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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is mixed into Rumon's draught?

2. What does Rumon feel responsible for?

3. What did the monks do when the Vikings attacked?

4. Why does Queen Alfrida lose her status at Court?

5. When Rumon meets Breaca of Uther, what does he notices?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Caw when he is first introduced in Chapter 1.

2. What terrible events followed very soon after Edward's Coronation?

3. When Bishop Ethelwold visited Abbess Merwinna, what did he say happened to Alfhere?

4. How did Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, look when Rumon first sees him?

5. How does Edward describe his love, Elgifu?

6. Why was the thought of Merewyn painful for Rumon as he talked to Dunstan outside his guesthouse rooms at Glastonbury Abbey?

7. How has Merewyn changed since she first came to work for Alfrida in the Queen's Bower?

8. What did the monastery behind the small church that is dedicated to St. Petroc look like when Rumon saw it for the first time?

9. What does King Edgar look like when Rumon and Merewyn first encounter him?

10. Describe Rumon's appearance when he first meets Merewyn.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the passionate emotion that is communicated in "Avalon?" Why was Seton moved to write? What is the thing that the Seton had to communicate? Explain Seton's motivating emotion and how it is explored in "Avalon?"

Essay Topic 2

Merewyn and Rumon are introduced with certain dreams, plans, and expectations. In the course of the novel, these main characters must come to terms with the difference between their dreams and the reality of the world around them. Examine how both Merewyn and Rumon navigate the journey from dreams to reality: What kind of course do they follow and how are they changed as they go on their journey? How do they adjust their idea of what Avalon is from the beginning of the novel to the end? Do they find what they seek?

Essay Topic 3

When Rumon finds Merewyn in Iceland as an accepted member of society and happily married, Rumon may have viewed that as an act of betrayal by Merewyn. Later, Rumon admits to Merewyn that he betrayed his own values and beliefs when he killed two Vikings during a raid not to save the church's treasures in an act of heroism but symbolically killing Merewyn's Viking husband and father for them having taken Merewyn away from him. Analyze the nature of these betrayals and demonstrate how they contributed to the meaning of "Avalon" as a whole.

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