Extract Based Questions: A Legend of the Northland - Class 9 PDF Download

Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.

Q1: 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?
Ans: The word away has been repeated to create a sense of distance

(b) Which place is discussed in this stanza?
Ans: Northland, or the cold polar region of the North, including Greenland, northern Europe and Siberia are being discussed here.

(c) What does “hours of the day are few” mean?
Ans: The days are shorter than the nights

(d) Why can the people not sleep through the night?
Ans: The winter nights are long and cold.

Q2: 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?
Ans: Where refers to Northland.

(b) Where are the reindeer harnessed? What does ‘swift reindeer’ convey?
Ans: The reindeer are harnessed to the sledges. The phrase ‘swift reindeer’ conveys that the reindeer are very fast when they pull the sledges on the snow.

(c) Why do children look like bear cubs?
Ans: Because of the cold, children are made to wear heavy woollen clothes that cover them up fully and make them look like bear cubs.

(d) Mention two characteristics of the place.
Ans: The place is very cold; the days are shorter than the nights; people cannot sleep through the night.

Q3: 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?
Ans: The curious story is a legend of an old greedy lady who angered St. Peter and he cursed the lady for her greed.

(b) Who does not believe in the story?
Ans: The poet does not believe the story to be true.

(c) Why does the poet narrate this tale?
Ans: The poet narrates the story because it has a moral lesson.

(d) What lesson does it give?
Ans: The tale teaches us a lesson that greed is a vice. One should not be greedy like the old lady who was cursed by St. Peter.

Q4: 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?
Ans: ‘Once, when the good Saint Peter lived in the world below’ shows that St. Peter is not alive today

(b) Who was St. Peter?
Ans: St. Peter was an apostle of Jesus Christ. His mission was to spread the teachings of Jesus Christ.

(c) What does the line “Lived in the world below,” mean?
Ans: St Peter lived on earth

(d) What did St Peter do when he ‘Lived in the world below’?
Ans: He went about the world preaching the message of God.

Q5: 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?
Ans: He refers to Saint Peter.

(b) What was the little woman doing?
Ans: The woman was baking cakes.

(c) What request did “he” make to the woman? Why?
Ans: Saint Peter asked the woman for a cake because he was weak with hunger.

(d) Why did Saint Peter curse the woman?
Ans: Saint Peter cursed the woman because she was highly stingy and mean and could not spare even a small cake from her large store for a weary traveller.

Q6: 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?
Ans: Saint Peter was tired and hungry, and so ready to faint.

(b) What had Saint Peter been doing?
Ans: Saint Peter had been travelling, spreading the message of God.

(c) What time of the day was it?
Ans: It was evening

(d) What did he ask the woman for?
Ans: Saint Peter asked the woman for a cake from her large store.

Q7: 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?
Ans: The woman baked a small cake for giving to the saint

(b) What did she think about it as she saw it being baked?
Ans: She thought that the cake was too big to be given away in charity.

(c) What aspect of her character does this reveal?
Ans: She is selfish and miserly.

(d) How was she punished for her greed?
Ans: Saint Peter turned her into a woodpecker.

Q8: 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?
Ans: ‘She’ refers to the old little woman in the cottage.

(b) Who had come to her door? Why?
Ans: Saint Peter had come to her door. He was hungry and wanted something to eat.

(c) Why was she kneading smaller and smaller cakes?
Ans: She did not want to give away a large one to Saint Peter.

(d) What quality of the woman do her actions reveal?
Ans: She is miserly and selfish.

Q9: 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?
Ans: Saint Peter had asked the woman for a cake. He had been fasting the whole ay and was weak with hunger.

(b) Why did the old lady take a tiny scrap of dough?
Ans: The old lady was a greedy woman. She wanted to give St. Peter, the smallest cake she could make.

(c) Why did she make the thin cake?
Ans: She wanted to save her dough. She wanted to give him a very small cake. So, she made a cake as thin as a water.

(d) What did Saint Peter do?
Ans: Saint Peter cursed the woman and turned her into a woodpecker.

Q10: 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?
Ans: The woman is the speaker in these lines.

(b) When do the cakes seem too small?
Ans: The cakes seemed too small foe eating them herself.

(c) What kind of cakes did the woman make?
Ans: The woman made cakes that were smaller and smaller, till the last one was as thin as a wafer.

(d) What did the woman do with her cakes? Why?
Ans: The woman put the cakes away because she felt that they were to big to be given away in charity.