Poem - A legend of Northland Class 9 Worksheet English Chapter 1

Multiple Choice Questions

Q.1. A legend of the Northland, which is a song narrating a story in short stanzas is also called ________.
(a) Song
(b) Poem
(c) Short story
(d) Ballad

Q.2. What did the woman do when Saint Peter asked for a cake?
(a) She started making the smallest cake
(b) She refused to give him cake
(c) She gave the largest cake from the bakery
(d) She gave him some fruits

Q.3. Identify the literary device repetition into the given stanza:
Then she took tiny scrap of dough,
And rolled and rolled it flat;
And baked it thin as a wafer
But she couldn't part with that.
(a) Then she took
(b) Baked it thin
(c) Part with that
(d) Rolled and rolled

Q.4. Who was Saint Peter?
(a) God itself
(b) A begger
(c) Disciple of Christ
(d) A traveller

Q.5. What did Saint Peter ask for from the little woman?
(a) A single cake
(b) Something to eat
(c) A loaf of bread
(d) A dozen cakes

Q.6. Which cake was given to Saint Peter finally?
(a) Second cake
(b) No one
(c) First cake
(d) Third cake

Q.7. The animal which is used to pull the sledges in Northland:
(a) Polar bear
(b) Bull
(c) Reindeer
(d) Sheep

Q.8. Why did not woman give a cake to Saint Peter?
(a) Every cake was looking too large to give anyone
(b) No cake was tasty
(c) Saint Peter refused to take cake
(d) Every cake was looking too small

Q.9. When do people go for sledging?
(a) All of these
(b) During vacations
(c) In summers
(d) When snow falls

Q.10. The vehicle, which is used to carry things and passengers over the snow in Northland:
(a) Bus
(b) Cart
(c) Sledge
(d) Train

Reference to Context

Q1: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Away, away in the Northland,
Where the hours of the day are few,
And the nights are so long in winter
That they cannot sleep them through;
(a) Why is the word ‘away’ repeated twice?
(b) Which place is discussed in this stanza?
(c) What does “hours of the day are few” mean?
(d) Why can the people not sleep through the night?

Q2: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Where they harness the swift reindeer
To the sledges, when it snows;
And the children look like bear’s cubs
In their funny, furry clothes:
(a) What does ‘Where’ refer to?
(b) Where are the reindeer harnessed? What does ‘swift reindeer’ convey?
(c) Why do children look like bear cubs?
(d) Mention two characteristics of the place.

Q3: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
They tell them a curious story—
I don’t believe ’tis true;
And yet you may learn a lesson
If I tell the tale to you.
(a) What is the ‘curious story’ that the people tell?
(b) Who does not believe in the story?
(c) Why does the poet narrate this tale?
(d) What lesson does it give?

Q4: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Once, when the good Saint Peter
Lived in the world below,
And walked about it, preaching,
Just as he did, you know
(a) Which line shows that St. Peter is not alive today?
(b) Who was St. Peter?
(c) What does the line “Lived in the world below,” mean?
(d) What did St Peter do when he ‘Lived in the world below’?

Q5: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
He came to the door of a cottage,
In travelling round the earth,
Where a little woman was making cakes,
And baking them on the hearth;
(a) Who does “he” refer to in the first line?
(b) What was the little woman doing?
(c) What request did “he” make to the woman? Why?
(d) Why did Saint Peter curse the woman?

Q6: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
And being faint with fasting,
For the day was almost done,
He asked her, from her store of cakes,
To give him a single one.
(a) Why was St Peter about to faint?
(b) What had Saint Peter been doing?
(c) What time of the day was it?
(d) What did he ask the woman for?

Q7: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
So she made a very little cake,
But as it baking lay,
She looked at it, and thought it seemed
Too large to give away.
(a) Why did she bake a small cake?
(b) What did she think about it as she saw it being baked?
(c) What aspect of her character does this reveal?
(d) How was she punished for her greed?

Q8: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Therefore she kneaded another,
And still a smaller one;
But it looked, when she turned it over,
As large as the first had done.
(a) Who does ‘she’ refer to?
(b) Who had come to her door? Why?
(c) Why was she kneading smaller and smaller cakes?
(d) What quality of the woman do her actions reveal?

Q9: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Then she took a tiny scrap of dough,
And rolled and rolled it flat;
And baked it thin as a wafer —
But she couldn’t part with that.
(a) Who had asked the woman for a cake? Why?
(b) Why did the old lady take a tiny scrap of dough?
(c) Why did she make the thin cake?
(d) What did Saint Peter do?

Q10: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
For she said, “My cakes that seem too small
When I eat of them myself
Are yet too large to give away. ”
So she put them on the shelf.
(a) Who is the speaker in these lines?
(b) When do the cakes seem too small?
(c) What kind of cakes did the woman make?
(d) What did the woman do with her cakes? Why?

Q11: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Then good Saint Peter grew angry,
For he was hungry and faint;
And surely such a woman
Was enough to provoke a saint.
(a) Who was Saint Peter?
(b) Who was Saint Peter angry with? Why?
(c) How had the woman provoked the Saint?
(d) What did Saint Peter do?

Q12: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
And he said, “You are far too selfish
To dwell in a human form,
To have both food and shelter,
Andfire to keep you warm.
(a) Who is ‘he’? Who is he speaking to?
(b) What did the saint say about the woman?
(c) Why was he angry with her?
(d) What benefits did he want her to forego?

Q13: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Now, you shall build as the birds do,
And shall get your scanty food
By boring, and boring, and boring,
All day in the hard, dry wood. ”
(a) What did St Peter turn the old woman into?
(b) Why did he curse her?
(c) What would she build?
(d) How would she get her food?

Q14: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Then up she went through the chimney,
Never speaking a word,
And out of the top flew a woodpecker,
For she was changed to a bird.
(a) Who is ‘she’? How did she go up?
(b) Who changed her into a bird?
(c) Why did she change into a woodpecker?
(d) Where did the woman live?

Q15: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
She had a scarlet cap on her head,
And that was left the same;
But all the rest of her clothes were burned
Black as a coal in the flame.
(a) What did Saint Peter ask the old lady for?
(b) What was the lady’s reaction?
(c) Why did Saint Peter feel the woman should leave her human form?
(d) How does the woodpecker get its food?

Q16: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
And every country schoolboy
Has seen her in the wood,
Where she lives in the trees till this very day,
Boring and boring for food.
(a) Where can the woman be seen now?
(b) What is she doing?
(c) What lesson do you learn from the poem?
(d) Who was Saint Peter?

The solutions of the worksheet "Worksheet Solutions: Poem - A legend of Northland"