The Boy Who Drew Cats quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which kind of traditional story is this?

   • Correct answer: A folk tale — a story handed down by word of mouth, here full of fairy-tale magic
   • A fable — a short tale starring talking animals with the moral stated at the end
   • A myth — a sacred story explaining how gods created the world or shaped nature
   • A legend — a story about a real person from history, retold as if it were fact
   • A tall tale — a funny frontier story built on wild and deliberate exaggeration

   Correct. It is a Japanese folk tale — told aloud for generations with no single author — and it is also a fairy tale, because it contains frank magic: painted cats that leave the screen and kill a goblin. Japanese has its own name for stories like this: mukashi banashi, meaning "tales of long ago."

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why did the boy's parents decide he should become a priest instead of a farmer?

   • He had already refused to do any work at all on his family's farm
   • Correct answer: He was too weak and small for hard work, but far cleverer than the others
   • He was the eldest son, and eldest sons were expected to enter the priesthood
   • He had been caught drawing cats and his parents wanted him punished for it

   The youngest child was "quite weak and small" and people said he would never grow big, so farm work was out. But he was clever — cleverer than all his brothers and sisters — so his parents thought the priesthood would suit him better.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What does "Acolyte" mean in this story?

   • A traveling artist who paints pictures on the walls of temples for money
   • An elderly priest who has taken charge of a temple and the village around it
   • Correct answer: A young assistant who helps a priest and is trained for religious life
   • A student who copies out old books by hand so that they are not lost

   An acolyte is a young helper being trained for the priesthood. The old priest agrees to take the boy "into the temple as an acolyte, and to educate him for the priesthood" — but as the story dryly notes, "a good acolyte should study books," and this one draws in them.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Why did the old priest send the boy away from the village temple?

   • He argued with the old priest about the lessons he was given to learn
   • He was slow to learn and could not answer the priest's hard questions
   • He refused to clean the temple or do any of the chores he was assigned
   • Correct answer: He drew cats during study-hours and covered the temple with them

   The boy learned quickly and was obedient in most things, but he had one fault: he drew cats on the margins of the priest's books, on the screens, on the walls, and on the pillars. He was not being defiant — he drew them "because he could not really help it."

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does the priest mean when he says the boy will never make a good priest, but may become a great artist?

   • Correct answer: He recognized that the boy had a real gift and belonged in a different life
   • He wanted to frighten the boy into studying his books much harder than before
   • He had grown too old to teach and was closing the village temple for good
   • He believed the boy had been sent to the temple by his parents as a trick

   The dismissal is really a diagnosis. The story says the boy had what is called "the genius of an artist," and "just for that reason he was not quite fit to be an acolyte." The priest is wise enough to see that the very habit ruining the boy's training is the thing he is built for.

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6. 6

   Question 6. How far away was the village with the big temple?

   • Three miles
   • Correct answer: Twelve miles
   • Twenty miles
   • Fifty miles

   Twelve miles — the boy remembered a very big temple in the next village and walked the whole way there.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does the priest's advice — "Avoid large places at night;—keep to small!" — actually mean?

   • Never sleep outdoors, and always ask a priest for a room for the night
   • Do not travel far from your village, because strangers cannot be trusted
   • Correct answer: Big open rooms are dangerous after dark; a small closed space is safer
   • Do not aim too high in life, and be satisfied with small, simple work

   On the surface it is plain survival advice: after dark, get out of the wide-open room and into a small enclosed one. The boy has no idea what it means, and he is too afraid to ask. But the riddling form is the point — the advice tests whether he will trust the priest, not whether he is clever.

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8. 8

   Question 8. After being sent away, why didn't the boy simply go home to his family?

   • He had lost the road home and no longer knew which direction to walk
   • Correct answer: He was afraid his father would punish him for disobeying the priest
   • His parents had told him plainly that he must never come back again
   • He wanted to find the big temple before any other acolyte reached it

   "If he went straight home he felt sure his father would punish him for having been disobedient to the priest: so he was afraid to go home." That fear is what sends him walking toward the second temple — and into the story's real danger.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Why was the big temple in the next village standing empty?

   • The priests had all grown old and died, leaving no one to look after it
   • A fire had damaged the building and the villagers could not afford repairs
   • The village had grown poor and could no longer feed the priests who lived there
   • Correct answer: A goblin had frightened the priests away and taken possession of the place

   A goblin had driven the priests out and taken over. Brave warriors went there at night to kill it, "but they had never been seen alive again." Nobody had ever told the boy any of this — he walks up to the door hoping to be kindly treated.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does "Goblin" mean in this story?

    • Correct answer: A small, wicked supernatural creature found in the folklore of many countries
    • A wandering spirit that guards a temple and protects the priests who live there
    • A priest who has broken his vows and been driven out of his own temple
    • A stone statue placed at a temple gate to frighten away unwelcome visitors

    A goblin is a small, malicious creature of folklore. Hearn's goblin turns out to be an "enormous, monstrous rat" — bigger than a cow. The gap between the ordinary little word and the horror the boy actually finds is part of what makes the ending land.

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11. 11

    Question 11. Who or what made the light burning inside the abandoned temple?

    • A priest had stayed behind in secret and was still keeping the lamps lit
    • Villagers lit it each evening to honor the warriors who had died there
    • Correct answer: The goblin made it to tempt lonely travelers into asking for shelter
    • The boy had lit it himself so that he could see well enough to paint

    "People who tell the story say the goblin used to make that light, in order to tempt lonely travelers to ask for shelter." The welcoming glow is bait — which makes the boy's arrival far more dangerous than he understands.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What did the boy find in the temple so he could paint?

    • Correct answer: A writing-box
    • A set of quill pens
    • A tray of paint pots
    • A box of colored chalks

    Tired as he was, he looked at once for a writing-box, found one, ground some ink, and began to paint cats on the big white screens.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What made the boy sleep in the little cabinet instead of beside the screens?

    • He heard a noise in the temple and understood at once that he was in danger
    • Correct answer: He remembered the priest's warning just as he was about to lie down by a screen
    • He had planned all along to sleep in a small space, exactly as he was told
    • He found the floor of the temple far too dusty and cobwebbed to sleep on

    He had painted a great many cats and was "just on the point of lying down to sleep beside one of the screens" when the priest's words came back to him. The temple was very large and he was all alone — and for the first time he felt afraid. That single decision is what the whole story turns on.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What did the boy see when he finally crept out of the cabinet in the morning?

    • The screens he had painted the night before had all been torn to pieces
    • The temple was swept clean and every trace of the night had vanished
    • Correct answer: The floor was covered with blood, and a rat bigger than a cow lay dead
    • The old priest from his village was waiting for him inside the doorway

    The whole floor of the temple was covered with blood, and lying dead in the middle of it was "an enormous, monstrous rat,—a goblin-rat,—bigger than a cow!" There was no other living creature anywhere to be seen.

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15. 15

    Question 15. How does the boy work out what killed the goblin-rat?

    • The cats had all vanished from the screens and left them completely blank
    • Correct answer: The mouths of every cat he had drawn were red and wet with blood
    • The cats had been rearranged into a circle around the dead goblin-rat
    • A trail of small paw prints led from the screens to where the rat lay

    There is no other creature in the building — and then he notices that the mouths of all the cats he had drawn the night before were red and wet with blood. Only then does he understand what the priest's warning had really been for.

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16. 16

    Question 16. What does "Mukashi banashi" mean in this story?

    • The Japanese word for the painted paper screens used to divide a room
    • A prayer that priests recite at a temple before beginning the day's lessons
    • The name for a wandering storyteller who traveled between Japanese villages
    • Correct answer: The Japanese term for a traditional folk tale — literally, a "tale of long ago"

    Mukashi banashi means "tales of long ago" — the Japanese name for stories like this one. Most of them open with mukashi mukashi, in exactly the spot where an English tale says "once upon a time." Hearn's telling begins the same way: "A LONG, long time ago..."

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17. 17

    Question 17. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • The boy's parents take him to the village temple to become an acolyte.

      Happened

      They ask the good old priest to take their little boy and teach him all that a priest ought to know.

    • The boy draws cats on the margins of the priest's books.

      Happened

      He drew them on the books, on all the screens of the temple, on the walls, and on the pillars.

    • The priest tells the boy he may become a great artist.

      Happened

      "You will never make a good priest, but perhaps you will become a great artist."

    • The boy goes home to his parents after being sent away.

      Didn't happen

      He is afraid his father will punish him for disobeying the priest, so he heads for the next village instead.

    • The boy walks twelve miles to a temple in the next village.

      Happened

      He remembered a very big temple twelve miles away and made up his mind to ask the priests there to take him.

    • The boy's older brother travels with him to the big temple.

      Didn't happen

      He goes entirely alone. Being alone in a very large place at night is exactly what makes him afraid.

    • The boy finds a lamp burning inside the temple but no priest.

      Happened

      The door was not fastened, and he went in and saw a lamp burning — but nobody came.

    • The boy hides in a small cabinet with a sliding door.

      Happened

      He found the cabinet, went into it, shut himself up, lay down, and fell fast asleep.

    • The boy watches the cats fight the goblin through a crack in the cabinet door.

      Didn't happen

      He is afraid even to look through a chink. He lies still, holding his breath, and sees nothing until morning.

    • The priest explains exactly what his warning means before the boy leaves.

      Didn't happen

      He does not. The boy thinks and thinks but cannot understand the words, and is too afraid to ask the priest again.

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18. 18

    Question 18. What is the story's main lesson about the boy's talent?

    • Correct answer: A real gift should not be crushed — the fault that ruins him is what saves him
    • Hard work always matters more than talent, however great that talent may be
    • Children should obey their parents and choose the careers chosen for them
    • Art is only worth making when other people are willing to pay you for it

    This is the tale's central idea. Drawing cats makes the boy a failure as an acolyte and gets him thrown out — and then those same cats kill the thing that had already killed armed warriors. The story argues that a true gift is not a flaw to be trained out of a child.

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19. 19

    Question 19. Which classic folklore pattern does this story follow?

    • A hero who is warned by a prophecy and then causes it by trying to escape it
    • A journey in which the hero must complete three difficult tasks in a row
    • Correct answer: The overlooked youngest child who turns out to be the one who matters
    • A wicked stepparent who mistreats a child until a magical rescuer appears

    The boy is the youngest, the smallest, and the least useful on the farm — the child everyone writes off. Folk tales all over the world hand the victory to exactly that character, and this one does it by turning his supposed weakness into the thing that saves his life.

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20. 20

    Question 20. What Japanese name did Lafcadio Hearn take?

    • Sesshu Toyo
    • Matsuo Basho
    • Takejiro Hasegawa
    • Correct answer: Koizumi Yakumo

    Koizumi Yakumo. Hearn became a Japanese citizen and wrote under that name; his best-known ghost story, Yuki-Onna, comes from the same lifelong project of collecting Japanese legends. Takejiro Hasegawa was his publisher, and Sesshu Toyo was the painter this tale is often linked to.

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21. 21

    Question 21. What does the boy's survival suggest about the priest's strange advice?

    • That clever children can always reason their way out of any real danger
    • Correct answer: That advice worth following is not always advice you can understand yet
    • That warnings from adults are usually exaggerated and can safely be ignored
    • That it is better to ask endless questions than to act on what you are told

    The boy obeys words he cannot make sense of, and obeying without understanding is precisely what keeps him alive. He only grasps the meaning after the danger has passed — which is how the story makes its case for trusting hard-won wisdom before you can explain it.

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