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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 does Merewyn want for Orm in England?

2. Why is Merewyn excited after she and her party walk over the Medip Mountains?

3. What does Rumon offer to do for Merewyn when he meets her at the place where she has taken her aunt's heart?

4. Where does Merewyn take her aunt's heart after her aunt dies?

5. How does Merewyn feel toward Elgifu?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Brother Finian told Rumon that he smelled smoke as they came to the broad estuary of the Camel River in their search for Merewyn, how did Rumon respond to Finian?

2. What was wrong with Ethelred's first wife, Queen Elgifu, in the year 1002?

3. Why did Orm stiffen when the porter at Glastonbury Abbey referred to the Vikings as "dreadful Danes?"

4. How did Brother Finian and Rumon find out that the smoke Finian smelled was really a Viking attack?

5. What did Merewyn see as the differences between Greenland and Iceland?

6. Where was Merewyn's interview and what was Merewyn doing with Abbess Merwinna when the Abbess told Merewyn that she couldn't be accepted into the novitiate?

7. What did the Abbess Merwinna request of Merewyn?

8. When Finian and Rumon went up to the monastery, what did the prior, Poldu, say happened to Merewyn during the Viking raid?

9. How did Merewyn describe the Hafnarfell Mountains?

10. How did Ketil dress on his way to the Allthing, two weeks after Rumon left Iceland?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Think about how the characters, setting, and themes in "Avalon" relate to the period in which it was written. (The early to mid 1960s.) How is it a reflection, and how is it a criticism of that time period? How does Seton make her opinions about that world clear to the reader?

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

What is the role of the Catholic Church in "Avalon?" How does the Church influence decisions made by the characters? How would the characters decisions be different if the Church didn't have such pervasive effect in Medieval society?

(see the answer keys)

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