Magus 6 quiz answers

1. What is remarkable about the popular song "White Christmas"? Extra points for the composer and its original use.

You're supposed to say it's the world's best-selling single. As sung by Bing Crosby it has more 50 million copies. Cover versions take that figure up to more that 100 million. Extra points for the composer and its original use: it was written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 film Holiday Inn. Another extra point if you thought it came from the 1940s. And another if you knew that the name of the Holiday Inn hotel chain (begun 1952) came from the song. And even more if that reminded you of one of Jimmy Buffet's best-known songs "Cheeseburger in Paradise" which disparages the hotels in the line, "It reminds me of the menu in a Holiday Inn." I should stop.

2. Whose Xmas album is called Christmas in the Heart?

Nobel Prize laureate Bob Dylan's. It's not his best. Jimmy Buffett's is called Christmas Island. Not his best either.

3. In what decade did "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" appear?

It was first published as a story in 1939, so take a point for either 1930s or 1940s. It's Xmas: I'm in a giving mood :) And anyway, the song was on the charts in 1949. Who remembers the "singing cowboy" Gene Autry. Nice bullets, Gene!

4. It's not "wrong" to write "Xmas" like that. Why not?

X here is the Greek letter chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word Christos (Χριστός). (I hope your browser can show the Greek letters.) It's not a modern invention. "Xpes maesse" appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle c. 1100.

5. Which brings us to the word "Christmas", which is made up of two words. What was the ultimate origin of each of them? This is the hard etymological question of the set.

Christos means "anointed". (So does "Messiah".) I'll quote Wikipedia: "In biblical Judaism, sacred oil was used to anoint certain exceptionally holy people and objects as part of their religious investiture." But you already knew that ER II, the late Queen of Australia, was so anointed as part of her coronation in 1963, and I'll be surprised if Charles III doesn't get a drop or three also. It's called chrism when it's used in this ceremony. (It's also known as myrrh, as in Wise Man no. 3.) There's a special Coronation Spoon which has been used in every English coronation since 1603 (James I). The point is that they rule "by the grace of God" and the anointing is the sacralisation bit. Give yourself a point if you thought of oil.

Mas is Mass, referring to the church service. The term is thought to come from a phrase used to conclude it: "Ite, missa est", meaning "Go, the dismissal is made." It's as old as 6C.

6. The birth of Jesus is celebrated on 25 December. What is 23 December (the day I'm writing this)?

The solstice: the shortest, or, in our case, down under, longest day of the year. Midwinter. There might be a connexion between the two. Isaac Newton (born 25 December) thought so.
Alernative correct answer: Festivus, as made popular by a 1997 Seinfeld episode .

7. In what do Bob Cratchit and his son Tiny Tim appear?

"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. (That Tiny Tim is not to be confused with the "Tiptoe through the Tulips" guy)

8. There are two Australian feature films called Bush Christmas. Who was the young female star of the second one (1983)?

Our Nic. Nicole Mary Kidman (b. 1967). The biggest star of the first Bush Christmas (1947) was Chips Rafferty.

9. Who played Bad Santa (2003)?

Billy Bob Thornton

10. Can you name all eight of Santa's reindeer?

Give yourself a point if your answer to this silly question was "No". There's probably more than one version of them, but you might have thought of one or more of these: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem - aka Donder (or Donner) and Blitzen.

11. Who wrote the Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248, the Christmas Oratorio?

Johann Sebastian Bach. BWV is the catalogue, the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, ed. Wolfgang Schmieder, 1959.

12. What Xmas event, in what year, does this drawing imagine?

The 'Xmas Truce', in 1914, between the trenches in WW1 in France, from Wikipedia.

Garry Gillard | New: 23 December, 2022 | Now: 23 December, 2022