Test 2: Riddles, The Battle of Brunanburh, & from Andreas

Question 1

a short sword with a slightly curved blade

Answer 1

cutlass

Question 2

bright; shining

Answer 2

luminous

Question 3

enhanced or improved; polished

Answer 3

resplendent

Question 4

one who attends a royal court as a companion or advisor to the king or queen

Answer 4

courtier

Question 5

a large, densely packaged group

Answer 5

throng

Question 6

the location of the battle, believed to have been on or near the northwest coast of England.

Answer 6

Brunanburh

Question 7

attractive; agreeable; becoming

Answer 7

comely

Question 8

showing or having skill

Answer 8

dexterous

Question 9

the scanning of a line of poetry to mark its stresses and meter

Answer 9

scansion

Question 10

depressingly dull and bleak

Answer 10

drear

Question 11

supplied with more than can be managed or is desired

Answer 11

sated

Question 12

taken; robbed

Answer 12

fleeced

Question 13

noblemen

Answer 13

earlmen

Question 14

courageous; determined

Answer 14

valiant

Question 15

a swift horse

Answer 15

courser

Question 16

descendant of a notable family

Answer 16

scion

Question 17

in poetry, the continuation of a sentence without pause beyond the end of a line couplet, or stanza

Answer 17

enjambment

Question 18

easily bent

Answer 18

pliant

Question 19

happily; in a carefree manner

Answer 19

blithely

Question 20

a major Anglo-Saxon poet of the late eighth-ninth centuries

Answer 20

Cynewulf

Question 21

triumphantly rejoicing

Answer 21

exulting

Question 22

inactive; unproductive

Answer 22

fallow

Question 23

marked with spots or rounded patches

Answer 23

dappled

Question 24

went quickly

Answer 24

hied

Question 25

moving in a turbulent, hectic way

Answer 25

seething

Question 26

“The Battle of Brunanburh” is a late tenth-century imitation of this form

Answer 26

Old English heroic epic

Question 27

“I float unweariedly o’er flood and field”

Answer 27

alliteration

Question 28

the golden era of English literature

Answer 28

the eighth century

Question 29

“These heroes, like to wanderers on the waves”

Answer 29

simile

Question 30

a complete victory for King Athelstan

Answer 30

the Battle of Brunanburh

Question 31

“Sometimes, set off with trappings,/ In comely guise upon the wall I hang / Where heroes drink.”

Answer 31

imagery of a mead-hall

Question 32

their primary reason and purpose for fighting

Answer 32

“their own land …/ Their homes and their treasures”

Question 33

“The angels stood / About the Prince, the thanes about their Lord”

Answer 33

syncretism (Christian and Anglo-Saxon)

Question 34

an Old English poem narrating the story of St. Andrew the Apostle

Answer 34

Andreas

Question 35

“The venomous sting, with dexterous speed I send / Far and away the quivering stroke of death”

Answer 35

an instance of injambment

Question 36

“where the waves / Loud thundered, and the streams of ocean beat / Against the shore”

Answer 36

sound imagery

Question 37

what Edmund and Athelstan earned in the battle

Answer 37

unending glory

Question 38

attendants of battles in Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry

Answer 38

hawk, wolf, and raven

Question 39

“The bloom of the trees I wear upon my breast!”

Answer 39

figurative language for the falcon

Question 40

“when the beacon of heaven / Upmounted at morning, the marvelous orb, / When clear bright on high the candle of God”

Answer 40

extended metaphor