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Author Winnie Czulinski invites you to test your knowledge of Celtic
culture.
From Drone on! The high history of
Celtic music, a humorous new book by Winnie Czulinski
(Sound and Vision Publishing Ltd., distributed by Firefly Books in N.
America) come these trivia questions, one from each chapter of the
book. Test your knowledge of Celtic culture (answers follow).
1) What are the seven "Celtic nations"?
2) What was the most important fish in
Celtic mythology?
3) Maewyn
Succat became a famous Irish religious
figure under what name?
4) What kind of specialized Celtic
song-form was urine used in?
5) Musically speaking, what is a "Strathspey"?
6) What's the name of the Irish
bellows-blown bagpipe, and what does the name mean?
7) Why is the mountain dulcimer often
called a stringed bagpipe?
8) What does the Gaelic word "craic"
(pronounced "crack") mean?
9) Which 18th-century blind Irish
harper created many "planxties"
-- and just what is a planxty?
10) Which historical "lady a la moan"
wrote the Scottish song Will Ye No Come Back Again?
11) What 19th-century American scholar
collected so many Celtic folk songs he just had to number them all?
12) Who wrote the lyrics of the famous
song "Danny Boy?"
13) Where in Canada was the Black Watch
Regiment formed?
14) What early-20th-century magnate
funded big fiddling festivals in America?
15) When he was almost Baroque, what
famous classical composer churned out dozens of arrangements of Celtic
folksongs for a big publisher?
16) Where and when did Lerner and
Loewe's stage production Camelot first
open?
17) What Irish rock group had a name
that means "kiss my a--"? (i.e., posterior)
18) What famous American TV show did The
Clancy Brothers-and-Tommy-Makem appear on,
in the early 1960s?
19) Which two famous young Canadian
Celtic fiddlers tied the knot in 2002?
20) How many taps per second can famous
Irish-American dancer Michael Flatley do?
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ANSWERS:
1) Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of
Man, Cornwall, Brittany (NW France) and Galicia
(NW Spain).
2) The Salmon of Knowledge (or Wisdom)
3) St. Patrick, in fifth-century Ireland
4) The "waulking"
song, sung by a group of people pounding/kneading wet wool treated
with urine, to shrink and "full" the fabric.
5) A distinctive Scottish tune and
dance, named for the strath or valley of
the Highlands' Spey River.
6) The uillean
bagpipes, and it means "elbow," as they're squeezed under the arm.
7) Traditionally played, it has a
"drone" - an underlying note that remains the same.
8) Fun, a good time, a certain "spirit"
(and often in the bottle)
9) Turlough
O'Carolan. A "planxty"
was a song composed specifically for a patron.
10) Lady Caroline
Nairne (1766-1845), a staunch Stuart supporter.
11) Francis Child. (Child #65, Child #66
and so on)
12) English barrister Fred Weatherly, in
1912 (apparently while on a commuter train)
13) Montreal, Quebec
14) Henry Ford
15) Ludwig van Beethoven, for Scottish
publisher George Thomson. And actually, Joseph
Haydn and Ignaz
Joseph Pleyel also did folksong
"arrangements" for publishers.
16) Broadway's Majestic Theater, New
York City, in 1960
17) Pogue Mahone
-- the phonetic spelling of this rather cheeky Gaelic phrase. (Later,
the band shortened its name to "The Pogues.")
18) The Ed Sullivan Show.
19) Natalie
MacMaster (of Cape Breton) and Donnell Leahy (of the Ontario
musical family group Leahy).
20) 35 taps per second.
Drone on! The high history
of Celtic music is available at bookstores and online
retailers across North America/UK/Europe, etc.
Buy the Book!
Rambles magazine review of
Drone On! at:
http://www.rambles.net/czulinski_drone04.html
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