⚡ World Legends Trivia Questions & Answers
Folk heroes, tricksters and myths from every corner of the globe. Below are 30 free world legends trivia questions with answers — part of Mythology trivia on BUZZ. Want a real challenge that adapts to what you know? Play the Mythology quiz — no signup needed to start.
30 World Legends trivia questions
Q1. Which shape-shifting Monkey King battles through heaven with a magic staff in Journey to the West?
Answer: Sun Wukong
💡 His staff can shrink small enough to tuck behind his ear or grow massive enough to level mountains.
Q2. Which fearsome Slavic witch lives in a forest hut that stands and spins on giant chicken legs?
Answer: Baba Yaga
💡 Her hut is said to be fenced in with human bones and will only stop turning if a visitor commands it properly.
Q3. Which Polynesian demigod fished up islands from the sea floor with a jawbone hook?
Answer: Maui
💡 In Māori tradition, the fish he hauled up became the North Island of New Zealand.
Q4. Which Hawaiian goddess is said to live inside the Kilauea volcano?
Answer: Pele
💡 Kilauea's ongoing eruptions have added hundreds of acres of new land since 1983.
Q5. Which Chinese goddess flew to the moon after drinking an elixir of immortality?
Answer: Chang'e
💡 She is said to share the moon with a white rabbit companion named Yu Tu.
Q6. What was Excalibur in British/Arthurian legend?
Answer: King Arthur's magical sword from the Lady of the Lake
💡 In some tellings the sword from the stone and the one from the Lake are different. The name may derive from the Welsh 'Caledfwlch', cognate with the Irish 'Caladbolg'.
Q7. In Aztec mythology, who is Quetzalcoatl?
Answer: The feathered serpent god of wind, air, and learning
💡 Quetzalcoatl ('feathered serpent') is one of the most important Aztec deities, god of wind, knowledge, and the morning star. Some accounts say Hernán Cortés was mistaken for Quetzalcoatl returning.
Q8. In Arthurian legend, what is the 'Holy Grail'?
Answer: The cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, sought by knights for its miraculous powers
💡 The Holy Grail quest was added to Arthurian legend in the 12th century by Chrétien de Troyes. Galahad achieves it; Percival also achieves partial success; Lancelot is turned back because of his sins.
Q9. In Japanese mythology, who is Amaterasu?
Answer: The sun goddess and one of the highest deities in Shintoism
💡 Amaterasu is the ruler of the heavens. When her brother Susanoo's storm-like behavior upset her, she hid in a cave, plunging the world into darkness. The other gods lured her out with a raucous party.
Q10. In Chinese mythology, who is the Jade Emperor?
Answer: The supreme ruler of Heaven and all the realms in Chinese folk religion and Taoism
💡 The Jade Emperor presides over all the gods of the Chinese pantheon and is responsible for events in both heaven and earth. He is a central figure in Journey to the West and Chinese New Year traditions.
Q11. In Mesopotamian mythology, who is Gilgamesh?
Answer: The legendary king of Uruk and hero of the world's oldest epic
💡 The Epic of Gilgamesh (~2100 BCE) contains a great-flood story strikingly like Noah's, predating the Bible by over 1,000 years. He seeks immortality after his friend Enkidu dies.
Q12. In Celtic mythology, what is the 'Otherworld'?
Answer: A supernatural realm of gods and the dead, a land of eternal youth
💡 Often called Tír na nÓg ('Land of Youth'), it is reached by sailing west or through fairy mounds. Oisín spent 300 years there but aged all 300 on touching Irish soil again.
Q13. Who is Anansi in African and Caribbean mythology?
Answer: A West African spider trickster god, keeper of all stories
💡 Anansi stories crossed to the Americas with enslaved West Africans and shaped Br'er Rabbit tales. Neil Gaiman's novels American Gods and Anansi Boys feature him.
Q14. In the Popol Vuh, twins outwit the underworld's lords in a deadly ballgame before becoming what?
Answer: The sun and the moon
💡 The twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, first avenge their father's death before their final transformation into the heavens.
Q15. Which Irish hero got his name after killing a guard dog and offering to replace it as watchman?
Answer: Cú Chulainn
💡 His birth name was Sétanta — 'Cú Chulainn' literally means 'Hound of Culann', the smith whose dog he killed.
Q16. Which clever trickster animal, common in Native American stories, survives by cunning and mischief?
Answer: Coyote
💡 Coyote can be a bumbling fool in one story and a clever culture hero in the next — his trickster nature is never fixed.
Q17. In Pacific Northwest Coast tradition, which trickster bird stole daylight from a stingy chief?
Answer: Raven
💡 Raven is said to be able to shapeshift into almost anything — human, animal, even an inanimate object — to pull off his schemes.
Q18. In Arthurian legend, which mystical figure rises from the water to hand Arthur the sword Excalibur?
Answer: The Lady of the Lake
💡 At Arthur's death, Excalibur is famously thrown back into the lake and caught by the same hand that first gave it.
Q19. In Babylonian myth, Marduk built the world from the corpse of which slain goddess?
Answer: Tiamat
💡 He split her body in half to form the heavens and the earth.
Q20. Which wild man was molded from clay to challenge king Gilgamesh?
Answer: Enkidu
💡 He originally lived among wild animals before a temple woman brought him into the city.
Q21. Trickster Anansi won ownership of all the world's stories from which sky god?
Answer: Nyame
💡 Nyame demanded Anansi capture a python, hornets, a leopard, and a dwarf spirit first.
Q22. Which Japanese storm god got an eight-headed serpent drunk, then slew it and found a sword inside?
Answer: Susanoo
💡 The sword he pulled from the serpent's tail, Kusanagi no Tsurugi, became one of Japan's three sacred imperial treasures.
Q23. In Chinese mythology, which goddess is credited with molding the first humans from yellow clay?
Answer: Nüwa
💡 One version of the myth says Nüwa's hand-molded figures became the nobility, while clay flicked from a rope became everyone else.
Q24. Which Yoruba orisha of iron and war also protects blacksmiths?
Answer: Ogun
💡 Ogun is honored across the diaspora in Santería, Vodou, and Candomblé alike.
Q25. Which Yoruba orisha of rivers, love, and beauty is honored at the Osun River?
Answer: Oshun
💡 Her Nigerian festival, Osun-Osogbo, draws thousands of pilgrims every August.
Q26. Which warrior-king is credited with founding West Africa's Mali Empire?
Answer: Sundiata Keita
💡 His oral epic calls him the 'Lion Prince' of the Malinke people.
Q27. Which fearsome underworld did the Maya Hero Twins have to outwit?
Answer: Xibalba
💡 Its lords challenged the twins to a deadly ballgame before their final defeat.
Q28. Which Chinese festival celebrates lovers reunited yearly by a bridge of magpies?
Answer: Qixi Festival
💡 The lovers are represented by the stars Vega and Altair, on opposite sides of the sky.
Q29. Which Finnish national epic centers on the wise, immortal sage Väinämöinen?
Answer: Kalevala
💡 Elias Lönnrot compiled it from centuries of oral folk poetry in the 1800s.
Q30. In the Popol Vuh, the gods finally shaped successful humans out of which food?
Answer: Maize
💡 Earlier people made of mud and then wood failed before the maize people could think and speak.
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