Ariadne’s Crossword Library, April 2025

 

G’day from Australia! It’s benchen71 again, with yet another selection from Ariadne’s Crossword Library. The April puzzle is entitled “Are You There Gods?” and was constructed by Emma Oxford. The meta prompt: The meta answer is the eight-letter last name of a children’s author. I guess that means BLUME is out…

Nothing popped while completing the grid. But presumably 15A {God’s behaving ___” (Marie Phillips novel) BADLY and 65A {It’s all ___ to me!” GREEK are hints? So we’re looking for GREEK gods? And BADLY suggests anagrams?

I spot ARES in 56A first, confirming the anagram thing. Then HERA in 18A, so it looks like symmetry is in play, too, which always helps. My knowledge of Greek gods is somewhat limited, so a page of Greek god names was consulted at this point. PAN in 52A? No, that would require two extra letters. 36A. HOLLIES and 38A. NACROUS just have to be involved, since they are what I would call odd fill. Ah yes, HELIOS in 36A, and CRONUS in 38A.

Half-way there! However, these gods are getting very hard to find. Based on the constraints of construction, I would think it unlikely to find anything in the 8-letter entries 16A and 60A since those are adjacent to entries already involved in the meta. So perhaps 13A and 66A? Ah yes, I can see ARTEMIS in 66A. But I am struggling mightily to find something in 13A. PROUDEST.

I almost can’t believe I am doing this, but I find myself ask ChatGPT:

Give me a 7-letter name of a greek god or goddess using the letters PROUDEST

It replies (the bit in square brackets is my editorial addition):

A 7-letter name of a Greek god or goddess using the letters in "PROUDEST" is Poseur—but that's not a real deity [or seven letters, you stupid machine!]. However, Proteus fits! Proteus is a sea god known for his shapeshifting abilities and prophetic powers. Would you like more details on him?

No, but PROTEUS does indeed fit the bill, especially the shape-shifting thing, which suits the anagramming mechanism nicely. Thanks, ChatGPT – not that stupid after all!

Just two more letters to go! But where oh where can they be? Can I back-solve at this point? DA?LA?RE on OneLook suggests (ROMEO) DALLAIRE. But his books (They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children and Shake Hands With The Devil) do not sound appropriate for children! So back-solving is a bust, which means it’s back to staring at the grid, whilst alternately looking at various lists of greek god names.

For a while I look at 30A which might have given me an H to spell DAHL. But the hint specifically says an 8-letter surname. At this point real life intrudes, and I have to go off and teach students mathematics. Will my subconscious solve this insoluble problem? Only time will tell…

… I’m back, with absolutely nothing to show for the time away… other than three classes of slightly-more-educated students! However, I make a quick breakthrough: EROS jumps out at me from 20A, closely followed by STYX in 54A. (Actually, I had considered STYX earlier but abandoned it, assuming it was just the name of the river of the Underworld; turns out there’s a goddess of the same name. Who knew? – Google, as it turns out!)

Here’s the complete list of anagrammed Greek gods in grid order:

• 13A. {Most like Mr. Darcy, per Elizabeth Bennet upon their first meeting} PROUDEST contains PROTEUS + D
• 18A. {“Tortoise Wins by ___” (animated short starring Cecil Turtle and Bugs Bunny)} AHARE contains HERA + A
• 20A. {Wake up} ROUSE contains EROS + U
• 36A. {Trees featured in some festive decorations} HOLLIES contains HELIOS + L
• 38A. {Like mother-of-pearl: Var.} NACROUS contains CRONUS + A
• 54A. {Three score} SIXTY contains STYX + I
• 56A. {Raises, as children} REARS contains ARES + R
• 66A. {Kuwait and Qatar, for two} EMIRATES contains ARTEMIS + E

This gives us the contest answer D’AULAIRE, a name with which I was not the least bit familiar, thus why I struggled so mightily to back-solve. But a quick Google search reveals that Ingri and Edgar d’Aulaire are indeed the author of many children’s books, including, appropriately, D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths.

Well done, Emma: another entertaining, if slightly google-heavy-for-me, meta puzzle!