She'll Be Apples Mate Trivia Quiz

Answer: Eastern Turkey and Western Asia

The apple is believed to be the first fruit ever cultivated from its wild state several thousand years ago. It has played an important part in the diet of mankind ever since. Alexander the Great, returning home from his many conquests all over that area of the world, is believed to have carried the seeds of the fruit back to Macedonia for cultivation - and the little apple has never looked back since.

Answer: Eternal youth

This can be found in the literary work "Prose Edda" which is a collection of Norse poetry written in the early thirteenth century. Apples can also be found in scholarly works which link apples to early Germanic pagan practices. These practices eventually spread all throughout Europe and England. Even today in some parts of southern England, there are still some light-hearted beliefs associated with the consumption of apples.

Answer: Fertility

"Me heap good strong warrior and me produce many fine sons to fight for me and to work in my apple orchards - munch, munch". This connection between fertility and apples crops up periodically throughout early Norse literature. It includes the tale that after one King Rerir prayed fervently to Odin for his wife to bear a fine strong son, Frigg, the wife of Odin with a rather unfortunate name, obligingly dropped an apple into his lap.

After Rerir's wife had eaten the apple, she had a six-year pregnancy (that poor, poor woman) and subsequently had a son by caesarian birth who grew up to become the Nordic hero Volsung.

Answer: The Tree of Life

This was part of the myth surrounding the tale of the twelve tasks that Heracles had to undertake. In addition, the apple is associated with the goddess of love, Aphrodite, in ancient Greek legends, and has also become linked with the Garden of Eden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil etc.

The problem though with associating apples with forbidden fruit, which is more or less a euphemism used today for illicit love, is that the term "apples" in ancient times was used to apply to all fruit, and not just apples alone.

Answer: Atalanta

Atalanta, who was a very swift runner who had never been beaten, didn't wish to ever marry, but had one persistent suitor for her hand in the shape of the ardent Hippomenes. Atalanta in fact became so angry with men wishing to possess her that she finally stated that she would marry anyone who could trounce her in a race - but if that person failed to do so, he would die. Now that's feminism with a vengeance.

Many men subsequently tried, many men subsequently died. Then along came Hippomenes who sought the intercession of the goddess Aphrodite for help in winning the love of the lady he so desired. Aphrodite was annoyed with Atalanta for turning her back on love, and so gave Hippo three golden apples to use in his race against her.

The diabolical plan worked. Every time Atalanta looked like getting ahead of this race-fixer, he dropped one of the apples at her feet, and so entranced was she by their beauty, that each time she stopped running and stooped to pick one up. That is SO unfair.

Answer: A piece of forbidden fruit got stuck there

Here we have that connection between apples and sin and lust and learning about good and evil, linking back to the old biblical story of Adam and Eve eating from the forbidden tree. Ever since then, the apple has been used symbolically to represent lust and seduction. No prizes for guessing what the serpent has come to represent in that tale. Dr Freud Eggs must have been in his glory.

Answer: Ecuador

There are two factors which contribute to this fertility rate. One is that Ecuador's location on the equator gives that country very little variation in the amount of daylight it receives all year long, thus providing a regulated amount of sunlight received by the plant.

The second reason is that the very high altitude in the country where apples are grown provides constant temperatures year long as well. So, in effect, Ecuador provides what could be termed as the perfect greenhouse for growing apples.

Answer: Ariadne Oliver

Mrs Oliver is a novelist by trade in these books by the great Agatha Christie. She is a friend of Hercule Poirot and is prone to getting herself involved in all sorts of murder cases. She is known for touting the skills of her female intuition, and applying these skills with a remarkable lack of success, usually having to be helped out instead with the aid of the sharper and brilliant skills of Hercule himself.

She's rather untidy but comfortable to be around and always has apples, in various stages of consumption, tumbling out of her car, or her lap, or her handbag.

A few of the novels in which she appears are "The Pale Horse", "Hallowe'en Party" and "Mrs McGinty's Dead".

Answer: China

The yearly production of apples is more than 55 million tonnes annually. Following China on the list of the fruit's biggest producers comes the USA in second spot, and Iran and Turkey in third and fourth position. With Iran and Turkey on the list, it's good to know that the birthplace of the little apple is still producing this delicious fruit for the benefit of the entire world.

Answer: They were thought to be the food of the dead

Perhaps this is why they keep bobbing up (pardon the pun) in Halloween as well. Who knows? This association has been found in old poetry written by various Scandinavian and Icelandic poets of the eleventh century, and even going further, right back to the old Irish legends of the 2nd century where the old Germanic goddess Nehalenia ferries people safely, or otherwise, on their journeys across the seas.

The apples grown in that northern region of the world are small in size and have a distinctly more bitter flavour than those found elsewhere in the world. Several of those guardian goddesses throughout the entire Northern European region are depicted with apples, which are said to be "life-giving fruit from the other world".