Poem 5 - A Legend Of The Northland

Synopsis:

The NCERT Class 9 A Legend Of The Northland poem, written Phoebe Cary, is in the form of ballad. Ballad is a poem that narrates a story in short stanzas.
Ballads are a part of a folk culture where stories were written in the form of poems. It is passed on orally from one generation to the next generation. This poem educates us about the negative impact of greed. The story in the poem revolves around an old lady who made Saint Peter angry because of her greedy nature.

The story goes on as; once Saint Peter was preaching around the world, and as he felt tired and hungry, he reached the door of an old cottage where lived an old lady. She was trying to bake some cakes, as Saint Peter was fainting with a hunger he asked the old lady for a piece of cake. The cake that she was baking suddenly appeared to be too big to her, so she decided to bake one more cake. This time she took the slightly small dough, but even this one appeared to be big, so she kept the bread aside and prepared for another cake. Being the second time she used the dough smaller than before but when she finished baking the cake appeared to be too big to her to give it to Saint Peter. While giving it a third try, she took a small scrap of dough and rolled it flat. She had the dough as thin as a wafer but could not part with that too. While she was baking Saint Peter observed her, and it made him very angry. He abruptly sais that she does not fit to stay as a human and enjoy the facility of food and warmth. He decided to curse her and transform her into a woodpecker bird who had to bore hard on dry wood to be able to get food. Since then she lived her life boring on wood every day.

You will find the Question-Answer of the Poem, A Legend of the Northland discussed in the poem summary.

Character list

The old lady who owned a cottage and baked

Saint Peter who cursed the old lady for being greedy

Literary/ Poetic Devices used

Rhyme Scheme of the poem: The poem is divided into 16 stanzas, and they follow the ABCB rhyme scheme.

Alliteration: Alliteration means Repetition of consonant sounds in two or more close words.

• Stanza 1: The “Th” sound is found repeating.

• Stanza 2: The “Th”, “I” “F” sound is repeating.

• Stanza 3: The “th”, “y”, “i”, “t” sound is found repeating.

• Stanza 5: The “w”, “th” sound is repeating.

• Stanza 6: The “f” sound is repeating

• Stanza 8: The “s” sound is repeating

• Stanza 9: The “t” sound is repeating

• Stanza 10:The ‘s’ sound is repeating

• Stanza 13: The ‘b’ sound is repeating

Repetition: When a word or sentence is repeated to emphasise it, its called repetition.

• Stanza 1: “away” word is being repeated

• Stanza 9: “rolled” word is being repeated

• Stanza 13 and 16: “boring” word is being repeated

Theme

The poem revolves around the old lady who was being greedy and did not want to share her cake because it looked significant to her. The moral of the story in the poem is that we must share with the people in need and help them in every possible way. Being greedy never brings happiness. We must feel happy while sharing with people in need.