Beehive Poem A Legend of the Northland - CBSE Test Papers

CBSE Class 9 English Language and Literature
Beehive Poem Chapter-5 A Legend of the Northland
Test Paper-01
Read the following passages and answer the questions
  1. 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;
    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:
    1. Who is the poet of the poem?
    2. What is the rhyme scheme of the first four lines?
    3. Why days hours are few and nights long in winter?
    4. What do the children wear and how do they look?
  2. 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.
    Once, when the good Saint Peter
    Lived in the world below,
    And walked about it, preaching,
    Just as he did, you know,
    1. Who tells them a curious story?
    2. Why does the poet want to tell the tale though he doesn’t believe it to be true?
    3. Who lived in the world below?
    4. What did the person do when he lived in the world below?
Answer the following questions in about 30 words:
  1. Which country or countries do you think “the Northland” refers to?
  2. What did Saint Peter ask the old lady for? What was the lady’s reaction?
  3. How did he punish her?
  4. How does the woodpecker get her food?
  5. Do you think that the old lady would have been so ungenerous if she had known who Saint Peter really was? What would she have done then?
  6. Is this a true story? Which part of this poem do you feel is the most important?
Answer the following questions in about 100 words.
  1. What is a legend? Why is this poem called a legend?
  2. Write the story of ‘A Legend of the Northland’ in about ten sentences.
CBSE Class 9 English Language and Literature
Beehive Poem Chapter-5 A Legend of the Northland
Test Paper-01
Answers
    1. The poet of the poem is Phoebe Cary.
    2. The rhyme scheme of the first four lines is ‘a b c b’.
    3. The days hours are few and nights long in winter because of the sun’s tilt in the northern most part of earth as the sun appears for only a few hours.
    4. The children commonly wear furry clothes. They look like bear’s cubs.
    1. People tells them a curious story which is generally a folklore.
    2. The poet wants to tell the tale though he doesn’t believe it to be true because it has become a legend.
    3. Saint Peter, an apostle of Christ lived in the world below.
    4. Saint Peter went around the world and preached when he lived in the world below.
  3. “The Northland” refers to different countries and regions of the world like ‘Northland, northern New Zealand’, Northland, Wellington, New Zealand, Northland Peninsula, northern New Zealand, Northland Region, northern New Zealand, Northland, Waupaca County, Wisconsin, USA and Northland Pyrite Mine, Canada.
  4. Saint Peter asked the old lady to give him a piece of cake that she was baking. The lady decided to give him a tiny cake but found every tiny cake and even a wafer cake too large to be given away.
  5. He punishes her by giving her a curse and converted her into a woodpecker to fend for her food since she was too greedy to live in human world.
  6. The woodpecker gets her food by boring, boring and boring into the tree barks and stems.
  7. I don’t think that the old lady would have been so ungenerous had she known who Saint Peter was. She would have given him a piece of cake even though a tiny one.
  8. Legends are folklore and may or may not be true, so this story may or may not be true. The part of this poem teaches us that we shouldn’t be too greedy, is the most important part.
  9. Legend is a folklore that consists of a narrative featuring some human actions that are believed both by speakers and listeners to have taken place at some point of time in history. Such narratives may express human values, that possess certain qualities that give the tale credibility. Legend, for both speaking and receiving participants, includes hardly any happenings that are outside the domain of "possibility," but include miracles. Legends are generally transformed over time, to keep them fresh, vital, and realistic. Many legends operate within the territory of uncertainty, which are never entirely believed by the participants, but also never being truely doubted.
  10. The story of ‘A Legend of the Northland’ in about ten sentences:
    1. In the country of Northland, where days are short, and nights long lived a lady who baked cakes.
    2. The poet narrates a story which he believes is not true but still narrates because he believes that it gives a moral lesson to people.
    3. Once Old Saint Peter lived in the world below and wandered around the world preaching.
    4. He came to the door of a cottage, where a little woman was making cakes, and baking them on the hearth;
    5. The saint was faint with fasting, he asked her to give him a single cake from her store.
    6. She baked a tiny cake but found it too big after baking, she baked another and found that of the same size.
    7. She baked a very thin cake of the size of a wafer but found it also very big to give and kept it on the shelf.
    8. Since Saint Peter was hungry and the woman very selfish, he decided to teach her a lesson. He gave her a curse.
    9. She turned into a woodpecker and kept on boring all day long to fend for food.
    10. Her scarlet cap was left undone, but all her clothes were burnt in the chimney.