the ridge, and the ends of the straw bundles driven into it then covered with more mud. And if you think that straw would not make a durable roof, some thatched roofs in southern England are over 500 years old - they have simply been patched when necessary.

Answer: Gaul

According to Julius Caesar, the Ancient Druids made large human effigies which they then burned as a form of sacrifice. He claimed that they put live men inside the Wicker Man before setting it on fire although no one else has claimed this. Caesar wrote a detailed history of the Gallic War fought by the Romans, from which the most famous quote is "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres" - loosely translated as "All Gaul is divided into three parts". As well as writing a war history, Caesar was also demonstrating the might of Rome and the appalling savagery of the primitive peoples the Romans came up against, an early propaganda campaign that worked on two fronts.

Wicker men are still built for various occasions, some Celtic and/or neo-pagan, and some as motifs for festivals.

A large statue made of woven willow was erected in 2000 as part of an Arts Festival in Somerset in south-west England. Like his wicker counterpart, the first Willow Man was burnt down as an act of vandalism but his replacement was carefully surrounded by wetland to discourage visiting arsonists.

Answer: Bamboo

Bamboo is used in many different ways in construction and the things that can be made from it largely depend on the age of the bamboo plant. For example, young plants of six-nine months old are used for weaving baskets while plants between three-six years old are used for building structures, such as houses or bridges.

Bamboo of the right age has a good tensile strength and flexes without breaking under considerable stress. Because of this property, the Chinese were able to string lengths of bamboo together which then formed cables up to 120 metres long from which the bridges were suspended. Bamboo bridges were also built in India and South America.

Pandas wouldn't eat bridges - they prefer bamboo shoots that are less than 30 days old.

Answer: New Zealand Flax

When Europeans arrived in New Zealand they saw that the Maori were making great use of two indigenous plants, using them to make nets, baskets, mats, ropes, textiles, etc. They therefore called the plants 'New Zealand Flax' because of the similar uses they had to the European plant called flax.

When the Maori arrived in New Zealand they learned to make fibre from the plants, stripping the leaves, soaking and pounding them to soften the fibres, and then spinning and weaving the thread. The fibre, called 'muka', can then be dyed and used for making garments, including fine decorated cloaks worn on ceremonial occasions.

Answer: Moses

The ancient Egyptians wove many things, including papyrus rafts used on the Nile. Early paintings showing the Sun God include images of papyrus rafts which were used before the concept of wooden boats reached Egypt.

The Biblical story of Moses is set in a time when the Pharaoh had ordered that all male Hebrew children be put to death by drowning. The mother of the infant Moses placed him in a basket woven from bulrushes (paper reed) and put it into the river where it floated close to the shore. It was spotted by the Pharaoh's daughter who adopted Moses and brought him up as an Egyptian prince.