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Friday, October 31, 2008

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference

The Friday Brain-teaser from Credo Reference - this week: Hallowe'en. Answers here.

Today (31 October) is Hallowe'en, when some people think particularly about ghouls, witches, devils, and other frightening things. This brainteaser is about Hallowe'en, witches, and other things that people associate with this subject.

Questions:
1. Which vegetable is most often used to make a Hallowe'en lantern by placing a candle in the hollowed-out centre, and carving a face in the rind?
2. What is the word for a male witch, sorcerer, wizard, or demon?
3. What time of the day or night is "the witching hour"?
4. What is the word for a group or gathering of witches?
5. What is "trick or treat"?
6. In children's stories, what do witches usually ride on?
7. When talking about witches or sorcerers, what is a "familiar"?
8. Was British legislation against witchcraft abolished in 1751, 1851 or 1951?
9. Which 1953 historical drama by the US playwright Arthur Miller is about the witchcraft hysteria that swept through Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692?
10. What title did the 17th-century Englishman Matthew Hopkins give himself as a merciless persecutor of suspected witches?

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