Mythology is asked about in two quite different ways, and confusing them
costs points. There is the Greek and Roman material, which is asked as a system
of correspondences, and there is world religion, which is asked as a set of
facts about practice — festivals, texts, places, numbers.
Greek and Roman: learn the pairs
Nearly every classical mythology question resolves to one of three things:
which god does what, what the Roman name for a Greek god is, and what the
labours, muses or fates were. The Greek–Roman pairs are the highest-value list —
Zeus/Jupiter, Hera/Juno, Ares/Mars, Aphrodite/Venus, Poseidon/Neptune,
Artemis/Diana, Hermes/Mercury — because setters ask them in both directions and
often build a whole round on them.
After that: the twelve labours of Heracles, the nine muses, the three fates,
the monsters (Minotaur, Medusa, Cerberus, Chimera), and the Trojan War cast.
Norse mythology is a distant second but growing, and is asked almost entirely
through Odin, Thor, Loki, Valhalla, Ragnarök and Yggdrasil.
World faiths
The questions here are factual and countable: the five pillars, the eightfold
path, the four gospels, the ten commandments, the days of major festivals, the
names of holy books and the languages they were written in. Setters favour
anything with a number in it, because a number makes an unambiguous answer.
Festivals are the other reliable seam — which faith, what it marks, when it
falls, and which are governed by a lunar calendar and therefore move.
The French Revolutionary
calendar and
the Babel story and the languages
that do not fit it are adjacent favourites.
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Ares?
Answer Mars
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Hermes?
Answer Mercury
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus?
Answer Jupiter
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Aphrodite?
Answer Venus
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Poseidon?
Answer Neptune
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Cronus?
Answer Saturn
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Nike?
Answer Victoria
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Hades?
Answer Pluto
Norse king of the gods (one eye, ravens)?
Answer Odin (ravens Huginn and Muninn)
Which Norse gods gave us Tuesday–Friday?
Answer Tyr, Woden (Odin), Thor, Frigg
Norse trickster god?
Answer Loki
Which ancient Persian religion worships Ahura Mazda and keeps sacred fires burning?
Answer Zoroastrianism
Greek god of the sea?
Answer Poseidon (trident)
His only weak spot was his heel?
Answer Achilles
The Reformation was sparked by whose 95 Theses (1517)?
Answer Martin Luther
First book of the Bible? Last?
Answer Genesis; Revelation
Messenger of the Greek gods (winged sandals)?
Answer Hermes
Greek goddess of wisdom, born from Zeus's head?
Answer Athena
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Eros?
Answer Cupid
Which Indian religion takes non-violence to all living things as its central vow?
Answer Jainism
Who slew the Minotaur in the Labyrinth?
Answer Theseus (thread from Ariadne)
Which faith was founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia and has its world centre in Haifa?
Answer The Bahá'í Faith
What is the proper name of the Quakers?
Answer The Religious Society of Friends
Which Japanese religion venerates spirits called kami and marks its shrines with torii gates?
Answer Shinto
Which three gods make up the Hindu trimurti?
Answer Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva
Hindu festival of lights?
Answer Diwali
Which Aztec god was the feathered serpent?
Answer Quetzalcoatl
Which Mesopotamian poem is often called the oldest surviving great work of literature?
Answer The Epic of Gilgamesh
Jewish new year?
Answer Rosh Hashanah
Roman equivalent of the Greek god Hera?
Answer Juno