"A Breath of Snow and Ashes" Prologue - Chapter 10 Quiz

Answer: God / the Devil

The Prologue to "A Breath of Snow and Ashes" reads:

"Time is a lot of the things people say that God is. There's the always preexisting, and having no end. There's the notion of being all powerful--because nothing can stand against time, can it? Not mountains, not armies.
"And time is, of course, all-healing. Give anything enough time, and everything is taken care of: all pain encompassed, all hardship erased, all loss subsumed.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust though shalt return.
"And if Time is anything akin to God, I suppose that Memory must be the Devil."

Diana Gabaldon describes her writing technique as "kerneled"; she writes in bits and pieces and then arranges them in suitable order to tell the story. Occasionally she writes something that seems to fit outside the plotline, what Gabaldon calls "the Voice of the story" because it isn't written from the point of view of a particular character, as are all of the other passages. These become the prologues to her books.

Answer: They ate poisonous toadstools.

From the evidence at the cabin, the people from Fraser's Ridge surmise the following: the Dutch family of recent immigrants had been beset by bandits, and in the fight for his family's tools and valuables, and perhaps their lives, the father had been stabbed and killed. Doubting her family's chances of survival in the wilderness without a man and robbed of all their possessions, the mother makes a stew of poisonous Panther toadstools and serves it to her family and at least some of the bandits before consuming it herself. When she died she fell into the hearth and the fire spread from her skirts throughout the cabin.

Claire calls the toadstool "Agaricus pantherinus", named for a striking cat because the poison acts so quickly, then adds that it's what the toadstools will be called "once somebody gets round to naming them properly". Despite Claire's assertions, I haven't been able to find references anywhere for either "Agaricus pantherinus" or "Panther toadstool". I think Gabaldon (or Claire) is confusing the name of the Panther cap (also called the False Blusher), "Amanita pantherina", which has the same pale brown flesh with white warty spots as the toadstools described in the book, and contains muscarin, a deadly parasympathomimetic poison.

Answer: A branch

"'Aye, see?' Jamie's finger spread the remaining bristles gently apart, tracing several deep scratches that scored the bruised area. 'Your auntie's right, Ian; ye've been attacked by a tree.'" The Frasers theorize that a bullet fired by one of the bandits knocked loose a dead branch over the place where Ian was hiding face-down in the mud.

Gabaldon writes about several Native American tribes throughout the "Outlander" saga, including the Cherokee, the Tuscarora and the Kahnyen'kehaka (Mohawk). Young Ian lived among the latter of these tribes for several years where he was named Wolf's Brother, for his close association with Rollo (called Okwaho, "Wolf", in Mohawk).

Answer: A spoiled potato

All of these things were objects in the Mackenzies' pantry that were destroyed by the infiltrating raccoon, but it was the potato that Brianna was clutching when she was startled by Roger.

Raccoons are omnivores; their diets consist of berries, insects, eggs and small animals and fish. Both in captivity and in the wild, raccoons are known to appear to "clean" their food by dunking it in water, although scientists doubt the ritual has any roots in hygiene.

Answer: Soldiering

Jamie responds, "Aye, well, that's maybe true, Donald. But the thing about being a soldier is that someone's tellin' ye what to do, from the moment ye rise till ye fall down at night. Who's to tell these poor wee gomerels which end o' the cow to milk?" Macdonald has an ulterior motive in putting forth the request to Jamie Fraser, however, as opposed to any of the other Scottish men with land in the colony: In "The Fiery Cross" Jamie led the Fraser's Company militia for the British during the War of the Regulation. The British government is hoping that if it comes to another war with the unhappy citizens of the colonies that Jamie will again lead his men into battle for them, and so the more men he has on his land, the better!

The Scottish emigrants in question came from near the town of Thurso in the north of Scotland. The town lies on Thurso Bay (also called Scrabster Bay) on the Pentland Firth (actually a strait) which connects the North Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea and separates the Isles of Orkney from the Scottish mainland. Arthur St. Clair, who was a general in the Continental Army, served as the ninth President of the United States in Congress Assembled (previously served by John Hancock, a familiar name to many, it was a position akin to the modern-day Speaker of the United House of Representatives), from February 2, 1787 to November 4, 1787. St. Clair was born in Thurso, Caithness, Scotland on March 23 in either 1734 or 1736. Diana Gabaldon does not mention an Arthur St. Clair among the immigrants the Frasers receive on their land, but as many of the immigrants remain unnamed throughout the course of the book it's quite possible that Gabaldon at some point intended the historical figure of St. Clair to play a part in the story of the Frasers that was never developed.

Answer: A giant sponge cake

The Reverend Wakefield's monster, Eigger, was a giant sponge cake with chocolate icing. Eigger would "fall on the other monsters, and smother them wi' sweetness".

Godzilla first began terrorizing the masses in the 1954 film "Gojira". If the Japanese had been as fond of back-spelling as 18th-century Scots, Allizdog's allies might have included Nador and Arhtom teaming up to fight against such enemies as Hayorotsed and Harodihg Gnik. Then again, maybe not.

Answer: Sing

Claire is confused by her husband's fear, until she realizes that for most of her descriptions of television she had relied on examples from "The Ed Sullivan Show", a variety show that regularly featured musicians. Claire allays Jamie's fear about having to sing, and adds the comfort that neither will he be asked to swing from a trapeze.

Television is home to some rather famous singing cowboys and girls: Gene Autry ("The Singing Cowboy", 1936), Roy Rogers and Dale Evans ("The Roy Rogers Show", 1951, and "The Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Show", 1962). According to Wikipedia, a September, 1956 broadcasting of "The Ed Sullivan Show" holds the record for the largest single audience in television history with 60 million viewers, or 82.6%. The performer everyone had tuned in to see was none other than Elvis Presley, but Sullivan was not the host that night; Sullivan was recovering from a car accident that had nearly taken his life. The show was hosted instead by Academy Award-winning actor Charles Laughton (Best Actor in a Leading Role, 1933, for his performance as the title character in "The Private Life of Henry VIII").

Answer: False

In Bobby Higgins' version of the Boston Massacre, retold by Lord John Grey in his letter to Jamie, soldiers in the British army in Boston had become afraid to go out in uniform, except when compelled by duty to do so, so unruly had become the mobs of unhappy citizens. The patrol in question, a group of five soldiers, found themselves the targets for dirt, rubbish and even stones. In the end five citizens were killed and the entire patrol escaped alive, but Higgins is unable to remember which side had fired first. To cope with the bad press the incident received, Bobby Higgins and another soldier were convicted of manslaughter, branded on the cheek with an "M" (for "Murderer"), and discharged from the army.

Diana Gabaldon writes a spinoff series of mystery novels featuring Lord John Grey. The first book in the series, "Lord John and the Private Matter", was published in 2003. In the intervening years, while simultaneously working on the long-awaited "An Echo in the Bone" (September 2009), Gabaldon has published two more Lord John Grey mysteries: "Lord John and the Hand of Devils" (2007) and "Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (2008).

Answer: Honey

Before she discovers the gallberries among Dr. Rowling's vials Claire had asked Jamie to fetch some honey to add to an infusion of horse chestnuts, dogwood bark and/or agueweed (five-flowered gentian). When Jamie returns with the honey and hot water to find his wife hanging out the window gagging and spitting, he hastily adds a dollop of honey to a beaker of water for her to drink.

Speaking of honey, gallberries are an important source of nectar for beekeepers. Gallberry honey has a mild taste and light amber colour. Types of honey include mono- and polyfloral (nectar from a single or multiple flower sources), honeydew (a sugary secretion from aphids and insects from the superfamily Coccoidea) and blended (nectar from multiple sources).

Answer: Paris

With Roger Mac's cold and concrete way of speaking about events yet to transpire, Jamie likens him to an evil-minded fortune teller who hasn't received enough money to tell her client good news. Jamie reminisces about the time he spent in Paris as a student at the université and a tavern at which he and some of his friends had drunkenly made fun of an old Seer woman. The old woman thereupon gives Jamie his palm reading perforce, telling young Jamie that he is a little red cat who will die nine times before resting in his grave. Is it possible that the woman really could see into Jamie's future or did she merely surmise that the brawny, red-headed man with the fighter's build and penchant for running his mouth had a good chance of attracting trouble wherever he was to go? Such was the objective lesson in palmistry that Claire learned from the Reverend's elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Graham, in 1945 before embarking on her adventures through time.

In the interest of science I performed a runic reading while concentrating on the creation of this quiz, using the Norn spread which casts a rune each for the past, the present and the future:

The Past (Lagaz, inversed): Lagaz is a water rune, inversed it is like the ebbing tide and indicative of being drawn away from something. This may reflect the fact that I have not authored a quiz on FunTrivia in the past five years.

The Present (Thurisaz): Thurisaz, the thorn, could mean impediment or good luck, but cast here with inversed runes the negative meanings become the most likely. In the case of Thurisaz with Lagaz and Ehwaz, a good interpretation is that I am in danger of ruining my efforts with a stubborn attitude.

The Future (Ehwaz, inversed): Ehwaz is the rune of movement and travel. Reversed, it represents difficulties with self-improvement or an inability to advance despite effort.

So what does my runecast mean? Is this quiz destined never to go online? Well, a runecast is never "set in stone" (har har!): the runes show what is likely to come to pass if the caster ignores the message of the runes. A good interpretation of the runes' warning for me might be: "Welcome back, author! Don't forget to re-read the Quiz Creation Guidelines and don't argue with the editors when they offer constructive criticism!" Thanks, runes!