So Many Numbers! Trivia Quiz

One.

In the nursery rhyme "Hickory Dickory Dock", the mouse first runs up the clock, and then back down again after the clock strikes one o'clock. One guesses that the chime scared the mouse into this action. There are more verses, with the mouse having different reactions to each different time being struck, but the first verse is the best known.

Two.

They are little and named Peter and Paul. They fly away one at a time, then come back in the same manner. Hand gestures accompany the rhyme to simulate these actions.

Three.

"Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?" The answer, of course, is yes, "three bags full". The rhyme goes on to indicate how the wool is to be distributed, including one bag for the "little boy who lives down the lane".

Five.

"Five Go Off in a Caravan" is the fifth of 21 novels about the Famous Five written by English author Enid Blyton. It has stuck in my head since I first read it many years ago, as at the time, I didn't know what she meant by a caravan, until I read the book. It might also be when I first learned about treacle, though that might have been another of her books. Oh, before I forget the five were Julian, Dick, Anne, George (Georgina) and their dog Timmy.

Six.

Besides writing stories about Winnie the Pooh, Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) also wrote poetry for children, collected in volumes called "When We Were Very Young" (1924) and "Now We Are Six" (1927), along with books of prose about Pooh and his friends.

"But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever."

Seven.

Before it was a Disney movie, "Snow White" was a German fairy tale, collected in the early 19th century by the Brothers Grimm, at which time her seven dwarf friends did not have individual names. These first appeared for a Broadway play in 1912, but were changed to the more familiar Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Grumpy and Dopey for the 1937 movie.

Eleven.

In the "Harry Potter" novels by J.K. Rowling, young witches and wizards who have been chosen for acceptance at Hogwarts enter the school at the age of eleven. Upon arrival the Sorting Hat places them in their houses, and they are on their way, working towards qualifications called O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s.

Four and twenty (24).

In the nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence", four and twenty blackbirds are "baked in a pie" for the King, but something seems to have gone wrong, because when he goes to slice into the pie the birds start singing! What a shock that must have been!

Forty.

"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" is an old folk tale, sometimes described as Arabian and sometimes as Persian. The gist of the story is that he's a poor woodcutter who overhears the thieves making plans, and uses the magic words "Open Sesame" to gain access to their hideout.

One Hundred and One (101).

English author Dodie Smith (1896-1990) wrote "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" in 1956 about the kidnapping of a family of Dalmatian puppies, and the efforts of their parents to get them back. The title was changed to "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" for the 1961 animated Disney movie. Live action versions followed in later years.