50 Fun Facts About Ivanhoe

Which star played the moneylender's daughter in MGM's 1952 film of Ivanhoe?

Elizabeth Taylor thought the story shallow and her part too small, yet the film became MGM's biggest earner of 1952.

Which everyday job term is credited to Ivanhoe, where it meant a mercenary soldier?

Freelance began as 'free lance', a medieval mercenary who fought for whoever paid; the novel has the earliest known use, where a mercenary captain speaks of offering the king 'the service of my Free Lances'.

Ivanhoe belongs to which series of novels by Walter Scott?

Waverley, his first novel, appeared anonymously in 1814, so Ivanhoe, like most of its successors, was billed only as by 'the Author of Waverley' until he owned up in 1827.

In Ivanhoe, a jester jokes that livestock have Saxon names in the field but names from which language at table?

French: the ox becomes beef and the calf veal, he says, because Saxon serfs tend the animals and their Norman masters eat them.

What is the first name of Ivanhoe, the knightly hero of Walter Scott's novel?

Wilfred is 'of Ivanhoe' because the king gave him that manor; while he was away on crusade, the king's brother handed it to one of his own barons.

Why has Cedric disinherited his son before the action of Ivanhoe begins?

For courting his father's ward: Cedric had other plans for her, a dynastic match meant to revive the Saxon claim to the English throne.

In Ivanhoe, whom does Cedric want his ward to marry?

Athelstane, nicknamed the Unready, cares more for his dinner than for a crown or a bride, and in the end he cheerfully gives up his claim to her.

In Ivanhoe, Cedric tells the Saxon pretender that he is 'descended of' which king's blood?

Harold Godwinson, the king killed at Hastings, is the ancestor Cedric names as they sit in prison; elsewhere the novel calls the same man the heir of Edward the Confessor.

From which Crusade is Ivanhoe returning when the novel opens?

The Third Crusade ended in a truce that left Jerusalem in Saladin's hands, which is why the novel's knights drift home with so little to show for it.

Ivanhoe first appears in the novel disguised as what?

A palmer was a pilgrim back from the Holy Land, named for the palm branch such travellers wore; the disguise lets Ivanhoe dine in his own father's hall unrecognised.

In Ivanhoe, which Jewish moneylender arranges the hero's horse and armour for the tournament?

Isaac of York guesses that the stranger who saved him is a knight in need, and writes him a note of credit to a kinsman in Leicester, who supplies the gear.

Where is the great tournament held in Ivanhoe?

Ashby-de-la-Zouch cashed in on the fame: tourists flocked to its ruined castle, and the owner patched up the ruins and opened a spa called the Ivanhoe Baths.

What uprooted tree is on Ivanhoe's tournament shield?

Oak: a young oak pulled up by the roots, with the motto 'Desdichado'. The novel glosses that as 'Disinherited', though the Spanish word really means unfortunate or unhappy.

Who presides over the great tournament in Ivanhoe?

Prince John presides while scheming for his brother's crown, until a note from France reaches him at the lists: 'Take heed to yourself for the Devil is unchained!'

In Ivanhoe, whom does the Disinherited Knight choose as Queen of Beauty and of Love?

Rowena receives the coronet from the tip of his lance, a pointed choice: he had just been pressed to honour the daughter of a Norman courtier instead.

Why is Ivanhoe's Black Knight nicknamed the Black Sluggard?

He hangs back from the fighting, fending off attackers without pursuing anyone, until his leader is surrounded; then he fells two champions in moments and slips away.

Who is the Black Knight finally revealed to be in Ivanhoe?

King Richard gives his name first to a beaten enemy at the storming of the castle, whom he spares, and to his outlaw allies only after they save him from his brother's assassins.

In Ivanhoe, which skilled healer tends the hero's wounds after the tournament?

Rebecca treats him with a healing balsam, then talks her reluctant father into carrying the wounded knight home with them.

Which famous Robin Hood archery feat appears for the first time in Ivanhoe?

He also splits a willow reed with an arrow at the end of the tournament.

Under what name does Robin Hood go for most of Ivanhoe?

Locksley, or Loxley, had been named as the outlaw's birthplace since at least the late 1500s; once the novel made it his name, 'Robin of Locksley' stuck for good.

In Ivanhoe, to which castle are Cedric and his captured party taken?

Torquilstone was a Saxon lord's seat until a Norman baron stormed it and killed him and his sons; years on, the dead lord's daughter is still inside, waiting for revenge.

In Ivanhoe, which Norman baron holds the castle where Cedric's party is imprisoned?

Reginald Front-de-Bœuf threatens to roast a prisoner over a charcoal grate unless he pays a thousand pounds of silver; fittingly, he ends by burning to death in his own castle.

In Ivanhoe, which Saxon crone, also known as Urfried, sets the castle ablaze?

Ulrica is the daughter of the castle's murdered Saxon lord; she fires it, taunts its dying master and perishes on a turret singing a wild pagan war-song.

In Ivanhoe, who enters the besieged castle disguised as a priest and changes places with Cedric?

Wamba the jester bluffs his way in on two words of Latin, 'Pax vobiscum'; Cedric walks out in the priest's robe, leaving his fool behind as a hostage.

In Ivanhoe, what is the job of Cedric's faithful servant Gurth?

Swineherd Gurth wears a brass collar soldered round his neck that names him Cedric's born thrall; after the castle falls his master frees him with a gift of land, and Gurth shouts for a file.

In Ivanhoe, why does a Saxon lord presumed dead turn up alive at his own wake?

Monks wanted the funeral money, so when he woke in his coffin they drugged him and locked him up; the author later confessed he revived him only because his printer begged him to.

In Ivanhoe, which Templar Grand Master puts the Jewish heroine on trial for witchcraft?

Lucas de Beaumanoir arrives unannounced to purge a lax preceptory, finds a Jewish woman lodged there and concludes that only sorcery could explain his best knight's obsession.

How does the Templar champion die in the trial by combat that ends Ivanhoe?

He collapses, barely touched by his exhausted opponent's lance: 'a victim to the violence of his own contending passions', says the narrator, and the Grand Master calls it the judgment of God.

At the end of Ivanhoe, where do the Jewish heroine and her father go to make a new life?

Granada, she says, because an uncle stands high with its king, Boabdil; a slip of some three centuries, since the real Boabdil lost the city in 1492.

Which of Robin Hood's band shelters the Black Knight for a night in Ivanhoe, trading songs over supper?

Friar Tuck poses as an ascetic living on dried peas and water, then, warming to his guest, pulls a huge venison pasty and a skin of wine from a hidden cupboard.

The name Cedric, given to Ivanhoe's father, was apparently adapted by the author from which Saxon king's name?

Cerdic was a 6th-century king of the West Saxons; the reshuffled name was hardly used until Little Lord Fauntleroy, whose hero is Cedric Errol, made it fashionable in the 1880s.

The title Ivanhoe came from an old rhyme naming a village in which English county?

Buckinghamshire's Ivinghoe is the 'Ivanhoe' of a rhyme about manors a Hampden is said to have forfeited for hitting the Black Prince with a tennis racket; the author liked that the name gave nothing away.

Which real castle near Doncaster did Walter Scott take for a Saxon ruin and use in Ivanhoe?

Conisbrough's great keep is in fact Norman, built about a century after the Conquest; a glimpse of it from the road was enough for him to make it a Saxon stronghold.

As Ivanhoe opens, England's absent king is said to be a prisoner in which land?

Austria's duke had seized him on the road home from crusade, which is why his brother is free to plot for the throne and returning knights travel in disguise.

Which English composer's only grand opera, staged in 1891, was Ivanhoe?

Arthur Sullivan's Ivanhoe opened a brand-new London opera house and ran 155 nights, yet the house itself soon failed and was sold off as a music hall, today's Palace Theatre.

Which American humorist wrote that Ivanhoe restored the 'chivalry-silliness' Don Quixote had swept away?

Mark Twain went further in Life on the Mississippi, arguing, tongue in cheek, that Scott shaped the Old South so deeply he was 'in great measure responsible' for the Civil War.

Which composer's music was stitched into Ivanhoé, the 1826 Paris opera whose story Scott found 'mangled'?

Rossini let a Paris publisher assemble the score from his older operas; Scott, in the audience at the Odéon, admired the armour but thought the story mangled and the dialogue nonsense.

Who played Ivanhoe in the 1952 MGM film?

Robert Taylor's Ivanhoe was such a hit that the same producer and director put him back in armour twice, for Knights of the Round Table and Quentin Durward.

Which future James Bond starred as Ivanhoe in a 1958 television series?

Roger Moore insisted on doing many of his own stunts and paid for it with cracked ribs and a battle-axe blow to the helmet that knocked him out.

In the 1997 BBC and A&E miniseries Ivanhoe, Ciarán Hinds played which character?

Bois-Guilbert is the Templar knight who becomes obsessed with the captive heroine; in the serial's fourth episode Hinds's villain carries her off as the besieged castle burns.

What was Thackeray's 1850 spoof sequel to Ivanhoe called?

Rebecca and Rowena, signed with his pen-name Michael Angelo Titmarsh, rewrites the ending so the hero finishes up with the woman its narrator thinks he should have married all along.

In which novel is a boy made to read Ivanhoe aloud to a neighbour as a punishment?

To Kill a Mockingbird has Jem read to old Mrs Dubose after he wrecks her camellias; only after her death does Atticus reveal the sessions were helping her break a morphine addiction.

What spoiled the Ivanhoe-inspired Eglinton Tournament of 1839?

Torrential rain ruined the opening day, and the knights had to joust again once it cleared; the Earl of Eglinton's pageant is said to have cost him over £30,000.

Which country made a New Year's television tradition of the 1982 film Ivanhoe?

Sweden first showed it on New Year's Eve 1982 and it became an annual fixture; decades on, Sam Neill, who plays the villain, joked that all of Sweden had hated him for 35 years.

Which Edinburgh publisher issued Ivanhoe?

Archibald Constable had published the first of the novels five years earlier; his firm's crash in 1826 left their author with vast debts that he spent his last years writing to pay off.

Why did Walter Scott dictate much of Ivanhoe instead of writing it by hand?

Severe stomach pains: hearing the story sung in Paris seven years later, he recalled dictating it 'in an agony of pain' and wrote that he had not expected to live to finish it.

The 1952 film Ivanhoe was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar; which film won?

The Greatest Show on Earth, Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, won; Ivanhoe went home with nothing, and one of its writers had already lost her screen credit to the Hollywood blacklist.

In Ivanhoe, the schemer Waldemar Fitzurse is the son of a knight who helped murder which real figure?

Thomas Becket was cut down in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 by four knights of Henry II; the real Reginald FitzUrse, the fictional schemer's father, struck the first blow.

To whom is the Dedicatory Epistle that opens Ivanhoe addressed?

The Rev. Dr Dryasdust is an imaginary antiquary; Scott leaned on him so often as a stand-in for plodding scholarship that 'dryasdust' became a word for a dull pedant.

In Ivanhoe, how are De Bracy's men disguised when they ambush Cedric's party in the forest?

As Saxon outlaws: De Bracy means to carry off Cedric's ward, then reappear in his own armour, 'rescue' her from the ruffians and win himself a grateful bride.