The Calm Before the Storm Trivia Quiz

Answer: Raven

According to the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, God chose to cleanse the earth of corruption with a catastrophic, forty-day deluge, sparing only Noah, his family, and pairs of every creature (two of unclean, and seven of clean) aboard a massive wooden ark. Noah, a righteous man, was hand-picked by God to restart the human race after the deluge.

After torrential rains of forty days and forty nights, the groundwaters continued to swell. They submerged the land for 150 days before they started to recede. When Noah noticed the tips of the mountains, he grew hopeful, and sent out a raven to scout the land. The raven, however, was a poor choice. A hardy bird, the raven "kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth" (Genesis 8:7, NKJV) and refused to come back to the ark (apparently, the wifi was pretty bad).

Noah then sent out a dove, a clean animal, and the dove promptly returned to the ark since the waters had not receded enough. A week later, Noah sent the dove out again and the bird returned a second time, "and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth" (Genesis 8:11, NKJV). Then Noah knew that the land was dry enough, and the dove cemented her position as a bird of hope and peace for all mankind. The olive branch didn't fare too shabby either.

Answer: One of Nuh's sons refuses to board and drowns in the rising waters

In the Qur'an, the stories follow a nonlinear timeline and the stories of Nuh are spread out over several surahs. In surah Al-Ankabut (29) it recounts how righteous Nuh was, and tells that he spent 950 years preaching righteousness to the people. This is one of the main reasons he was chosen to build an ark. In surah Ash-Shu'ara (26), Nuh warns the people that if they don't recant their ways, they will be destroyed. Their response is to reject Nuh due to the fact that the people who believe in Nuh have a low social status... mistake.

Nuh prays to Allah and Allah decides to destroy the nonbelievers and spares the rest. In surah Nuh (71), in fact, it says that Nuh himself asked Allah to not leave behind a single disbelieving dweller on earth. Allah, followed through. Indeed, the Qur'anic story has the flood starting as waters gushing out of a baker's oven! Unfortunately, one of Nuh's own sons refuses to board. As the waters are flooding, Nuh notices him atop a mountain and pleads with him "do not be with the disbelievers!" (Surah Hud, 11:42)

Nuh's son, stubborn as sons usually are, insists that he will take refuge and be saved because he is high on the mountain. Nuh implores him that only Allah's mercy will save him, but the son is obstinate. In fact, a massive wave comes and the son drowns right in front of Nuh. Nuh prays to Allah, reminding him of his promise to save his family. Allah gently but firmly corrects Nuh, stating that his son was not truly part of his spiritual family because of his unrighteous conduct.

Answer: Utnapishtim

If you think Noah had a monopoly on gigantic wooden arks, the ancient Mesopotamians would like a word. In Tablet XI of the "Epic of Gilgamesh" (dating back to around 2100 BCE, well before the Bible), the hero Gilgamesh seeks out Utnapishtim to learn the secret of immortality. Utnapishtim was a king of Shuruppak who had been granted this great gift, and Gilgamesh was seeking it for himself. So, how did Utnapishtim get eternal life in the first place? Well, let me tell you a story...

Centuries earlier, the gods grew tired of noisy humans keeping them awake and decided to wipe them out with a torrential tempest. The god Ea (Enki), secretly tipped off Utnapishtim in a dream. He advised him to tear down his house and build a colossal cube-shaped boat named the Preserver of Life. This boat, massive as it was, was raised by Utnapishtim in only five days (clearly, he didn't have union workers). Utnapishtim packed it with his family, craftsmen, and animals. After six days and seven nights of apocalyptic storms, the boat rested on Mount Siris.

Utnapishtim released a dove which returned, having found nothing. Then he released a swallow who did the same as the dove. Finally a raven was sent out to find land. The raven circled around, but did not come back to the ark, signalling that it was the end. Upon stepping off the ship, the supreme god Enlil rewarded Utnapishtim and his wife with immortality.

Oh, and Gilgamesh himself failed his own quest for eternal youth, by the way.

Answer: Fish

While at a river, King Manu scooped up a tiny fish who begged him for help. There were bigger fish, and the tiny fish needed protection. Manu, taking pity on the tiny fish, put him in a pot for his own protection. Almost immediately, the fish began to grow and grow, and Manu had to transfer him to larger pots until finally he moved him to a pond, a lake, and finally, the ocean.

Obviously, this was no ordinary fish. He revealed himself as Lord Vishnu and gave a warning of a huge flood that would reset everything. This is known as pralaya, the dissolution, and ends a daytime period, kalpa, for Brahma, approximately 4.32 billion years.

To survive the cosmic reset, Vishnu instructed Manu to build a massive ship and stock it with herbs, seeds, and the seven great sages (saptarishi). When the deluge struck, Vishnu appeared as a colossal, golden horned fish named Matsya. Manu used the giant sea serpent Vasuki as a rope to tie his vessel directly to Matsya's horn. The divine fish then towed the ship through the turbulent waters, navigating the tempest until they reached the peaks of the Himalayas. Once the waters receded, Manu performed sacred rites to repopulate the earth, proving that showing a little kindness to a tiny fish can pay off in cosmic proportions.

Answer: An apocalyptic ice age and melting snow

If you thought floods were bad, just wait! Different religions have other storms that had world-changing results. Here, we visit the Zoroastrian Winter of Yima - a mythic cataclysm where a destructive, freezing winter threatens to wipe out all life on Earth, something that probably helped inspire the plot for "The Day After Tomorrow".

Before the winter, Yima (later known as Jamshid in Persian tradition) ruled as a radiant and virtuous king during a golden age. Under his reign, there was no sickness, aging, or death, and the earth became so overpopulated that Yima had to expand it three times using a golden seal and dagger.

In the "Vendidad", the creator god Ahura Mazda warns the righteous King Yima that a devastating winter, accompanied by massive snowfalls (Malkos), is coming to destroy all living creatures. Instead of building a floating boat, Yima is instructed to construct a vast, multi-level subterranean enclosure called a Vara. Inside are gathered the best specimens of humanity, animals, and plants. Yima creates a climate-controlled underground sanctuary, ironically, not useful against a flood, until the deadly ice age passes and the earth can bloom again.

Answer: Muskrat

As these stories usually start, people long ago strayed from their traditional values. They created conflict, gave into greed, and disrespected both each other, and nature. Gitche Manitou, the creator, sent a great flood to cleanse the face of the earth. The mush-ko'-be-wun' (flood) came very quickly, but the trickster, Nanabush, managed to survive it by floating on a log along with a few animals.

Water covered everything, and they needed a grain of soil to create land once again. The strong swimmers volunteered first to swim to the bottom to get that nugget of earth, the loon, the beaver, the otter, and the mink. However, all of these failed to get to the bottom. Finally, the muskrat, seemingly the weakest of the animals, said that he would make the dive. All of the other animals doubted him yet he went down anyway.

The animals waited, and waited, and waited some more. Eventually, the muskrat's body floated up to the surface. When Nanabush checked muskrat's body, he found that the paws were tightly clenched. When the paws were opened, in them was a clump of mud. Muskrat had given his life to save the others. Nanabush put the mud on the back of the shell of Mikinaak, a giant snapping turtle, and thus Turtle Island was born.

Oh, and if you were worried, in recognition of his selfless and valiant feat, muskrat was brought back to life.

Answer: She hid inside a heavenly sea cave

Susanoo-no-Mikoto is the Japanese Shinto kami (deity) of storms, the sea, summer, and agricultural winds. However, he also is wild, hot-tempered, and quite destructive. He is the younger brother of Amaterasu (the sun goddess) and Tsukuyomi (the moon god), and was born of the nose of Izanagi, the creator.

Susanoo desperately missed his mother, Izanami (who resided in the underworld). Instead of ruling the seas as his father Izanagi commanded, he wept continually. Izanagi banished Susanoo because he was neglecting his duties. So, before he left, Susanoo went to the High Celestial Plain to say goodbye to his sister, Amaterasu.

However, as far as family dynamics go, Amaterasu was suspicious of his motives. She thought that he had come to take over her realm. To prove that he had no such ambitions, they held a creation contest by biting and spitting out objects to produce new deities. Susanoo won the contest, but only due to a technicality, and went crazy with euphoric joy. This led to a vandalistic rampage that wrecked Amaterasu's sacred rice fields and defiled her halls.

Amaterasu was both horrified and terrified, so she went to hide in the Ama-no-Iwato (the Heavenly Rock Cave), and she sealed herself inside with a massive boulder. Now, remember that she is the sun goddess... sealed in a cave this meant that no light got out and this plunged the world into a total darkness. Chaos ensued and the evil spirits got out and the world was being destroyed until Amaterasu was eventually coaxed out.

Answer: Giant trees

For the Aztecs, creation was a cyclical event, and destruction had already happened several times before. The Fourth Sun was ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of water and oceans, and she brought it down by unleashing a torrential downpour. Now, if you thought that Noah had it bad by surviving forty days and forty night, the Aztec tradition said that these rains lasted fifty-two years!

These rains were so colossal, so complete in their destruction, that the heavens fell down to the earth. The survivors were spared by the gods by being turned into fish to survive all the water, but still, no end was in sight. It took the power of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl turning into giant trees to lift the heavens back to where they should be in order to stop the rain.

Answer: Australian Aboriginal

There is an Australian Aboriginal Dreaming story of Tiddalik the Frog. He is a colossal, primordial frog who drinks all of the world's fresh water, causing a catastrophic global drought that brings humanity and animals to the brink of death. There's no retribution involved -- he just woke up one morning with an insatiable thirst (and probably because Australian beer isn't that good). He began to drink rivers, lakes, billabongs, anything he could sip up.

Desperate to recover the world's water supply, the council of animals realized they needed to make the giant frog laugh to force his mouth open. After a long lineup of animal comedians failed, Nabunum the Eel contorted himself into such absurd, agonizing arrangements that Tiddalik finally guffawed. Upon opening his mouth, a tidal wave of stored water poured out. This reshaped the continent's rivers, creating new lakes, and washing away the old dry landscape to reboot life across the land.

Answer: Norse

Before the earth was made, the universe consisted of Niflheim (the realm of ice and mist) and Muspelheim (the realm of fire). Where the heat met the frost, the ice melted and dripped to form Ymir, the first of the frost giants (jötnar). Ymir was a chaotic, cosmic entity whose body generated other giants from his sweat while he slept.

In the Prose Edda (Gylfaginning, Chapter 7), a part of the Norse creation narrative, Ymir is slain by Odin and his brothers. This causes a colossal deluge of blood, so incredibly vast that it drowns nearly the entire race of frost giants. The only ones that are saved are Bergelmir and his wife, riding inside a wooden chest to safety.

After the blood-flood receded, Odin and his brothers, Vili, and Vé, dragged Ymir's corpse into the middle of the void (Ginnungagap) and constructed the physical world directly from his body parts.