EN142: Myths & Legends of Ireland & Britain
Fall 2011

Final Exam

The final exam will be held on Tuesday, December 20 at 8:00 AM.

The exam will cover all of the material assigned during the semester. The emphasis, naturally, will be on material discussed in class.

The exam will be in four parts.

The first part will be a brief section multiple choice questions. There will probably be ten questions at 1 point each.

The second section will consist of a series of passages quoted from the texts studied during the semester. You will be asked to select ten of these passages and identify them, providing the work it comes from, the speaker, the setting and context of the passage. The ten responses will count for 5 points each.

In the third section, you will be asked to select another of the quoted passages-- one that you did not identify in section 2. You will not only identify this passage, but write an essay in which you explain its significance, with reference to its connection to themes in the work as a whole or in other related works. This essay will count for 20 points.

The fourth section will be another 20-point essay. You will have a choice of topics; all of the topics will ask you to compare and contrast texts read during the semester.

So... What sorts of passages will appear on the exam? Here are some examples. (These will not appear on the exam):

1. “Now, earth, hold what earls once held
   and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first
   by honorable men. My own people
   have been ruined by war; one by one
   they went down to death, looked their last
   on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody
   to bear a sword or to burnish plated goblets,
   put a sheen on the cup. The companies have departed.
   the hard helmet, hasped with gold,
   will be stripped of its hoops; and the helmet-shiner
   who should polish the metal of the war-mask sleeps;
   the coat of mail that came through all fights,
   through shield-collapse and cut of sword,
   decays with the warrior. Nor may webbed mail
   range far and wide on the warlord’s back
   beside his mustered troops. No trembling harp,
   no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk
   swerving through the hall, no swift horse
   pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter
   have emptied the earth of entire peoples.”
2. “Believe in God and holy Patrick, O Loegaire, that a wave of earth may not come over thee. It will come, unless thou believest in God and holy Patrick, for it is not a demon that has come to thee: it is Cu Chulainn son of Sualtam.”
3. One day in winter, the girl’s foster-father was skinning a milk-fed calf on the snow outside, to cook it for her. She saw a raven drinking the blood on the snow. She said to Leborcham:
   “I could desire a man who had those three colors there: hair like a raven, cheeks like blood and his body like snow.”

Click here for the answers.