The Eagle of the Ninth 16

Study Guide Questions for Ch. 16 “The Ring-Brooch”

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Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)

Deception, Compassion, Hospitality 

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. How many men came after Marcus and Esca and which two of them have we already met in the story?

2. What did the tribesmen want to do with Marcus and Esca before they had even searched them for the lost Eagle?

3. What did Marcus remind Dergdian about that made him tell his men to search Marcus’ things more “softly”?

4. What did Dergdian attempt to get Marcus to do after he realized the Eagle was not there?

5. Despite the fact that he did not regret taking the Eagle, what did Marcus feel some regret about?

6. What plan did Marcus and Esca contrive to give them a pretense for staying in the area and secretly retrieving the Eagle?

7. What did Marcus do to make sure Esca had food when he returned?

8. What “queer superstitious feeling” haunted Marcus?

9. What happened during Esca’s retrieval mission which would inevitably send the tribesmen back out after Marcus and Esca?

10. What did Esca offer to do for Marcus after realizing his mistake?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why did the Dergdian and the others suspect Marcus and Esca when there were other potential suspects that could have taken the eagle (e.g. the traders at the festival)?

2. Why did the tribesmen want to kill Marcus and Esca before they had even searched them?

3. Why was it prudent to pretend not only that Esca was sick but, particularly, that he was afflicted by evil spirits?

4. Why might the unparalleled ease of their young guide, as he was cutting “among the crags and passes”, be a bad sign for Marcus and Esca?

5. Why would the dropping of the ring-brooch be a dead giveaway that it was Marcus and Esca who were the culprits?

6. Why didn’t Marcus simply discard the Eagle in a lake (loch) so that it couldn’t be retrieved?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. What seem to be the laws/rules which guide the ancient practice of “hospitality”? What made ancient people so bound to the idea of hospitality whereas in our modern context it is basically not a practice anymore? What things ought one to be done and not done when someone is being shown hospitality (both as the guest and as the host)?

2. How important is the concept of “innocent until proven guilty’? Why have Americans considered this to be a critical idea in our courts of law? Should this always be the way justice proceeds or are there exceptions? If there are exceptions, what would be an example? If there can be no exceptions, why not?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Deuteronomy 17:2-7. What does biblical law state about what is necessary concerning witnesses in order to condemn someone for a capital crime? Why is this important?

2. Considering the same passage from Deuteronomy, why is it significant that “The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people”? 

3. Consider the passage following the previous, Deuteronomy 17:8-13. When the civil authorities are struggling to decide the severity of punishment in the case of a homicide or some other crime, whose aid are they to seek in understanding God’s law? 

4. What implications should these passages in Deuteronomy have, if any, upon our legal processes today?